Free A Kiss Before I Die by T. K. Madrid

felt like she’d been punched.
    “No.”
    “Not even a rabbit?”
    She spoke truthfully.
    “No.”
    “But you think you’re going to limp and crawl a mile or so in this god awful shit and shoot a human? Put a bullet in his head or gut and maybe kill said human. That about right?”
    “Yes.”
    The truck picked up and the lights came on.
    “You’ve got balls, Sammy. But you haven’t thought it out much so I’m going to help you.”
    She was thinking this boy might shoot her, that she would be shot by the man in the red Ford, and that her last kiss before she died was from a man that wanted her dead.
    “Where am I going wrong?”
    “You’re making false assumptions and mistakes left and right. I mean, I don’t know how you got this far what with stealing and crashing a cop car – showing up at my place with that bullshit story. You’re assuming there’s one guy in that house. We don’t know how many people are in it or if there’s another car there, tucked away. Besides, if you’re smart, when you go hunting you go with someone so if you get hurt he can help you or get help. And you sure as shit can’t hobble in there with that peashooter – you need a real gun.”
    The car came to a halt in the road, shifting into idle one more time.
    “It’s dark,” she said. “We’re in no rush. Let them settle in, do what they want. They’re expecting me but not us , so we have the element of surprise. Let’s breathe for a minute, think this out…”
    “ Exactly . Get what you want. Anything you want. Just leave me the big one, the AK.”
    She peered into the darkness and saw the outline of a dozen rifles and handguns.
    “That’s a lot of firepower…”
    “I didn’t know which one I was going to kill you with after you took me to dad.”
    Her mouth was dry. The last thing she’d drank, if you could call it a drink, was a mouthful of vodka.
    “What’d you decide?”
    “While we were driving, and when I ran from you, I tried calling mom like fifty times. She didn’t answer. She always answers, never lets you go to voicemail. She hates voicemail.” He paused. The next words were a painful whisper. “Do you think she’s okay?”
    Sam let out another long breath before she answered.
    “I don’t know. I hope so.”
    The boy nodded.
    “Okay. So here’s what. I’m going to knock on the door, tell whoever answers it that I’m bo-f’ing-peep and then I’m sending ‘em all to hell…”
    “Now who’s not thinking clearly?”
    “Sammy, I’m captain of the debate team, two years running, state semi’s this year, and I can out talk any redneck that comes within fifty miles of me.”
    “Which high school?”
    He scoffed.
    “I swear to god, how did you get this far? Junior , Syracuse University, class of twenty-fourteen.”
    She shrugged, feeling oddly embarrassed.
    Shaking his head, he reached into the console and waved a package of beef jerky.
    “Hungry?”
    She was almost faint.
    “Starving.”
    “So am I. Eat this. Let’s get our game face on. I’m not going in there hungry and needing to take a leak. I’ll go first. There’s jug of water behind your seat. Fill your belly.”
    The door opened, the dome briefly lit, and she saw the jug.
    The boy who was not a boy, whose father was dead and whose mother might be dead, stood in the middle of the dark road, enveloped in bitter cold and facing sideways in a snowstorm pissed like a racehorse.
     
     
     
     

(17) Thin Ice
    She came from the woods, relieved, and found him sitting on the tailgate of the Bronco, pushing his feet into an old pair of boots. He’d put on a camouflage hunting jacket, pants, and matching hat.
    The engine idled. The sun was gone. There were no other cars on the road.
    “Always this quiet out here?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “This is the boonies of the boonies.”
    “No kidding. I thought I lived in the sticks. Here,” he gave her a black jacket, thicker than the one she wore. “This, too.” A black cotton,