'And finally, a tragic end to the month-long hunt for seventeen-year-old runaway, Romeo Conbolt. Earlier this morning, cottagers in the Teel Region located a van parked off the main road where the boy's body was discovered. An investigation into his death is on-going but authorities have released that they suspect foul play is involved.'
Romeo was his name. Romeo. It sounded melodic, like the sound of her tire iron smacking into his head. Rhythmic. He had been handsome before he ran away, in the way gangly kids were before they grew into adults. He would have been something above average if she hadn't taken his life.
He was going to hurt us. The picture on screen didn't say so. That Romeo was smiling. He looked to be suburbia-happy. So what happened? Analyzing that was a long, dark road Juvia didn't want to travel down.
The picture on screen changed and her own eyes looked back at her. She looked dead on screen. That picture was a mug shot taken after she'd been pulled over for an expired licence plate sticker. The officer had stuck his head in the car, smelled meth on Jose in the passenger's seat, and searched. He was a belligerent slob as he always was and they both were charged. She hated him. She hated that his picture was put up beside hers. She hated his long nose and his long, mean face, and his stupid long moustache and his long eyebrows. Hated him. Hated.
Fingers touched the ends of Juvia's hair. She stiffened first, then she remembered that Jose was dead and she had a different bed partner. Gray reached around her and shut the TV off. Juvia then noticed that the small motel room was filled the scent of cigarette smoke. She turned; Gray had managed to smoke half of it in the time she'd been stewing in front of the TV and she never noticed.
"They found the boy. His name was Romeo."
Gray drew on his cigarette. "I heard."
"He's dead."
The smoke came out of his nose. "What's done is done."
He was right, of course, but Juvia didn't just feel the guilt, she choked on it. Romeo Conbolt wasn't the same level of bad as Jose had been. Maybe he could have been? No, no, that was all wrong. She wrung her hands together so hard, some small chapped places split and burned.
Gray asked, "What do you need to feel better?"
A psychologist would be nice. A million dollars. Freedom from Jose's ghost. A time machine to go back and change the day she first met him. She would have leaned into his car and told him to keep on driving. The next street corner was better for men like him.
"Juvia? Tell me what you need."
She needed to feel like she wasn't alone. "Will you tell me about the man that killed your family?"
He didn't want to, she could see. But he opened his mouth and said, "His name was Del. He and my father had a business deal and my old man took it sideways just because he thought he could."
"A business deal that people kill over?"
He shrugged; it was forced casual. "A lot of money was on the line, I guess. I never paid much attention. They wanted me to be good, so I was. I was fucking model good. I went to school, got my degree and stayed out of the business until the business came to me."
Juvia realized, "You were criminals."
"My father was a criminal. I got caught in the backsplash." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Del killed my family. I killed him. My career was over, the end."
She never thought to ask about his career. "Who were you before?"
He snorted. "The dead stay dead, Juvia, leave it."
He wouldn't budge on the matter. She cast her eyes to the wall and imagined all the things he could have been once upon a time even as she said, "You're right." Maybe one day, he'd tell her.
Gray's fingers touched the ends of her hair. She thought distantly of his cigarette and, ludicrously, wondered if he was burning her. Or if he was going to. Jose would for asking questions. Jose wouldn't hesitate.
Gray's palm brushed over her naked back, warm and rough with callouses, but gentle, and she knew the comparison was fundamentally flawed. Gray was a killer but that's where their similarities stopped.
She leaned back into his hand. His other arm looped around her bare waist and brought her back into his chest. His skin was cool after being outside of the blankets all that time; the same temperature as hers. His mouth tasted like cigarettes and old vodka. She thought she should mind but didn't. It was better than old meth.
Gray's kiss had started out as a means to distract her, that was blatantly obvious from the get-go; it worked better than Juvia imagined. Thrills moved through her. She kissed him deeper to the sound of rain on the window, the drops screaming out a torrent over the rumble of thunder. She loved the rain. The wind and the wet and the violent electrical storms that sometimes came with them. They made her feel free and powerful and like someone completely different.
Juvia let herself fall into Mother Nature's roar. Gray grabbed her by the waist and the hip. His cigarette did burn her, just brushed over her skin. Juvia thought it didn't hurt as much as it should. Gray realized what he'd done, though, and stabbed it out on the nightstand. Stray cinders charred a hole in the blanket. It was one of many and more would follow before the blanket ended up in the dump.
With his hands free, Gray took Juvia up again and pulled her over his body and onto the bed beside him. The only bruises he left on her were the ones he made with his mouth, and those never hurt at all. Her breasts were marked, though, just below her nipple and on the downwards curve toward her belly, and her thighs. He nibbled and hit her with hot breath and used his tongue. It had been a long time since she'd had that. Juvia lifted herself up to watch but spent most of her time with her head tipped back and her eyes on the ceiling.
Her first orgasm came and took with it a small node of guilt. His fingers entered her and wicked away the next. He never seemed satisfied until she was yelling. Juvia had never been very vocal but the urge built in her chest until she just had to gasp loudly. He felt her shaking and kept at it. Eventually, Juvia's hips bucked and she came again.
Gray came out of her and hunted for a condom. Juvia sat up and stroked him until the very last moment. He pushed her back down when he was ready, took her by her legs and held her with them hitched over his arms. It could have been the shared and filthy secret between them, but he felt better today, more hers than he had previously. He wasn't just a stranger she'd run away with, she knew him. Not intimately, but she knew the worst parts and those were the most revealing.
Gray fucked her fast and let up for nothing. He was soaked in sweat and the cords stood out on his neck the closer to orgasm he came. He leaned forward, bending her legs so he could grip her breasts. That contact wasn't enough. He kissed her. Juvia liked the feeling of his stubble, and his breaths exploding over her cheek, she even liked his sweat getting her wet. He was danger without too much risk, violent without being mean. She needed it. She needed it like she needed to breathe because she couldn't let go of the past so easy.
Gray slammed into her one final time. Juvia felt the condom swell as he emptied into it and liked it. Gray made her think and do and like strange things that she'd never before.
He untangled his arms and her legs and put his damp hands into her hair. They shared gasped breaths and Juvia thought she knew him a little bit better still. He kissed her. And kissed her and kissed her. She never wanted him to stop.
All good things came to an end, though. The sun was rising through a thick blanket of cloud, making the world a grey, storm-tossed place, and they needed to leave soon.
Juvia showered first; Gray got in after her. by the time she was finished dressing, he was done and out in the room again, never really giving her mind time to wander toward the tire iron they'd brought in with them and were taking out again or the spots on her dress that had been blood before she'd rinsed it off.
She put her heels back on and peeked outside. It was wickedly windy, bits of saturated newspaper clung to the ground and tore before it was lifted into the air again and pushed across the parking lot. Plastic had an easier time moving, skidding over the pavement with dull clunk, clunk, clunk noises.
Gray picked up the motel keys and handed them over. "You return these; I'll bring the truck around."
"Okay."
A huge gust of wind grabbed the door out of her hand and banged it open against the side of the motel. Juvia sacrificed holding down her dress for running. Her shoes filled with water in no time and she was soaked through. And then she was freezing because the motel office had their air conditioner going like it was still thirty-five degrees out.
The man at the front desk looked just as scruffy and used today as he had last night, his jowls drooping and slathered in three-day scruff that didn't look nearly as handsome as Gray's. He was as pasty as a maggot and spoke with a thick eastern drawl that was hard for her brain to pick apart.
"Checkin' hout?"
"Hout?" Had she even spoken to him last night? Everything from those hours before seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Leavin', lass. Yous leavin'?"
"Yes," she affirmed.
The man looked at her sideways. "I'm goin'ta need you to fill out some paperwork. I'll be keepin' your deposit, too."
"Why?"
"Neighbours says they heard you and your boy causing ruckus. Breaking things. You get into fights?"
"No," Juvia shook her head. "That wasn't us."
"I only had two rooms filled last night, and the others are regulars."
If it was her money, she would have just told him to keep it sans paperwork but it was Gray's and she knew it wasn't an infinite resource. "Then they're lying."
"What I meant to say, girly, is that it's my sister. She isn't a liar. Fill out the paperwork. I need a number and an address in case the deposit doesn't cover the damage. I'll know more when I get my boy in there to look at it."
Gray's red truck pulled up to the front door. He honked his horn, two short blasts.
"I have to go."
"No, not yet you don't." He spun in his chair and reached into a desk drawer behind him. His jeans were too small and too tight and pulled down on his maggoty-coloured back, too. Juvia suddenly hated him like she hated Jose. She spun away from the counter but didn't get far. The back of her dress was grabbed and yanked. She came up short; material ripped.
Outside, Gray laid on his horn. Juvia hardly heard it. She yelled and swung back her elbow. It hit teeth. The man released her. The old Juvia would have run. This Juvia didn't yet. She spun and grabbed the first thing she could reach—a phone. It hit the man in the temple and he stumbled back blindly, gripping the side of his melon-sized head.
"You don't grab people that don't want to be grabbed," Juvia spat and hit him again. He raised his hands to protect his face. Juvia left phone-sized bruises on them. She only stopped when the man fell back onto the floor and was more difficult to reach. He looked at her between his arms with wide eyes and breathed heavily.
Feeling vindicated, Juvia pressed a button on the till and the bottom popped out like a tired and grey tongue. There was cash in there, not much but enough to replace what Gray had spent with a little bit of extra on top. She stuffed it all in her bra and spun on her heel. She only then noticed that Gray was laying on the horn and rolling down the parking lot.
Juvia pushed open the door and saw in the distance the glow of cherry lights through the driving rain. The sight seeded panic. She had to run to catch up and Gray had to slam on the brakes for her to climb in. The door was still open and her leg was still out when he jammed on the gas and the old eight-cylinder engine shot forward through the parking lot, over the saturated grass, and onto the road. His police scanner was going wild, cops talking back and forth, dispatch speaking over them.
Juvia pulled her leg in and closed the door. "What's happening?"
"Cops pulled video from the fucking gas station," Gray swore.
Juvia turned around in her seat and looked out the back of the truck. The tires kicked up a grey wall of water but through it, she saw the pulsing lights of police cars. They were a few kilometers back, only seen when she and Gray went over a large hill. They were catching up, though, and as soon as they saw the mess she'd made in the motel office, they'd know which way they went on this long, country highway. "How did they know where to find us, though?"
"The motel owner must have seen your face on the news and called it in for the reward." He swore again.
Juvia sank against her door; her eyes were burning. "I shouldn't have gone in for the key. I ruined everything."
"And I should have taken care of the gas attendant and checked for the videotapes," Gray said. "Fucking up was a group effort."
Juvia got quiet.
Gray said, "We're going to be okay."
Juvia knew he said it to make her feel better. The funny thing was, knowing that didn't make his efforts any less effective. She watched the cop cars pull into the motel and relaxed some. That would slow them up for a few minutes.
Gray reached out to her and took her hand. He pulled her close to his side and she felt like Bonnie and Clyde, racing down the highway at break-neck speed, tires gliding over puddles before finding purchase on the road again.
Time had a funny way of easing you into an idea. After Juvia first killed Jose, she'd spent time in the washroom, looking at herself and learning that she wasn't just a doll for his fucking pleasure, she wasn't just a punching bag.
After she'd agreed to climb into Gray's truck and go with him to Pine Beach, it took her time to realize that he was actually someone nice. She reconciled what she wanted to do with nice men and then she did it.
They'd been on the lam for days, and though it was harrowing, the drawn-out hours had made her come to terms with the idea. Her entire life as Juvia Lockser was over. She could never be that person again. The time she was given to process allowed Juvia to see that she even thought she was okay with it. Juvia Lockser was the girl that allowed Jose to put his hands on her. She was scared. She was useless.
This Juvia was on the brink of becoming someone special. Someone powerful. Time really did heal everything; she was eager for more of it.
She leaned over and put a kiss on Gray's neck. His hand had been resting loosely on her leg. His fingers tightened now. Juvia pressed her cheek on his shoulder and watched the road disappear beneath the tires. They were coming up on a town and the scanner was chattering again. Gray eased his foot off the gas pedal and turned down a dirt road.
"We're an hour away from the border but the cops have every major road closed off. I need you to listen to what the scanner's saying and look up alternate routes while I drive."
Juvia's stomach was in pleasant knots. There was no denying the thrill of it all. "Okay."
Gray killed the buzz a bit by finding the speed limit and setting his cruise in an attempt to not draw unwanted attention. His eyes kept flicking to the mirrors and to the other concession roads, too, when the roadside would open up enough to catch the odd glimpse. Only once did Juvia see another cop car, and that was two concessions over. "We should drop the truck, too."
"You love this truck."
"It's a ball and chain. It's always been a fucking ball and chain. I knew better."
"Alright."
There was a problem, though, the further away from town they got and closer to the border, the more the roads were logging roads or farm laneways with no houses on the lots. The closest thing to a vehicle they passed was a tractor. There was no being subtle in that.
The police reported they'd set up a roadblock on Highway Seven. Running parallel to it, though, was a dirt path the locals had the audacity to call Ferry Road. It abutted the large river that split up provinces. On the other side of the river, it was called Rue Ferry. Juvia knew the area, she used to sit on the West side and look over to the East and imagine that was where her grandmother spent the majority of her time when she was little and had time to spare. Why wouldn't she? The Lockser women had always had a love affair with water.
"If we can get here, we can cross over the river."
"They might have provincial police waiting for us on the other side," Gray said.
Juvia shook her head. "Not here, not likely. I'm sure they'll be expecting us to cross over somewhere more major. This is a canoe trail, at best. See?" She held up the map for him. Gray took his eyes off the road to read. The truck swerved. He corrected. "We'll get over on the other side and we can find a place to hide. There're fishing camps all over the place there. We'll break into one and—" She trailed off because she honestly didn't know what the longevity was here. What was the next step? What future did they have? They were fugitives.
Don't think like that. If she did, she'd just give up.
Gray said, "You feel good about crossing there?"
"Everywhere they've set up so far has been a major intersection," Juvia pressed. "This is our best bet, I'm sure of it."
He swiped back his damp hair from his forehead. "Okay. Okay, let's do it."
"You have to go left at the next intersection." Juvia's words were drowned out by whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The truck rattled. She looked all around and saw nothing but rainy roads. A voice permeated the car, though, hugely loud.
"Pull over and surrender peacefully or we will use force."
Juvia gripped the door handle. "What the hell is that?"
"Helicopter." Gray's face was ash-white. "They have a fucking helicopter." His foot feathered the brake. Juvia's heart leapt into her throat.
"You can't stop. You have to keep going, they'll arrest us."
"They have a helicopter."
"We're almost there!" Juvia insisted. "We can do this."
Gray flexed his jaw and jammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. Juvia held onto the dash; the truck fishtailed violently. Gray gunned the gas again just as a cruiser with its cherries beaming came out of a crossroad. Gray didn't slow an ounce, clipping the front end and sending the car spinning into the ditch. Juvia felt wild laughter balloon in her chest. She had to let it out.
Another car appeared on their tail, right up their bumper. Gray told Juvia, "Seatbelt."
What an absurd thing to request but Juvia thought she'd do anything he wanted with that intense look on his face. She loved it, abruptly and fiercely. She strapped herself in and just as soon as Gray heard the click, he stomped on the brake.
The truck's tires squealed; metal crunched. Gray touched the gas again and momentum saved them from too much damage. Juvia looked out the back window; the cop car's grill was spewing white fog. Above, the helicopter rose up. Her heart was hammering again.
"Do you think they're going to shoot us down?"
"The helicopter's not equipped with weapons," Gray informed her. "They're only coordinating with the ground forces." She smiled. His glower quashed it. "We're still fucked." And the scanner was going wild. "They're putting down stingers."
"What?"
"Road spikes." He forced his hand through his hair again. "Fuck. Fuck. Is there another road?"
Juvia looked at her map. They were so close to Ferry Road. Another kilometer. But just ahead, was the spiral of police lights. "What happens when we hit road spikes?"
"They fuck our tires. We'll have to stop."
"Can we make it another kilometer on the rims?"
His lip disappeared, bitten between his teeth. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not."
"We'll try," she said and it felt like a command. Confident Juvia was the Juvia that got things done. "Speed up."
She heard his foot hit the floor; the truck's engine growled. It took them a bit longer to get up to speed but once they were there, Juvia could feel every little road vibration through the floor of the truck. She glanced at the speedometer and saw one-twenty. She wondered if they'd hit the spikes and flip. Where was her fear?
She leaned over, stretching her seatbelt to its maximum, and kissed Gray once on the lips, fiercely. "Just in case."
She watched Gray push just in case what aside. He gripped the wheel with both hands. The barricade was coming up fast. Police were on either side of it with their weapons drawn, far enough away from the site that they wouldn't get caught in the fallout if the truck did flip, but close enough that they could swarm their location when the time came.
"Hold on," Gray said as soon as the features of the first officer became clear. Juvia gripped the dash and the handle above the door. She clenched her teeth so she didn't bite her tongue and kept her eyes open because this seemed like the kind of thing a person watched.
The truck hit the spike strip and a huge sound pierced the air as all four tires exploded almost at once. The truck's backend zagged wildly. Gray yelled as he fought to keep control of the vehicle and Juvia joined him. They travelled in the right direction the right way for a good six hundred meters before everything went wrong. Then they turned sideways and metal squealed in Juvia's ear. She hit the end of her seatbelt. It didn't hurt immediately but she knew a truck wasn't supposed to be skidding this way down the road.
Bits of paper, food wrappers, coins, pens, and Gray's shotgun all got scrambled up in the cab. Something hit Juvia's cheek and something else bashed her knee. Another thing clipped her ear and she felt hot blood leak down the side of her face.
The truck rocked and bounced, its roof curved downwards, and then they were on four wheels, upright again and swaying to a stop. Juvia's ears roared and her eyesight was fuzzy. The windshield was spider-webbed a thousand times and the motor had stalled.
She turned her head. She still felt no pain. Adrenaline kept her safe. And Gray. He blinked blood out of his eyes and took in a startled breath but that was all the recovery he needed. He started moving, undoing his seatbelt, and then climbing out of his window. He reached back in for her. Juvia fought with her seatbelt and thought for an instant it wouldn't unclip, but she and Gray pulled with all of their might and it released. He took her by the biceps and she learned how rough he could be, yanking her out of his shattered window with bruising intensity and pushing her in the opposite direction of the swarming cops.
"Go!"
At first, she didn't know what he was asking, then she saw the little canoe trail she spent so much time on as a child and her feet started moving almost too fast for her body to keep up with. Gray was at her side, though he'd stopped at some point to grab his gun from his truck.
Police were yelling. Juvia couldn't hear a damn thing they said. Her feet hit the dirt path and her toes caught on tree roots. Despite her fumbling, she felt like she could fly, she was going so fast, and when she faltered, Gray grabbed her arm and pushed her on.
Trees parted and the grey gleam of river water appeared ahead. The rains had forced the water levels to rise. She thought, we'll be pulled downstream, and she also thought, that's a risk I'm willing to take if Gray is.
The police opened fire. A tree next to Juvia's head exploded in bits of bark. She ducked and dodged around a tree that had once upon a time fallen on the path. She righted and another tree next to her was chewed through.
Gray slowed and spun, his gun raised. He let off a shot and someone yelled. He was at Juvia's side again in an instant but had to slow again. Juvia stopped with him and glanced back. There were no police on the trails, they'd split up and started to use the trees for cover, but they were littered through the bush and each time one of their guns were fired, Juvia tasted the danger.
"Hurry, Gray!" She grabbed his arm; he shook her off.
"Keep going, I'll cover us and catch up!" he ordered.
"But—"
"Now!"
She moved automatically. Behind her, the guns went off again and again; only a few of those were the shotgun's blast, though.
Don't look back, Juvia ordered herself. Don't. Not until you're at the water. Don't. Don't. She was almost there. She counted ten meters, seven, five, three. The geography changed abruptly, the ground going from a wet dirt path to sand and gravel. Her feet sunk in and dead mussel shells cut her toes. One.
Cold water splashed up over her toes and soaked her bare legs. There were rocks under the surface that made her ankles twist and turn. She fell and plunged beneath the surface where the water abruptly changed depth from one foot to four. Immediately, the current grabbed her and started tugging her downstream. Juvia stood; that almost wasn't good enough, the flow was so strong.
She turned and watched the mouth of the path. Gray appeared, arms pumping at his side, the shotgun's dark barrel shining in the low light. He focused on her and Juvia had a ridiculous thought. She loved him. He was wild. He was freedom.
Gray soared over the ground with unparalleled grace. He was faster than anyone Juvia had ever seen before. He passed the treeline and she felt optimistic. His toes touched the water and that feeling bloomed into something dangerous. Hope.
One stride in and he was up to his calves, the next, his thighs. His third stride never came. A bullet dug through his side and hammered into the water and Gray fell. Juvia watched it all in slow motion, the shocked expression on his face as he came down, down, then splashed.
"Gray!" Driving rain and raised voices took Juvia's voice away. "Gray!" She slogged toward him just as the river grabbed him and dragged him toward its foaming centre. It felt like suicide to leap after him straight into the thalweg but that's just what she did. Water closed over her head and blocked out the light, the sound, the feel of air on her face. She reached blindly and grabbed Gray's necklace. It broke in her hand and was taken away. She reached again and got his shirt. She yanked him in close to her chest and wrapped around him as best she could, protecting his head as the river spun them end over end.
She had no idea where she was, which way was surface and which way was bottom until the river spat her back up and her head broke through the rapids. She recognized where they were in that split second; they'd travelled a long way downstream so incredibly fast. A low head dam waited for them, at the bottom of which was a roar of foamy and dangerous water.
Juvia yelled in defiance and swam for the bank. There was no hope, the water's powerful fingers held her and wouldn't let go. She hit the dam structure and was bent over backwards. Water went into her mouth and up her nose and then she started to fall. Gray almost slipped out of her hold. She adjusted. He stayed.
The bottom of the dam came up quickly. Juvia hit rock, was picked up and forced to the surface again. She felt like a soccer ball caught in the flow, down and up and down again. She took in breaths where she could and protected herself as much as possible on the downwards arc. Her ankle jammed in a rock and twisted wrong. She couldn't tell if it was broken or not. Her elbow cracked into something and her fingers went numb. Her hold on Gray started slipping again.
You'll die, she thought. Gray will die. Don't let go and do something.
She was forced up to the surface and sucked in a haggard breath. Undertow grabbed her and yanked her back to a dark place.
Swim. Swim.
Juvia clutched Gray and swam with every ounce of muscle she had. It felt fruitless. Every time she thought she was going somewhere, she was sucked right back in. She had water in her lungs, too, and an urge to cough that would kill her if she obeyed. Then her free hand brushed against chain link. She grabbed it and though it bit into her fingers, didn't let go.
Stay away from low head dams. I misrepresented how dangerous they were. Those things will kill you dead.
