The Biker's Second Chance

I heard the car before I saw it, and my whole body just knew. I grabbed Scarlett and Silas and pulled them into the gap between the Hendersons' garage and their fence. My heart was going so fast I could feel it in my throat, I put my hand over Scarlett's mouth without even thinking about it, and pulled Silas in close, and held my breath. The headlights swept across the street,the car slowed down then it stopped. A door opened. "Brielle." Dean's voice came through the dark, calm, like nothing was wrong, like he was just calling me in for dinner and not chasing me down a street at one in the morning. "Come on. Let's not do this." Scarlett went stiff under my hand. Silas wasn't even breathing anymore, his little body pressed so hard against mine I could feel his heart too. I heard his footsteps….slow and unhurried. He never rushed, Dean never had to rush for anything, because he never believed he could actually lose me. He checked the Hendersons' porch,then tried the gate. He was close now….maybe twenty feet. I closed my eyes and just prayed the kids would stay quiet a little longer. The footsteps stopped. Then, after what felt like forever, they went back the other way,a car door shut,the engine started. I listened to it drive off until I couldn't hear it anymore. I still didn't move,I counted in my head, just so I had something to do besides panic. One minute….two….five. When I finally stood up, my legs were shaking so bad I had to grab the fence. "Is he gone?" Silas whispered. "He's gone." I pulled them both up. "Come on. We're going to go get your rabbit's secret." ****** Twenty minutes before that, I hadn't let myself think past the next few steps, that was the only way I got through any of it….just one small decision at a time, because if I thought too far ahead I might lose my nerve and go back inside. I'd picked Scarlett up out of bed without even putting shoes on her. I told myself there wasn't time….maybe there wasn't or maybe I just knew if I stopped to think about what I was doing, I'd turn around and walk back into that house. I didn't have much with me. A change of clothes for each of the kids, their passports…..I'd sewn those into the lining of my old coat almost a year ago, waiting for a night like this one. Everything else, my phone, my bank card, even the one phone number I still had memorized, Dean had already taken care of that. Slowly. Over the last couple weeks. Piece by piece, until there was nothing left that was just mine. Except the money. He never found the money. Four years of putting away five dollars here, ten dollars there, folded up small and hidden inside Scarlett's stuffed rabbit. He'd gone through that house more than once looking for something to use against me. He never once thought to check the toys. "Where are we going?" Silas had asked earlier, before any of this, before the car and the alley. "On an adventure," I told him. I hated how easy that lie came out. ****** The money was still there….all of it. I sat in the bathroom of a gas station that stayed open all night and counted it twice with my hands shaking. It wasn't much but it was enough to get us somewhere. The place was almost empty. A tired-looking clerk behind the counter,a man asleep in the corner with a bag next to him, lights so bright everything looked a little sick under them. I bought three bus tickets for whatever was leaving next, and I didn't let myself relax until we were actually sitting on the bus, the doors were shut, and it started pulling away from the station. Scarlett fell asleep first, her head against my arm. Silas fought it longer, watching me the way he does, like he's older than five, until he finally gave up too and his head dropped onto my shoulder. I looked out the window and watched the town go by in the dark, a streetlight, a gas station we passed every week. The turn we always took for church, except we weren't going to church, we weren't going back to any of it. I let myself cry a little, quiet, so I wouldn't wake them. We were actually doing this. Then I saw him. Dean was standing near the front of the station, hands in his pockets, just watching the bus pull out. He wasn't running after it,he wasn't yelling, he was just standing there, watching us go, like he already knew how this was going to end. My stomach dropped. Why wasn't he chasing us? Dean didn't let things go. Not money, not people, not me. In five years he had never once let go of something he wanted to keep, a man like that doesn't just stand on a curb and watch his wife leave. Unless he already knew something I didn't know yet, unless letting us go was exactly what he wanted. I put my hand on the cold window and watched him get smaller and smaller until I couldn't see him anymore, and the fear in my chest didn't go away. If anything it got worse. I looked down at Silas and Scarlett, asleep against me, trusting that their mom knew what she was doing. "We're going home," I whispered, mostly to myself. But that wasn't really true. I hadn't had a real home in five years. I had a town I ran away from when I was nineteen, with a broken heart and a secret I never told anyone, I had a man there I hadn't talked to since the night my parents took my phone out of my hands and told me it was over, I didn't even know if that town would take me back, or who….or what….was waiting for me there . All I knew was that Dean let us leave and Dean never let anything go without a reason.