Story code: ST-000100
Part 4: The Long Drive Back
The printed obituary trembled violently in Carter’s hands. The crisp paper rattled against his thumbs, the sound unnaturally loud in the dead engine’s silence. Wayne watched the young man’s face in the rearview mirror. The bloodshot, defiant eyes widened, staring at the grainy photograph of Thomas until the arrogant, untouchable glow completely washed out of his features, replaced by a sickly, chalky white.
Carter’s breathing hitched. It wasn’t a gasp of shock, but a wet, rattling intake of air. “I… I didn’t,” he whispered, the nasal bray of his voice entirely gone. “Marcus said it was an empty car. He swore to me.”
“Marcus protected his paycheck,” Wayne said, his voice flat, devoid of the righteous fury he had felt building inside him for eight long months.
Tears spilled over Carter’s lower lids, cutting hot tracks down his pale cheeks. He dropped the paper. It fluttered down into the dark footwell, landing in the slush he had tracked in. He curled his knees up toward his chest, pressing himself into the corner of the faux-leather seat as if trying to physically merge with the door panel. A high-pitched, pathetic whine escaped his throat.
Then, the boy broke.
It wasn’t a dignified weeping. It was raw, ugly panic. Carter sobbed, his chest heaving with violent, jagged breaths. Snot ran from his nose, mixing with the tears. He wrapped his arms around his head, rocking back and forth in the expensive wool coat, chanting a disjointed loop of apologies and panicked pleas. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, please don’t kill me, I swear I didn’t know.”
Wayne sat motionless behind the wheel. The heavy steel tire iron rested on the passenger seat, right next to the silver canister of pills. For hours, he had fantasized about this exact moment. He had imagined the satisfaction of watching the rich kid realize his father’s money meant absolutely nothing out here on the frozen riverbank. He had pictured the exact arc the steel bar would take, the sound it would make delivering the justice the courts had so easily erased.
But as he watched the boy heave with pathetic, muffled wails, Wayne felt no satisfaction at all. The vengeance he thought would fill the hollow ache in his chest was just another lie. Breaking this boy’s bones wouldn’t reconstruct Thomas’s shattered ribs. It wouldn’t rewire his sister’s damaged brain. It certainly wouldn’t conjure the two thousand dollars he desperately needed by tomorrow afternoon to keep her out of the state ward.
Killing Carter would only guarantee Wayne a prison cell, leaving his sister entirely abandoned. He would be committing the exact same sin this boy had-destroying a family without a second thought.
A sharp tapping sound hit the glass. The sky had darkened to a bruised purple, and freezing rain began to fall, pinging against the windshield and turning instantly to slush. The temperature in the cabin was plunging rapidly without the heater.
Wayne reached over to the central console. He didn’t touch the tire iron. Instead, he pressed the master lock switch.
The heavy, mechanical clack echoed through the car, disengaging the rear child safety locks.
Carter jumped at the sound, letting out a sharp yelp of terror. He peered through his fingers, his wet, terrified eyes darting frantically to the front seat.
“Get out,” Wayne said.
Carter just stared, his jaw trembling uncontrollably. “What?”
“Get out of my car,” Wayne repeated, turning to face him fully. The command carried no rage, just an exhaustion so deep it felt permanently etched into his bones.
Carter scrambled for the door handle. He pulled it, and the heavy door swung open, letting in a brutal howl of wind and freezing rain. The boy spilled out into the storm, landing hard on his hands and knees in the frozen gravel. He scrambled backward, slipping in the mud, his pristine white sneakers immediately stained dark brown. He looked around wildly at the desolate, decaying factories, the razor-wire fences, and the churning gray river. He had no phone. No umbrella. No idea where he was.
“Wait, please,” Carter begged, scrambling to his feet, shivering violently as the freezing rain plastered his expensive haircut to his forehead. “You can’t leave me here! I don’t know the way back! I’ll freeze out here!”
Wayne reached out and grabbed the inside handle of the rear door, pulling it shut. The heavy thud cut off the sound of the boy’s pleading.
Without looking at Carter again, Wayne turned the ignition key. The Hyundai sputtered, protesting the bitter cold, before the engine finally caught and settled into a rough idle. He reached over, picked up the silver canister from the passenger seat, and rolled down his window just enough to toss the metal tube out into the churning river, right where the expensive phone had gone.
He rolled the window up, shifted the sedan into drive, and pressed the accelerator. The tires spun briefly in the icy gravel before catching traction. In the rearview mirror, Wayne saw the small, pathetic figure of the young man standing alone in the freezing downpour, a tiny speck shrinking into the distance as the car rolled away.
Wayne turned on the headlights, their pale yellow beams cutting through the gloom of the industrial access road. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cracked burner phone. He still needed to find a way to make the clinic’s payment. The road ahead was bleak, covered in black ice, and agonizingly long, but it was the only direction left to go. He drove back toward the highway.