When Gracie Met The Grump by Mariana Zapata

Author:Mariana Zapata [Zapata, Mariana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-14T18:30:00+00:00

I had no idea where we were going, and I couldn’t find the right time to ask.

We’d been in the car for hours, and I’d spent most of the time staring out the window pretending to think… but really, I was listening.

Alex had caught everyone off guard when he’d gotten into the back passenger seat. I’d seen their faces; I knew they hadn’t expected it. I got into the back seat before either of them beat me to it. The man named Leon shot the woman a look, and they’d both smiled before she got behind the wheel and he took the front passenger seat.

Alex hadn’t exactly talked nonstop, but he had told them a lot more than I’d expected. From what I was starting to pick up, it was only me he was hesitant to talk to. That, or he was in a really, really good mood. I wasn’t sure which, but since I was curious about everything, I wasn’t going to complain about him being a chatter bug.

He told the strangers about being “hit in the back” and finding himself in my yard. I didn’t miss the tension in the car or the looks that all three of them shot one another through the rearview mirror. He told them about how I’d helped him, about how weak and injured he’d been the whole time. Selene and Leon asked questions, and I could tell that they knew… well, everything it seemed like. About him, I meant.

Neither of the strangers made a peep about how he had waited to contact them. No one touched on the topic of what might have possibly been able to hurt him, which just told me they knew exactly what or even who had done it. The fact none of them seemed overly alarmed about the injury calmed me down some.

Alexander had continued with the story, talking about the cartel showing up and taking us. When he skated over what they had done to me in the other room and about his back finally healing, you could tell they were surprised. He even mentioned how sick I’d been afterward. How sick I still was, as if they couldn’t hear the coughs I was still trying to muffle or how even though my throat hurt less, I still sounded like a cartoon character.

Except when he told the story, I realized just how sick I had been. He hadn’t wanted me to know, I figured out real quick, which I appreciated.

Alexander continued recalling the rest of our adventure, about us escaping and him running for days until we came across the first cabin, then how we had trekked the rest of the distance to the house.

They had put together the rest, I figured, because there weren’t questions after that.

We were safe now, I tried to convince myself again. He’d said so.

Closing my eyes, I exhaled and wondered, not for the first time, where we were going. It could be anywhere. The car was a rental; they had said that much when Alex had asked why they’d brought such a small car.

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