Chapter 44
“We need to keep moving,” Sharon urged.
Creo protested, “We aren’t ready. How can we expect to battle successfully until we deal with evil inside ourselves?”
“We don’t have time!”
“She’s right.” Laif turned toward them, with his jacket still covering his head. “I can sense it.”
Rain beat on the car’s roof.
“Then we go to our deaths,” Creo said despondently.
“You don’t have to be so negative.” Although she was considering Creo’s statement only minutes ago herself, she knew better now. They had to act for the sake of the girls. They didn’t know what the future had in store for them. No one did. Although it looked bleak, something could turn their way. “There’s power in positive thinking.”
He chuckled. “That’s a bunch of New Age, liberal crap.” He slowly pulled the car back onto the road and accelerated. He rolled up his window, except for a half-inch crack for the Cuban cigar he puffed.
They drove in silence, the wind pushing on the side of the SUV every so often, forcing Creo to compensate his steering. Silence seemed to be the only place now where conflict didn’t exist, and even there, tension smoked between them.
He bit down so hard on his cigar it appeared as though it split.
The rain grew louder on the hood and roof, and Laif shivered under his jacket.
Sharon felt uncomfortable no matter what position she shifted to in the back seat. She wished she could tell Creo that if he was such a coward, he didn’t have to come. But they did need him.
Laif had refused to carry a gun, declaring he would only carry the truth. They definitely needed Creo. She had to get past her conflict with him.
She hated being dependent on someone so opposite her beliefs. It made her feel powerless. She detested this. It reminded her of the weekends when her father was drugged up and out of control. He brought his crack-friends home with him, and they would make noise all night while she tried to sleep, praying none of his buddies would come into her and Marlene’s room.
Hills rose around them as they drove further.
Her feeling of powerlessness deepened. Creo had closed his window too far and the smoke wasn’t emptying out of the car like it should, lingering and growing in the back and choking her. It probably wasn’t bothering Laif so much because he was filtering the air through the material of his jacket.
She coughed several times, but Creo did nothing. She coughed louder with still no response. She could no longer stand the sickening silence and smoke. “Will you put out that disgusting cigar?”
He glared back.
“It’s like I’m trapped in a fire back here.” She fanned her hand in front of her face.
Something crept up her leg.
She stiffened and curled her arms around her body. It was too dark to see what was doing the crawling. She could only feel tiny claws poking through her jeans into her skin, moving toward her crotch. She screamed so loud she couldn’t hear what Creo and Laif said. She just saw them both turning around, Laif peeking out underneath his jacket, Creo rolling his eyes and turning back to the road.
“Sharon, what’s wrong?” she finally heard Laif say.
“There’s something on me! Something’s back here.”
“What’re you talking about?”
It was advancing quickly. She shouted, “Somebody turn on the lights!”
“Would you keep it down back there?” Creo ordered. “It’s probably just Fred.”
“Fred! What the hell is Fred?”
Laif flicked on the dome light, and she hesitantly looked down at this scaly, green and pink gecko that had parked on her thigh. She couldn’t breathe. “Why do you have a gecko in your car?”
“Fred. He travels with me, keeps me company.” Creo sounded almost jovial. He opened his mouth and allowed a column of smoke to leak out, crawling up his cheek past his nose to his forehead. “He loves car rides. In fact, when we’re at home, he mostly just stares at the air. But in the car, he’s active. Don’t worry though, he’s perfectly harmless.”
The gecko began doing push-ups on her leg, raising and lowering his little fluorescent green chest, sticking out his brown tongue on each thrust.
She wondered the reason Creo chose such an ugly pet. Why not a dog or cat, something closer to human in the genetic pool? Maybe he didn’t feel close to people. He was an outsider, more so than Laif. He had no morals, no respect for the goodness of mankind. This creature on her leg symbolized that and made Sharon want it off her leg all the more.
Creo’s hand swung into the back, holding something. “Here, give him these.” She moved her hand underneath his, and he let several breadcrumbs fall into it. “He hasn’t snacked in a couple hours.”
She pressed her other index finger onto the breadcrumbs to stick them to her finger. Then she pointed her finger near the gecko’s mouth, ready to retract it at the first sign of danger. The lizard raised one of its scaly claws to hold her finger still, as it nibbled two crumbs off. “Eww. It’s disgusting.”
“Fred takes a bit of getting used to. That’s all.”
“Why? Why back here?”
“Like I said, he likes to move around. He was under my seat a while ago.”
She wanted to put him on Creo’s shoulder since he liked the lizard so much. But she didn’t want to hold it, to feel its scaly body squirming in her hand. She just wanted it off.
Laif evidently saw her discomfort and reached down to the gecko, but before he could get it, it scampered onto the seat and down onto the floor—all while she screamed.
“Will you stop that?” Creo complained. “It’s just Fred.”
“I don’t care who it is! I don’t like it. And now I don’t know where it is.”
“The unknown is always scarier. Knowledge is not only power but safety.” Creo paused for a moment with his finger resting on his chin. “Why do you think you care about Adriana and Cindy so much?”
“I don’t feel like answering that just now, thank you. First get rid of this gecko. Or at least hold onto him.”
Laif bent down in the front, looking under his seat for the reptile.
Creo continued, “Your weakness of needing to help children so dearly will cause you to hurt children. Do you know that?”
“What the hell do you know? How long have you been helping children?”
“I’ve been being.” He released another column of smoke which rose and clouded his face. “We will fail. Our weaknesses will turn against us. Our desire to not face them will be our folly. Evil will laugh.”
“There you go with the negativity again.”
“I think I got it,” Laif said with excitement. “No. No, it slipped.”
She continued, “You know, people might listen to you more if you made sense.”
“It only sounds like nonsense,” Creo replied, “to people who cannot hear.”
“Again, try making sense.” She lifted her feet out of her sandals, off the floor, and placed them onto the seat where she could see them. “Laif, did you find it?”
“The only thing down here is a screwdriver.”
Creo explained, “That would be from the toilet I installed last Thursday in a Newport Beach mansion. A very fancy toilet, I might add, with a bidet.”
“You’re a plumber?” she asked, dumbfounded.
Laif informed, “I think Fred went underneath Creo.” He straightened and repositioned the jacket securely over his head.
“Stop this car and find your lizard, Creo.”
“You fear the wrong thing. You should be afraid of what’s inside you.”
Thunder roared and trembled her chest.
“Inside out,” he barely whispered.