Read Online Losing Faith by Jeremy Asher - Free Book Online Page B

woman’s lap. His face and groin throbbed. “What happened?” The woman looked toward the front seat.
    Frank was in the driver’s seat, and when he turned toward Seth, the frown he wore said it all. “You feeling all right, buddy?”
    Seth sat up, and the throbbing increased. “I think so. What happened?”
    “Well, you were attacked. But don’t worry. This woman was kind enough to help you. She’s a nurse.”
    Seth looked at the woman. “Thank you. Wait, I remember you.”
    “You do?”
    “From the airport. Your daughter wanted a picture.”
    She smiled. “Yes, that’s us.”
    Seth turned to the front passenger seat and saw the doe-eyed teenager staring at him. He nodded. “Hi.” She didn’t respond. What had happened to the energetic, love-sick girl he had met at the airport? Nothing was making sense.
    “Who attacked me?”
    Frank raised a hand, as if waving away the thought. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is that you’re okay.”
    Seth grabbed the side of his face and felt a lump the size of a plum. “I remember that we stopped to help someone. A car was broken down on the side of the road.” He turned to the front of the car and saw the car still in its headlights’ beams. “That’s the car! I remember. I walked up to it and tapped on the window. Then…” He turned to the woman next to him and backed away from her until he felt the door. “It was you! You attacked me.”
    She placed a hand over her mouth. “About that. I’m really, really sorry I did that to you.”
    “Sorry! You could have killed me! Who does that to people who are trying to help them?”
    “I thought you were someone else. I really am sorry.”
    “Someone else? Who? Freddy Krueger?”
    “Someone like that,” she replied.
    “Who’s Freddy Krueger?” her daughter asked.
    “All right. All right. Let’s calm down,” Frank said. “The important thing is that everyone is fine.”
    “Fine?” Seth pointed to his damaged areas. “You call this fine? I call this assault.”
    “Sweetie, Freddy Krueger is a bad man in the movies. He’s not real.”
    “Oh, so he’s like the boogeyman?”
    The woman nodded.
    “Excuse me,” Seth said. “I hate to interrupt your fictional bad guy lesson here, but can we get back to the part where you assaulted me?”
    “Technically, it was self-defense,” Frank chimed in.
    “How can you call it self-defense when there was nothing to DEFEND?”
    Silence filled the car. Seth took a few deep breaths.
    “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, looking down at his groin, “for uh, for hurting you. It was dark. We were stranded and…and I—”
    “Thought you were Tuck,” her daughter interrupted.
    “Who’s Tuck?” Frank asked.
    “He’s no one,” the woman answered. She shot her daughter a look. “My imagination just got away from me. My car is dead. It’s dark out. And the storm had me a little spooked.”
    Seth knew there was more to her story than she was telling them, but whatever it was, he didn’t have time for it. “Whatever. Let’s just get going. What’s the plan?” he asked, rubbing his face. “Do you have someone you can call?”
    “No. We were on our way to Indiana to visit my mother.”
    “We’re heading there, too,” Frank told them.
    Seth couldn’t believe what was happening. Feeling like he was trapped on train tracks with no way off, he listened helplessly as Frank offered to take them to Indiana. He looked for his guitar case, needing to see the photograph of Faith. “Where’s my guitar?”
    “I had to put it in the trunk to make room.”
    Seth turned toward the teen and scowled. “Of course you did.” He looked out at the storm raging right outside his window. “We should probably get going. We stick around much longer and we’ll be plowed in. Let’s get this Malibu of misfit toys moving.”
    The woman let out a laugh and quickly stifled it by covering her mouth. She held out her hand. My name’s Trista.”
    Seth shook