Zeroes

Chapter 5: Scam

"You don't want the lights on for this?" Ethan asked.

"Don't want to spook anyone. They see the lights, they might think it's cops and start shooting." In the darkness the Craig's voice was grim.

Ethan's stomach knotted tighter. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

Gravel popped and crunched beneath the tires. The blackness was broken only by flickers of moonlight filtering through the trees.

"What's your name, anyway, kid?"

Ethan was too freaked out to think. He let the voice choose. "Axel."

"Cool name. Your parents Guns N' Roses fans?"

Ethan wondered what guns and roses were. "You bet."

This answer seemed to please the Craig. "I'll tell Taylor you did good. You had my back the whole way."

"Thanks, Craig." The voice sounded calm, but Ethan was half paralyzed with fear. If Taylor himself was at the end of this gravel road, there was no way the voice could convince him he'd sent some strange kid to help move a bag full of money. The voice would remain silent while Ethan was beaten to death.

The Ford slid to a halt. Through the darkness Ethan made out an old cottage among the trees. It was run-down and ancient, like something from a slasher movie. A black Jeep sat next to it, a gun rack against its back window.

None of this made Ethan feel any better about his chances of getting out of here alive.

Craig saw him staring. "You never been to Taylor's before?"

"Sure I have. Just never at night." The voice sounded calm, but inside, Ethan was screaming. This was it. Time to act. Sometimes if he improvised, Ethan could force the voice to do something.

Craig switched off the engine, but before he could pull the keys from the ignition, Ethan grabbed his arm.

"Wait!"

"What?" The Craig froze. His gaze swiveled out toward the darkness. His hand dropped into his jacket pocket again.

"Uh, I saw something." Ethan pointed out the front window, wanting with all his heart for Craig to be as terrified as he was. "In those trees."

"What did you see?"

"A cigarette flare." The voice had taken over now, spurred by Ethan's desire. "Guy had a goatee,   maybe? That mean anything to you?"

"Are you serious?" Craig pulled his hand out of his pocket. He was holding a big gleaming cannon of a gun.

"You don't think it's Alvarez, do you?" the voice asked.

"Damn! Stay down!"

Oh, yeah. Ethan was staying down.

Craig opened his door and slipped out, crouching low behind the front end of the car. Ethan scooted over to the driver's seat and pulled the door closed. The car keys were right in front of him, dangling from the steering column.

Okay, time to go. The voice could do no more.

Ethan reached for the keys, but he needed a noise. Something to divert Craig from the sound of the car's ignition. He leaned onto the horn as hard as he could. At the blare of noise, Craig hit the ground. He might've even screamed.

Lights popped on in the scary little cottage.

Ethan twisted the keys and turned over the engine. Then he slammed the Ford into reverse, shoving the accelerator down as far as it would go. The tires roared as the car swerved backward through the darkness, sending up a shower of gravel.

He wished the voice would take over his whole body, turn him into some secret agent who could drive as well as he could lie. But it was just Ethan now, clinging to the wheel and hoping he wasn't about to crash into a tree.

The car headlights were still off, but big security floods mounted on the cottage roof suddenly burst to life, spilling through the night.

Ethan whispered a short prayer as the car catapulted backward into the dark. He waited for a shot to ring out, for the windshield to become a spiderweb of glass under a storm of bullets. But Craig, face-down in the driveway in front of the cottage, was still pointing his gun into the trees. Probably he thought Ethan was just some panicky wannabe thug, not an impostor.

Sometimes being a mousy seventeen-year-old could really pay off. Not often, but in those rare moments while stealing a car from a bunch of drug-dealing hoods and not wanting to get shot? Then yeah, definite payoff.

The car reached an opening along the trees and Ethan spun the steering wheel hard, sending the tires skidding until the car pointed back the way he'd come. He switched the headlights on and accelerated.

A moment later he was headed toward the public road, the Ford spitting gravel in its wake.

Finally the wheels hit asphalt. Ethan turned hard left, back toward home. That was when he remembered the duffel bag full of cash in the backseat.

In a way, it only seemed fair. He'd practically earned it after everything he'd been through that night. But he had to put the bag someplace safe. Then he'd dump the car a long way from home so no one could trace it back to his house.

Which meant that, after all this, Ethan still needed a ride home.

He drove hard, the night air whipping through the open windows. Craig and Taylor would be following in that black Jeep soon enough, and there'd be no talking them down. Trouble was, if Ethan kept speeding like this, a cop would pull him over and inevitably check the bag in the backseat.

He nearly missed the turnoff home, he was thinking so hard. But at the last minute he spun the wheel and took the corner wide, fishtailing until the back tire bounced off the curb.

He was about to pull up at the front of his house when he saw lights on in the living room. Damn, his mom was actually up.

Ethan kept the car moving.

Okay. There was no way to dump the bag without her noticing. She'd ask what was in it, and Ethan would be dead meat. He'd been scamming for as long as he'd been able to speak, but by now Mom could tell when it was the voice doing the talking. She'd slap him before he got two words out.

He could try hiding it in the garage, but she was always snooping through his stuff, and—bonus—she worked for the district attorney's office.

"Okay, stupid voice. What do we do now?"

The voice didn't answer, of course. It never spoke directly to Ethan. He could never get it to just tell him what to do. But it loved to talk to other people.

He hit the accelerator. That was the key: other people. People could be charmed, reasoned with, and convinced to do what you wanted.

The voice might be deranged sometimes, but in the presence of a listener, it always knew what to say.

He headed back to town. Maybe he could get the voice to tell someone else what he should do next.