Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 160

Will

“Come on, buddy. It’s time to wake up,” a rumbling, familiar male voice said, snapping his fingers in my face.

I peeled my eyelids open and gaped. “Shep?!”

“There’s our fighter,” he smiled. “McKenzie was telling me how you nearly took down a man with a hundred years more training than you have.”

With a groan, I sat up, rubbing the injection site on my neck. They hadn’t exactly been gentle. “I was motivated.”

“I’m sure you were.” He sat down next to me.

It was then that I realized we were in the back of a large cargo van. Caleb was laying flat on his stomach next to me. McKenzie and Jacey were curled up together asleep in the corner.

“Is Dolly driving?” I asked.

“Sure is. Like a bat out of hell, too. After we dropped that asshole Ike in a ditch, we had to hightail it out of there pretty quick,” he said. “Ma decided I should look after the troops while she gets us where we’re going. Figured I could wake you up. One way or another.” He grinned and cracked his knuckles.

“Glad it didn’t come to that,” I laughed.

“Me, too.” He pulled out a water bottle and a granola bar and handed them to me.

“How’d you figure out we were in trouble?” I asked, popping the lid on the water and taking a long drink.

Shep chuckled. “We have a TV. And the Internet. Ma didn’t think you’d planned to be back playing happy families with your granddad.”

“We… really didn’t,” I confirmed.

“So, Ma decided we should pay Pa another visit. Don’t think he’ll ever walk a straight line again, and I’m gonna be his only son, but she got it out of him. What really happened,” he said. “Real dick move on his part.”

“We thought so.” I closed my eyes and breathed for what felt like the first time in years. “Thank God you showed up when you did.”

He shrugged. “You could have asked any trucker on the road, and they would have found me.”

I grimaced. “We weren’t ever allowed out alone, and we weren’t given cell phones. We went straight from Ibrahim over in Europe to Ike. There just wasn’t an opportunity.”

Shep squeezed my shoulder. “Well, you’re here now. Ma’s takin’ us to this vet she knows. Not an animal vet, a Desert Storm vet. He’s a field medic. He’s gonna take care of Caleb here.”

“Good.” I looked over at Caleb again and saw he was awake. “Caleb, do you want something to eat or drink?”

“Not just now. Thank you, Will,” he replied politely. He looked pale.

The fact that he was polite to the man who was screwing his daughter and that he was almost white as a sheet gave me cause for concern. “Are you in pain?” I asked.

He frowned then finally nodded.

“We don’t have any of the good stuff,” Shep apologized. “Just Tylenol. We should have stolen some from the hospital before we left.”

“It’s fine,” Caleb said. “Just as long as we get McKenzie and Jacey to safety, everything will be fine.”

“I agree,” I replied.

Caleb nodded slightly. “It’s good that we agree on the important things.”

“We’re gettin’ you to safety. Ma’s friend will take care of you. If anyone has the good stuff, it’ll be him,” Shep said.

Unfortunately, getting to Dolly’s friend and the ‘good stuff’ took a turn down a very bumpy gravel road.

Caleb groaned.

This woke Jacey and McKenzie. “Dad?!” McKenzie said.

“It’s fine,” Caleb repeated. “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Jacey crawled over and held her husband’s hand. “Caleb, how bad is it? Is there anything we can do?”

“Will and McKenzie’s friends are taking us to someone who can help,” he replied. “Everything is going to be fine.”

“But you’re not fine now,” she fretted, stroking his hair.

The van hit a big bump, jostling all of us.

Caleb hissed.

Shep crawled over and knocked on the window between us and the driver, Dolly. “Hey, Ma? Easy on the potholes. I think Caleb’s about ready to come out of his skin.”

“That peckerhead Pond ain’t got nothin’ but potholes on his godforsaken land!” she shouted back. “Asshole. Just try and keep him as comfortable as possible.”

“Sure thing, Ma,” Shep said with a sigh. He moved back over by Jacey and Caleb. “Don’t know what exactly she expects me to do….”

I went over, and so did McKenzie. We formed a helpless circle of four around Caleb. As he bit down hard on his lip, trying not to make noises of pain, I put my arm around McKenzie.

She shook it off.

Startled, I looked down at her, and she stabbed her finger into the middle of my chest. “We accept? We accept?! You were just going to let Ike toss us away somewhere?!” she hissed.

“What? No! He said he’d get you out. If there was a way I could guarantee that, then of course I was going to make sure you and your parents got out! I don’t want you caught up in this. I never did. It’s not fair to you. It’s my problem,” I tried to explain. “And it’s nearly gotten all of you killed at least a dozen times now.”

McKenzie grabbed me by the shirtfront and pulled me so close our noses almost touched. “You listen to me, William Masterson the Third. I’m not going anywhere without you. Ever. I love you. Don’t you love me?”

“Of course I do!” It hurt that she even had a passing thought I might not. “I love you so much I couldn’t bear the thought of you trapped like that.”

“Get used to it. Because I’m staying. And we’re not trapped anymore, anyway. We’re with Dolly and Shep,” she said.

Caleb gave a bitter laugh. “For now.”

“Caleb! A little more hope, please? For McKenzie’s sake?” Jacey chided him.

I shook my head. “No. He’s right. So far, none of us have managed to stay safely out of my grandfather’s hands.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Shep interrupted. “He’s not the Almighty. So you can quit fightin’. We’re gonna figure this out.”

“See? We’re going to figure it out,” McKenzie echoed, scowling at me. “You don’t get to give up on us, Will. Not now. Not ever.”

“It’s not giving up to want you safe. It’s the opposite. If I can ever—” I began.

She gave me a shake. “We’re a team! I didn’t hallucinate you agreeing with me on that.”

I sighed. “Yes, we’re a team, but—”

“No buts! No take-backs! There is nothing you can say that’s going to make me give up on us, Will. You’re stuck with me for life,” she said, giving me another shake. “Do you understand me?!”

Frustration bubbled up inside me but was instantly quashed by the desperate look in her eyes. It echoed the desperation in my heart. “You know I never want to be without you.”

“I know,” she whispered, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “So stop being a butthead about it.”

McKenzie’s tears broke me, and I wrapped her in my arms. “Okay. I’ll stop being a butthead.”

“Good,” she sniffled.

“I’d like to revisit the ‘butthead’ option,”  Caleb muttered from the floor.

“Don’t make me hit you,” Jacey said. “You’re starting to sound just like Dad.”

Caleb stiffened, and I knew it had nothing to do with the pain. “I am not!”

“Uh-huh.” Jacey smiled at us. “I think you two will do just fine.”

“I think so, too,” Shep agreed.

McKenzie and I looked at each other, both of us opening our mouths to say more.

Then we hit the mother of all potholes. We all levitated off the floor.

Caleb slammed back down with a loud yelp.

I ended up on my back with McKenzie on top, her knee just millimeters shy of getting me right in the balls.

Jacey and Shep bumped heads and groaned.

Dolly swore loudly enough we could hear her through the window between us. “This motherfucker!!!”

I was just helping McKenzie scoot off me when there was a loud BANG.

The van stopped abruptly.

I turned to see smoke coming from the hood of the van. “Shit, I think—”

Dolly banged her door open and came around the back of the van. She yanked the doors open, then turned to face a deserted hill.

At least, I thought it was deserted.

“Moose! You had best not have just killed my van!” she shouted, hands on hips.

A head with tufts of grass sticking out of it popped up on top of the hill. “That you, Dolly?”

“Who did you think it was, the National Guard? Of course it’s me!” She began stomping up the hill.

It was then I saw that Moose had a large, nasty-looking rifle next to him. “Dolly, wait!”

Shep patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’re old friends.”

Much to my shock, and horror, Dolly marched right up to Moose, who’d gotten on his feet, and grabbed him by the ear.

“You come see what you did!” she snapped, dragging him back down the hill by his ear.

“Ouch! Ouch! I’ll fix it, okay? I’m sure I’ve got another engine block running around here somewhere,” Moose said.

“That ain’t the problem! Problem is, I got an injured man and no way to get him to your house,” Dolly complained, pulling him right up to the back of the van to see Caleb.

“Oh.” Moose rubbed the impressively wild stubble on his chin. His gray hair stood out in a cloud of frizz except for the top which was flattened in a way that indicated he usually wore a baseball cap. “I’ll go get my truck.”

“And fix a pothole or fifty while you’re at it! Lord God baby Jesus, it’s like you don’t even want visitors,” Dolly said.

“I don’t,” Moose grumbled but trudged off with his rifle just the same.

Dolly sat down on the back bumper with her arms folded. “One of these days, I’m gonna come here, and he’ll be wearin’ a tinfoil hat.”

“Pretty sure he’s got one in his kitchen,” Shep chuckled.

She reached back and swatted her son. “Don’t sass your elders.”

“Sorry, Ma,” Shep replied contritely. But his lips were still twitching behind her back.

Caleb had stopped making noise, but I could tell from the slight tremble in his body that he was in a lot of pain. I tried distracting McKenzie from it, but she’d seen it, too, and wouldn’t stop staring at her father. No doubt we were both willing him to get through it. And praying Moose really did have ‘the good stuff.’

Jacey laid next to him, holding his hand.

Dolly glanced back every once in a while as the minutes passed and cursed Moose under her breath.

Shep sat up suddenly. “There he is!”

Sure enough, a beat-up, yet high-riding, pickup truck came lumbering down the dirt road, mowing over potholes as though they didn’t even exist.

Dolly jumped down off the bumper. “Took you long enough!”

“I had to pick up a few things.” Moose descended from the cab and fished around the back seat. He came up with a cloth bag that he brought into the back of the van. He knelt down next to Caleb and zipped the back open to reveal a few syringes and a vial of very pale yellow liquid. “Morphine,” he explained to us as he readied a syringe.

“Thank you,” Jacey said softly.

Moose nodded. “What happened to him?”

“He was burned a bit and hit by a bunch of shrapnel when a bomb went off,” Jacey explained. She held up her own bandaged arm. “He jumped on top of me so I didn’t get hurt.”

“Good man,” Moose said. “You’ll feel a bit of a pinch, but I’ll bet that’s the least of your worries right now.” He injected Caleb efficiently and without a moment of hesitation.

Very quickly, Caleb relaxed.

“There we go. All right, we’ve gotta get him in the flatbed. I see two strapping men here about to volunteer for duty.” Moose’s tone brooked no argument.

“Yes, sir,” Shep replied.

“Absolutely,” I said, reluctantly letting go of McKenzie so I could help.

“Sir,” Moose added.

“What?” I responded, confused.

“Son, you call me ‘sir,’” Moose said firmly.

I straightened up. “Of course, sir.”

“Good. Now let’s get this man back to the house.”