Free Paradise by Jill S. Alexander

wiped and wiped as much away as I could with my fingers. But I couldn’t wipe away the pain that someone had used her and tossed her like trash. I wanted to make her right.
    No way could I let our folks see her like that.
    “Paisley, take the Bronco.” Paradise put his hand on my shoulder. The muscles in his neck quivered. “I want to help.”

 
     
    9
     
    ON THE RUN
     
    My heart set its beat to the warning light cadence from the police cars barricading the pasture gate. Blue—red. Blue—red. Blue—red. I slipped around the back of the barn. Following Paradise and Levi. Staring at the ground. The rain-soaked night wrapped around me like a cold, soggy towel.
    It occurred to me to quit.
    Just.
    Quit.
    It wasn’t like I could name any rural girls who’d ever gone off and made a name for themselves drumming. I could do other things. Things I wouldn’t have to hide. Things that maybe even made more sense. Practical things with predictable outcomes.
    Truck doors slammed all across the pasture as our footsteps pounded the ground in a half-time shuffle. I could so play that groove; just hit the snare on the third beat.
    A sharp chill cut through me, but it was no night wind. I could quit the drums, but rhythm would haunt me forever.
    I ran to catch up to Levi and Paradise. Drumming was in my core, and I knew that I couldn’t let it go. No matter what happened on the other side of the two-rut road leading into the pines.
    Levi had hoisted Lacey over his shoulder, carried her from the barn. He laid her in the backseat of the Bronco. He knelt over her for a long time, smoothing her hair, until finally slamming the door shut.
    Paradise opened the driver’s-side door. “I’ll be at the bottom of the hill just down from your uncle’s place. Where that wooden bridge is.”
    Lacey’s key chain, the one with the giant silver heart, dangled from his middle finger.
    I scooted behind the wheel. “I owe you for this.”
    Regardless of how selfish I thought he was onstage, Paradise was willing to drive Lacey’s car past the sheriff and take an MIP for me. And I was desperate enough to let him.
    Lacey moaned from the backseat; then she giggled some. As if it wasn’t bad enough that her shirt was buttoned wrong, the top button on her jeans was undone. Nothing about this night was right. One big cluster bomb.
    I tried to put it all out of my head—the band was screwed, my sister was screwed. If I couldn’t make the cut through the woods, I’d be screwed. I hunted around for the ignition, but I just couldn’t find it, and my legs weren’t nearly long enough to reach the pedals, and I thought in that moment that I would scream. Scream my lungs out. I slammed both hands on the steering wheel.
    “Easy now.” Paradise pitched his hat into the passenger seat and took the keys from me. He leaned in, reaching toward the floorboard, jerked on a handle, and popped the seat forward. “Put your foot on the brake and push the clutch in.”
    Brake. Clutch. I tried to think of it like my drums—just working the hi-hats with one foot and the bass pedal with the other.
    Paradise stuffed the key in the ignition and cranked the engine. Then he grabbed the doorframe with one hand and pushed himself out. “Don’t take whatever’s going on in that blond head of yours out on my ride.”
    “Levi!” someone hollered from the barn. “Two sheriff’s deputies are headed this way.”
    Levi stared through the window at Lacey sprawled in the backseat. He let down the straps to his overalls, slipping them from his sturdy shoulders. Levi took off his shirt, opened the side door, and covered her.
    Paradise held open the door as if he was having second thoughts, like maybe driving Lacey’s car out and taking an MIP wasn’t such a smart move on his part. “Stay in the ruts and out of the brush,” he said. “Try not to bounce around too much.”
    He locked his eyes with mine, pursed his lips, and blew a soft whistle. “My accordion’s in the