Sold My Ex For A Bounty

The first time I took a boyfriend home, the road grew narrower, the trees grew thicker, and the air grew heavy with the smell of damp earth and isolation.

He grew terrified.

As we approached the Border Patrol checkpoint near the jagged edge of the South Texas brush, he did something I never expected: he leaped out of the moving truck. He scrambled toward the officers, sobbing, clutching a bewildered agents tactical vest, screaming that I was trying to sell him into a cartel labor camp.

After that, I stopped telling people where I grew up.

Then came the new guy. Three months in, he told me he wanted to take me to his hometown. I handed him my ID, my phone, and a smile of twenty-four-karat trust.

When I opened my eyes and saw the sun-bleached, lawless cluster of shacks near the Mexican bordera place where the law ends and the "disappeared" beginI didn't scream. I smiled.

If you dont hunt me, I wont hunt you.

But if you try to sell me? Ill sell you back to the devil ten thousand times over.

1.

After we hopped off the cross-country bus, I told him the itinerary: a Greyhound, a local shuttle, a rusted-out van, a couple of dirt bikes, and finally, a literal horse-drawn cart. If we timed it right, wed hit his "home" by 9:00 PM.

My boyfriends face was ashen, a sickly shade of gray beneath his designer stubble, but he managed a weary, trembling smile.

"Babe," he whispered. "Were serious about each other, right? This is... this is really your familys place?"

"Of course," I said, patting his hand. "Youll see when we get there."

He seemed even more terrified now. Maybe it was the sheer scale of the mountains, the way they loomed over us like silent judges. It was a little bit overwhelming, I suppose.

The van was nearly empty, bouncing violently over the unpaved ruts. A few locals sat in the back, speaking a thick, melodic Tex-Mex dialect that tasted of dust and tequila. One guy with a full sleeve of tattooslets call him Big Rickstarted chatting with his buddy. Thinking my city-boy boyfriend couldn't understand a word, they began openly mocking his thin frame and soft hands.

Rick even reached out and squeezed my boyfriends bicep, tsk-tsking with a patronizing smirk. You dont need a translator to know what a "tsk" means. Its the universal sound for pathetic.

I glared at the man, snapping a warning in the same sharp, local dialect. Rick grunted and went silent, looking out the window.

I slept through the next leg of the trip. My boyfriend, however, couldn't even blink. He stared out the window as if he were looking for a sniper. When I finally drifted awake, I saw him frantically sending his GPS location to his mother. Probably describing the "rustic charm" of the wilderness.

It was the hottest part of the afternoon. Not a single living thing moved in the brush. The road was a mess of jagged limestone and red clayour local specialtyso the van couldn't go more than twenty miles per hour. Through the cracked windshield, I saw a tattered American flag snapping in the wind ahead.

My boyfriend suddenly nudged me. "Hey, Nora... give me your ID. Ill keep it for you."

"You lose everything, babe. Its safer in my bag."

He insisted, his voice tight. "No, really. Let me hold onto it. For safekeeping."

I dug through my messy tote bag, grumbling about how hard it was to find. "Just let me keep it, okay? Its buried in here."

"Babe, just find it. We have so much gear; I don't want it getting crushed or lost in the shuffle."

After a minute of digging, I fished it out and handed it over.

His voice instantly loosened. "Its so stifling in here. Im going to crack the window... I feel a bit carsick."

My heart went out to him. I reached over and helped him slide the heavy glass pane all the way back.

The next second, he moved like a panicked animal. He gripped the frame, swung his legs out, and threw himself out of the moving van.

Good God!

The mountain road was a jagged mess of rocks. One wrong move and hed be a collection of broken bones.

"Stop! Stop the car!" I screamed at the driver. "My guy just jumped out!"

"Dont run!" I shrieked at my limping boyfriend, who was already scrambling into the brush. "Come back!"

The more I called out to him with genuine concern, the faster he ran on that twisted ankle. Honestly, I hadn't seen him move that fast when we were training for a 5K last spring.

Luckily, he ran straight toward a Border Patrol station. I caught up to him, breathless, only to find him clutching a burly, confused agent. He was practically buried in the mans chest, refusing to let go.

"Officer, you have to save me! Its her! They... theyre human traffickers! All of them!"

I stood there, stunned. My house was a little remote, sure. And yes, it was uncomfortably close to the lawless border zones. But how did he manage to hallucinate a quiet Ivy League grad like me into a cartel boss?

The agents checked our IDs. They checked the van. They even knew the driverhed lived there for forty years. But it didn't matter.

My boyfriend insisted on staying at the station. He called his parents to come drive twelve hours to "rescue" him.

I looked at him, disgusted. "Youre a grown man. Have some backbone!"

He wouldn't even meet my eye. He just kept muttering the same thing: "The mountains are too scary. I want to go home."

That night, I walked into my house empty-handed. My parents looked up from the table. "Wheres the boy?"

I sighed. "He jumped out of a window and ran away."

They didn't say anything. They just piled an extra mountain of brisket onto my plate.

After dinner, my older brother, Silas, stared out at the dark, looming silhouettes of the peaks. "Don't sweat it, Nora," he said. "Thats only your first one. Ive had three girlfriends ditch me before we even hit the county line."

Well, at least I wasn't the only one.

When the holidays ended, I went back to the city. I planned to lock my heart away forever. But, being the fool I am, I fell in love again.

Three months in, my new boyfriend, Lucas, suggested we go to his hometown.

"Babe, you really don't mind that Im from the middle of nowhere? Youre willing to go back there with me?"

"Of course I don't mind," I said, showing him my 24K trust. "Lets buy the tickets today. We leave tomorrow!"

I made sure he knew I had absolute faith in him. After all, it's a civilized country. How many criminals could there really be?

"Here," I said, handing him everything. "My ID, my ticket, my phone. You keep them all. I trust you completely."

2.

After we got off the bus, Lucas repeated the same grueling itinerary: shuttle, van, dirt bike, horse-cart. He told me wed arrive around 9:00 PM.

I nodded obediently. "Sure. Im going to sleep in the van. Don't wake me up."

He saw how chill I was and rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Don't worry, babe. Get some rest. Ive got everything handled."

Ever since the last heartbreak, Id been playing a part. I didn't use my local slang; I spoke with the polished, neutral accent of a news anchor. I even took a speech elective to perfect it.

I was committed to being a "city girl."

Lucas thought I grew up in some cookie-cutter suburb. I used that persona to prove I was "open-minded" and "didn't look down on rural folks." I figured Id wait to see just how remote his place was before I told him I was basically his neighbor.

The van jolted over the rugged mountain passes. I leaned my head on Lucass shoulder and pretended to snore.

Besides the driver, a guy named Bo, wed picked up another couple. The guy mentioned his family lived somewhere out in the sticks, too.

As we drove, the landscape began to look familiar. My heart started racing with excitement. This was my town!

Wait... was Lucas a scholarship kid from the next valley over? I remembered hearing about a guy whod gotten into a top-tier school a year before me. No way. Could it be?

He was the "golden boy" from Cattle Creek. I was the "smart girl" from Devils Ridge.

It was destiny! My mother would never have to worry about a boyfriend looking down on our dusty little corner of the world again. I couldn't stop grinning.

The other girl in the van, Sadie, looked miserable. From the moment she boarded, shed been white-knuckling her backpack, her face pale and drawn.

She reminded me of my ex.

To lighten the mood, I looked out at the rolling blue ridges. "Lucas, growing up here must have been amazing. Im so jealous."

Lucass jaw twitched. He didn't answer.

Bo, the driver with the blurred tattoos, caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He and Lucas exchanged a looka silent, confused question: Does this girl seriously like this hellhole?

"How much longer?" Sadies voice was brittle.

"Almost there," her boyfriend, Cody, said. "Just over the next ridge. Then we switch to the cart for the final stretch."

"A cart?" Sadies voice spiked. "You said your family lived right outside the city!"

The air in the van turned to ice.

I tried to play peacemaker. "Hey, the country is great! Fresh air, honest people. Don't worry, Sadie. It's not like both our boyfriends are secretly human traffickers, right?"

3.

Across the valley, past the river that marked the border, you could see the flickering lights of the "no-man's-land" villages. The van we were in even had some faded Spanish lettering on the dashboard that looked like it belonged to a cartel transport.

As soon as the words left my mouth, the temperature in the van dropped another ten degrees.

Sadie went ghost-white. She stared at Cody. "Give me my ID. Now."

"Stop being dramatic," Cody said, trying to grab her hand. She shoved him away.

"Give it to me!"

Bo slammed on the brakes. Everyone lurched forward. "Were here."

We were in a clearing halfway up a ridge. A battered old horse-cart sat there, an old man with a hunched back holding the reins. Usually, these carts were for farmers selling produce, gathered under the giant oak tree in town where everyone shared news. But this was isolated. Just one cart. Waiting.

"Im not going," Sadie said, backing away. "I want to go home."

The smile vanished from Codys face. "Don't be difficult."

"There are no road signs," she whispered, her voice trembling. "And now a horse-cart? Nora, don't you think this is weird?"

I tried to soothe her. "Well... some of these mountain hollers are really deep in. Were still on the US side of the river, Sadie. Its okay!"

When she heard that, her eyes filled with pure despair. She turned to run back toward the main road.

Cody lunged, grabbing her around the waist. She started screaming.

Bo cursed and reached under his seat for a tattered rag.

The next thing I knew, Lucas caught the rag Bo tossed and pressed it hard over my nose and mouth.

It happened so fast. Before the darkness took me, I saw Bo and Cody hoisting a limp Sadie onto the cart.

Damn it. This was embarrassing.

I was being kidnapped in my own backyard. My Ivy League degree was about to be canceled out by the sheer humiliation of being sold three miles from my uncles house.

Right before I went under, I heard Lucas mutter: "This ones a college grad. We can get fifteen grand for her, easy."

4.

When I opened my eyes, I was in Cattle Creek.

Well, at least I wasn't being sold in my own village. I was being sold right in front of my uncles place instead.

Sadie was gonetaken somewhere else. Lucas and Bo had me tied up, and they dumped me unceremoniously onto the dirt from the cart.

It was pitch black, but I recognized the stone marker at the edge of the village.

Bo was itching for a cigarette. "Go ahead," he told Lucas. "Im gonna go see my girl for a few days. Catch up with me when the deals done."

Lucas nodded. "Don't get yourself killed over some woman."

Bo grinned, looking me up and down. "Youre the one whos always so disciplined. Why not have some fun before we ship her off? Look at Cody and the other girl..."

"Forget it," Lucas snapped. "His girl is worth five grand. Mine is worth fifteen. No comparison."

Bo left, and Lucas dragged me toward a small shack.

"Don't even think about running," he hissed. "These mountains are a maze. Youll never find your way out without me. If you want to make this easy on yourself, do what the buyer says. Youll get beaten less that way."

"Is Lucas even your real name? Was our whole relationship just a long con to sell me?" I asked, giving him the 'soul-searching' triple question. He ignored me.

"You know youre breaking the law, right? If I keep my job in the city, I can make eighty thousand a year. Youre selling me for fifteen? Youre a terrible businessman."

He laughed. "Youd give me eighty thousand? I can make fifteen in a day. Youre the college graddo the math."

I nodded slowly. "Got it. Youre right."

Since hed made up his mind to sell me, I didn't need to be polite anymore.

He looked at me suspiciously. He couldn't understand why I wasn't sobbing or screaming. "Why aren't you scared?"

"Ive always loved the mountains," I said calmly. "Being here... it feels like coming home. Like I finally belong."

He stared at me, looking like hed just swallowed a fly. I could see the thought crossing his mind: Is she brain-damaged?

We walked a bit further, and I saw a familiar wooden flagpole by the road. As a kid, Id spent every summer terrorizing this village with my cousins. Cattle Creek still whispered legends about methe girl who climbed onto the roof of the general store to catch the mayor cheating with a local widow.

The boy whod climbed up there with me was my loyal sidekickJosh.