Sunflower

*Trigger Warning: Language, vocal impairment, insinuated violence.*

“Now, I know you ain’t tryna steal my truck.” 

She was laid over his front seat, her head beneath the dashboard and her shoulders coated in the thick clumps of coffee-bean hair that hung past her waist. The olive skin below her shorts was nearly golden beneath the flickering signs in the night and her hands suddenly stopped moving once she heard his voice.  

The strip he was parked on was downtown. Lined with bars as far as a quarter mile down, filled with all sorts of people only a full moon would bring out. Her boots scuffed the pavement as she turned, lowering herself to the floor of the truck and Ransom pulled the cigarette from his lips as he braced himself on the open driver’s door.  

“Whatcha think you’re doin’, girl?” His voice was close to a bedroom whisper. 

Instead of her eyes going wide, they narrowed. The red tint to her cheekbone was more noticeable as she pulled her arms around, sitting forward. She studied him quickly. From his sapphire eyes to the glowing ember at the end of the cigarette pressed between his full lips. She'd have thought better of him if it’d been any other night. 

Before she could attempt getting something across, the answer to his next question was hauling their asses up the sidewalk. Four to five men stomped their boots along the cracked concrete with foul words flying from their lips. Her eyes turned toward the inside of the driver's door before locking back onto his, and he grunted. 

“You look like fuckin’ trouble,” he mumbled as he stood up. She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth. If she’d learned to not react on impulse, now was the time. 

“Can I help you boys with somethin’?” Ransom stood by the open door, giving her at least another foot or so of cover if she was going to run, tucking her foot under the truck if she had to take off. Her fingers wrapped around the metal beneath her as she sat quietly. 

“Lookin’ for this little broad,” one of the men spat. She recognized the voice even though she knew there wouldn’t be another reason for an angry group of men to scour every bar this late. Anybody else who’d been out would’ve had their name on a bar stool by that hour. 

“Mop’a hair. Skinny little thing,” another one spoke. 

She watched as Ransom slowly shook his head, inhaling a cigarette as he pretended to look around. As far as she’d seen it, she had two options. Take off, run like she already was, and see if she could actually get another truck started before they caught back up to her. Or she could cautiously lift herself back into his truck, keeping her head low behind the wheel. 

But that meant she had to trust him. This man who’d just caught her trying to lift his truck. Not that it seemed like it was much to her, with torn fabric seats and cigarette burns on the carpet. If it wasn’t as dark as it was, she could imagine there were places the paint had been chipped, or there’d be a dent or two.  

“What could all you boys want with a girl like that?” Ransom's voice had a tickle of humor, and he pulled the cigarette from his slightly twisted lips. 

A few of the men shuffled their feet, clearly sobered up from their drunken stupor after running the stretch they had. They all had guts most men in that town couldn’t have put on in two lifetimes. Stomachs that told their life story of drinking beer every night instead of going home to a houseful of children and a woman to call their own. 

“Little bitch sliced all our damn tires,” one of their voices steadily got closer. 

“That was after she hustled us,” another one continued while the third slowly pulled their gun from the holster on their side. 

“You seen her around?” The first man asked again. 

Ransom licked his lips, motioning his hand hidden behind the door for her to climb into the truck. A quick wave of his fingers before he slowly closed the door as she shimmed her way in. It was too dark for the men to see her boots on the ground, but she lifted her feet cautiously anyway.  

“I ain’t seen nobody. And I ain’t too fond ‘bout havin’ a group of drunks comin’ up on me pullin’ their weapons neither,” Ransom’s voice was level.  

“I know you,” one of the front men pipped up, his eyes squinting together to see through the night. “That there’s Ransom Diggs.” 

A few of the men muttered small talk amongst themselves, a few taking a step back. They’d heard the rumors. A few of them knew they weren’t just rumors. But the man up front with the gun didn’t lower his aim. 

“Yeah, we know you, boy.” 

“Then you know I ain’t afraid to have no western shoot-out with you boys neither,” Ransom gave them a tenacious smile as he looked around. His favorite nine was tucked in the front of his waistband under his shirt, but he didn’t reach for it. “But I ain’t thinkin’ tonight’s the night.” 

The frontman snorted, finally lowering his gun, and a few of the other men looked relieved. He sighed aggressively, “If you see some lil stray wanderin’ around, best tell her not to come down here again. We’ll be lookin’.” 

Ransom gave them an unfiltered smile. One filled with a malicious intent that pierced through the dark of the night. Those men were on the wrong side of the strip. If they were found wandering by another group, they’d have been torn to shreds. It was always evident in that little town where people belonged. Most weren’t good, so it was only divided by bad and worse. Depending on which side you were standing on, you might see them each from a different light. 

He watched the group turn around, heading back down the sidewalk where they’d come from. A few mumbled empty threats, and a few were grateful neither side pulled the trigger. He watched the group slither all the way back down the quarter mile and into the little bar, where small-town drunks drank. The bar ran by a small-town crook who ran small-town deals and served all the small-town folk.  

When he opened the door, he let out another low grunt. Her knees were pulled to her chest, the combat boots on her feet tied tightly, and she unwrapped her arms gripping anything to push off and run. The worn soles pressing into the asphalt as she lunged forward, attempting to sideline him, but she’d gotten caught on his arm and he’d been too strong to fight off. 

“Now, I just saved your ass back there, girl,” his voice was slightly strained. She was tougher than he’d expected, but didn’t put up much of a fight after he’d shoved her back toward the truck. His cigarette still burned, unscathed between his lips as he studied her up and down. She watched his eyes scour her, planting her hands firmly on anything behind her if he tried to shove her back again.  

“Don’t you got nothin’ to say?” Ransom’s gaze narrowed as he met her ominously dark eyes. Not giving him as much of a hint to any of the questions rambling through his mind.  

To her, he’d smelt like cigarettes and cheap whiskey. His truck reeked of exhaust telling her there must’ve been a leak and the seats smelled heavily of gasoline. By the looks of his hands, he’d worked on a lot of things apart from his own. Calloused over fingertips with shortly clipped nails and dirt wedged in the creases of his skin. His shirt looked like it’d been washed too many times, hanging thin over his filled frame and his jeans were torn in places he’d bent down over one hundred times a day. They sat low enough on his waist that the black metal from the handle of his gun was visible and he didn’t bother with a belt. 

“Whatchya got yourself into?” He thought out loud, sighing when he realized she wasn’t going to answer him. He switched his gaze past her, to the neon moon’s and took a quick look around the desolate lot. He’d only came out to his truck to grab his pack of cigarettes and he thought about the shot of whiskey waiting for him on the bar top, figuring one of his buddies had probably stolen it already. 

His eyebrows raised when he looked back to her, “Ya know, I’m gettin’ fuckin’ tired of talkin’ to myself.” 

She smirked, her thick lips tightening. Ransom studied her expression. How her head bowed slightly and her swollen cheekbone was hard to see because they’d been naturally prominent. How her shoulders seemed to relax some, but he’d been preparing for her to try and run a second time. Only then, he’d have let her go. 

His eyes wandered to the small, black strap that hung from her shoulder to the mini-sized beige backpack resting against her hip. She wasn’t all that dirty but he wasn’t all that clean himself. Her face was free of any sort of make-up and her eyelashes were darker than her unkept hair. That gave it away for him. How it hadn’t looked brushed in days and hung like loose dreadlocks around her face.  

“How long you been runnin’ out here?” Ransom pulled the cigarette away and she watched his mouth as he licked his lips. She studied his unshaven face and memorized the different directions his hair had been pushed like he’d just rolled out of bed. 

He gritted his teeth and winced as she slowly pulled her hand away from the door, the bruises around the inside of her biceps obvious. She looked away as she thought about his question and if she trusted him enough to answer. Her chest sunk as she sighed and she held up four fingers on her right hand. 

“Four.” His eyes flickered from her hand to her face. He expected her to be some runaway. Some girl who had enough at home and packed a bag and ran. Took to the street to figure out her own way. But the fact that she hadn’t said a word to him had him stumped and the marks on her body bent him more than just out of shape. “Four what? Hours?” 

She squinted her eyes and shook her head. 

“Days?” 

She shook her head once, drawing her eyebrows together clearly frustrated. 

Ransom took a short drag on his cigarette, “Weeks?” 

She gave him one nod and he whistled, his head shaking from side to side. Ransom’s lips began to curl, thinking it had to be some sort of joke. Here he was, just trying to get loaded after he’d gotten paid and he walked out around midnight to a girl who doesn’t talk trying to steal his truck. He’d warded off a group of stumbling bastards and tried to process everything she’d told him without words. Ransom took another look around, shifting his weight backward wondering if this was anything he wanted to get himself into.  

“Alright then,” his voice was strained. He couldn’t look her in the eyes as he stepped aside and nodded his head. “Get.” 

She hesitated. Both of her hands still pressed against his truck and she stared hard at him. Outlining his sharp jaw with her eyes and noticing how he couldn’t look back at hers. She hadn’t expected much of him from the start, but after he’d tried prying answers out of her, something was holding her back. Strings she cut a minute later, shoving herself away from his truck and storming past him with a force he felt through more than just the breeze of her body walking by. 

The only thing that haunted her was his eyes. How they’d been so blue they were almost indigo and how he had hands like the other men she’d encountered, but they hadn’t been forceful. Even when he’d held her back from running the first time, he didn’t use enough strength to hurt her. When he could’ve pulled that gun hidden under his shirt on her or the men that he’d gotten rid of, he didn’t.  

Ransom’s jaw flexed as he rested his hand on the top of the open door, blinking as quickly as the thoughts that were running through his head. His chin angled as he watched her continue walking in the opposite direction the men had gone in. Her tan bag with glistening pins bouncing against her body as her long legs strode across the sidewalk. She didn’t look back. Not even once. 

He threw the filter of his cigarette to the ground, sliding into the driver’s seat of his truck, immediately sparking another one. Ransom let the smoke fill his lungs like he was trying to drown out the past few minutes. He felt the wires she’d pulled under the dashboard and realized if he’d waited for that shot of whiskey, she’d have gotten his truck up and running.  

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, turning the key over and slamming the door shut. 

She’d made it over a half of a mile down the strip, to where the neon lights faded and the street lights dimmed out. Heading toward the part of town where only people who lived there wandered after midnight, and it was never for anything virtuous. Her ears perked as she heard the distant rumble, faded and muffled inside of her head. But she’d recognized the sounds of gears shifting, remembering she’d bumped the shifter as she tucked herself into his truck.  

Her feet didn’t stop moving because even if he was heading in her direction, there was no reason he’d stop. He’d done enough for her as it was. She was free to keep traveling and although he’d held more than her interest, she’d known better. All of her life she’d been the only one to read as deeply into things as she had. To see things that weren’t visible to other people and hear things that had no sound. A sense she’d gained from what she lacked. 

“Hey,” Ransom called from inside the truck. His driver’s side window down and that fresh cigarette burning in his lips. His right hand rested on the wheel and he slowed the truck enough to crawl with her pace. She wanted to smile, but pressed her teeth into her cheek instead. 

When she stopped walking and turned toward him, he pressed his foot against the brake, pushing the shifter with his hand that had been on the wheel. She watched his face twist like he was in pain as he angled his head toward the window, “You hungry?” 

She raised her chin slightly, so her eyes looking across the street at him in his truck and she swallowed. Glancing to the bed and up and down the street thinking of where else she might’ve gone if he hadn’t pulled up. To the back of the bars after the last of the kitchen staff left to pick through whatever had been thrown out. To shake a few bottles from trash cans to see if there’d been a sip left or to the abandoned railroad track to get an hour of sleep as soon as the sun rose. 

Ransom waited patiently as her eyes wandered, but when she turned back toward him, she nodded. 

“Alright, girl. Get in.”