Black Ice

Every day, the same thing. Every night, the people try to bring a little life into this backwater bullshit town. No, not even a town. A collection of houses, all clustered together like penguins for warmth, with neat little roads between them. A gas station, not even a traffic light to direct the six cars between the two hundred of South Acres' residents. A village, maybe, if one was to be generous. Jaime Sloan, a girl of merely sixteen, sat in her room. Her chin perched on her folded hand, just like all the princesses did when they were feeling particularly melancholy, and she looked out at the vast wasteland of the American Midwest. So very Midwest, in fact, that she hadn't seen another human being, on the long road that sat just at the edge of the horizon, for at least a month and a half. Some people swore it had gotten quieter, but Jaime insisted it had never been loud to begin with. That was about to change, she’d decided. She was going to get out, see the world, maybe make her mark on stage in New York. She was going to have her very own Disney Channel moment if it killed her. Nights, days, they passed in the same familiar haze. Boys making rude remarks, her snapping back with the same good-natured bite they'd grown up using on each-other since birth. She knew everyone here far too well to take any of them up on their offers to court. On the 6th of September, with the sun hidden behind a thin, struggling fog, Jaime stood in front of the town sign, wondering if she was supposed to change the population number herself, or if it would just be wrong forever if she left. She supposed the latter. Had it ever been accurate? "Hey, Jay, what's with all the bags?" She turned, catching eyes with the boy that had sauntered up behind her. "Oh, hey Max. I'm getting out of here." "Out?" He frowned, fingers tangling in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck. Jaime had found that endearing, once, but now all she could think about was something bigger, some kind of change. "Yeah, out." "But, if you go, who's gonna take me to the dance next week?" Jaime snorted, turning to look at him fully. He was standing there, looking sheepish in that way she knew was supposed to find adorable. "You know darn well it was never gonna be me, Max. I've told you time after time, and I'll keep tellin' ya." "Yeah, but... well, I thought maybe this time might be different, y'know?" Jaime did, but she couldn't. Still, something in her knew she would miss this boy, this dumb little golden retriever of a man. After a moment of chewing on her bottom lip, she blurted, "Hey, why not come with me?" That started him, his eyes widening and his jaw resting low before he snapped it back up and blew a breath out from between his teeth. "Me? Come with you? Nah, I couldn't do that to my Ma. What about yours, won't she miss ya?" Jaime let out a breath of her own. "Of course she will, but that woman has been pushing me toward a man for years. I told her I was going out to find one." Max frowned. "Are you?" She snickered, "Nah. You've got nothin to worry about on that one," as she reached out to muss his blonde hair. He ducked away, but he was laughing. They both were. Once he'd regained his composure, he asked a question that hit Jaime so far out of left field that she scarcely believed it had come out of him. "You reckon you might like girls, then?" Jaime blinked a few times, then snorted, "Not any of the ones here, that's for sure. Listen, I'm not thinkin' about that right now. I'm gonna go, you're either gonna follow or not, and... Y'know, maybe some day I'll come back. But don't you wait for me, got it?" Max huffed a laugh, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, "Not a lotta chance of that, Bluejay. You’re the only one I want.” She froze, and he cleared his throat, knowing he’d maybe gone too far. “Alright, alright. Get goin' then. Get outta here before we start cryin’ and it’s a whole thing." And Jaime did. It hurt, like tearing away velcro, but she went. The first thing she regretted was leaving him behind, but it took only the first hour of sunlight for her to regret something far more: Walking the scrublands with two rolling suitcases and a bookbag. She'd just made up her mind to figure out if sticking your thumb out really let you hitch-hike when she saw a strange wavering shadow of a figure sprinting toward her. She had just enough time to realize it wasn't a mirage when the figure bowled into her, knocking her sideways and away from her things. He went to one knee, cursing, and it took her a dehydrated moment to realize the glimmer in his hand was a knife. Her jaw locked, her body jerking backward, and she shifted one of her rolling bags between them to give herself a chance to stagger back to her feet with her hands splayed in front of her, "Whoa, whoa! What the hell?" The man, more tattered cloth than human, twitched his eyes narrow before his hand slowly lowered. "You're alive?" "Alive? Of course I'm alive! You’re gonna give me a heart attack if you keep pointing that thing at me, though!" Jaime looked pointedly at the knife, which he fumbled before shoving into his pocket. "Sorry! You- Where did you come from? Why do you look... healthy?" She frowned. "Thanks?" He got to his feet too, wiping his dirt-darkened palms off on pants that were faring no better. "No, seriously. You look like you get a full meal, every night. What gives?" Now, she was offended. "Are you calling me fat?" He groaned, then lifted his shirt. Every rib stood in stark relief. "I'm calling me starving. We're all starving. Why aren't you?" Starving? The two stared at each-other for a beat, before the man reached into the same pocket his knife had gone into. His eyes had gone strange, like a coyote coming across roadkill after a stretch of desert. "You got food, right now?" Jaime took a step back, then nodded "Yeah, some. It was supposed to get me to Madison." His eyes shifted toward her bag, and she slung it off her back, throwing him a now fairly warm Peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water. He tore into it, and the analogy of the coyote came back to her mind. What the hell? Had he been lost out here? A strange sort of pity fell over her, or maybe not so strange, if he hadn't threatened her a few moments ago. "You know what, you wanna know where I come from? Why don't I show you? You look like you could use a good bath." With that offer, his eyes all but bugged out of his skull. He spoke around a mouthful of dry peanut butter, melting globs stuck to his fingers. "You have running water?" Jaime opened her mouth to answer when she heard yelling. The man tensed. "Hey!" Jaime knew the voice before she saw him, and her head whipped around to see... "Jay! Wait up!" Max. He'd followed her after all. She put up a hand toward the man, and he relaxed, somewhat. "Hey! You meet someone already? I thought you said I didn't have anything to worry about!" Max grinned as he caught up to them, slinging an arm comfortably about her shoulders. Normally she would have shrugged him off, but this time she leaned into him. She might not love him, but he was a special kind of safe she hadn't realized she was hungering for until the relief at the sound of his voice slammed into her. She was trembling. That was his first clue, and bless him, he caught it. His arm tightened, and he drew her protectively into his side. The man, seeing the shift, had his hand firmly in that pocket of his. He was edging away from them, but his eyes kept flicking to the bags. "He's got a knife. Says there's something going on..." Jaime said quietly into Max's shoulder. "Is that so?" Max's voice had changed too, clipped and hard in a way Jaime had never heard before. Steadied by Max’s heartbeat, her own heart shoved firmly back into her chest, Jaime took a breath. She needed to act, not just hide behind a boy because it was easier. Being a damsel was not how her story went. She barked a loud "Hey!" making both men jump. Max just a bit, but the other man froze like he'd just been caught doing something bad. Maybe he was. Jaime took a shorter breath, huffed it out, and pulled away from Max enough that she could step forward. He let her, reluctantly, but kept a hand on her arm as if to remind both of them that he was still there if she needed him. Oh, how she needed him right then, though she knew she would rather die than admit it. "You want that bath, right?" The man, cringing from the sound of her voice, looked up at her. He met her eyes and nodded. There was so much longing there, in that gaunt face. "Alright, then it's decided." She turned toward Max. "You ready to head home?" "Home? Hold on, now..." Max frowned, closed the distance between them, pulled her to face him while still keeping the stranger in his peripheral. "Jay, is that a good idea? He looks like a rattlesnake, you sure you want him in our henhouse?" She sighed, resting her hands on his forearms. "You wanna be the one to leave him out here? I don't," she said firmly back, knowing full well Max was probably right. She lowered her voice, "I just.. he needs help." “Does it have to be ours?” Jaime glared. Max sighed, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers. She could feel the moment he relented, like a shudder passing through his body as he accepted that consequences were sure to come. They stood there for a moment, perfectly still like twins sharing thoughts, before Max lifted his head and looked at the man. "Hey, what's your name?" The man hesitated, then said "Scott." Max nodded. "Well, Scotty. You ready to get going?" The man, Scott, cast a look toward the horizon, then nodded. Max picked up Jaime's bag and handed it to her, taking one of the rolling bags and leaving the other, gesturing for Scott to take it. "Ladies shouldn’t have to carry their own bags, right? Hope you got at least some manners under all that dirt. You take the middle, Scotty," Max fell in behind him, gesturing for Jaime to take the lead. Jaime wanted to protest the men taking her bags, tell them that she was no lady and she could carry her own s**t… but she liked the idea of her hands being full even less. So, she let them, and in that tense train, she took them home.