The Remedy Read Online Free Page B

done.”
    Marshall leaned over and stuck his head over Alex’s shoulder. “Sorry, dude. We totally didn’t see you.”
    The stranger’s eyes scanned the surrounding wilderness. “I do suppose I kind of blend in around here, don’t I?”
    “Or maybe you shouldn’t have been standing so close to the road,” Rob grumbled just quietly enough that only those in the van could hear his complaint.
    “You hitchin’?” Marshall yelled over to the young man.
    “I guess you could call it that,” he answered. “Though you’re the only car I’ve seen all day.”
    Eliza rolled down her window. “Where you headed?”
    “Burlington, or thereabouts anyway. Back to school.”
    “No shit,” Alex spoke up. “What school?”
    “JCV.”
    Even in the back of the van, Leigh could hear Rob mumble, “What a surprise.” JCV stood for the Junior College of Vermont. Rob, in typical fashion, must have taken one look at their new friend and assumed he wasn’t university material. Leigh wanted to berate Rob for his condescending remark, but Marshall beat her to it.
    “Hey, watch your mouth!” Marshall shot Rob a dirty look but it soon changed to his trademark mischievous smile when he added, “I may have an idea.” He turned back to the kid standing outside. “So, are you from this neck of the woods?”
    He nodded. “Yeah…more or less.”
    “But you know this area, right?”
    “I suppose I do.” The boy looked around as if he could confirm that statement by checking the familiarity of the surrounding wilderness.
    “Well then,” Marshall said as he extended his hand outward and waved the stranger forward. “Maybe we can help each other.”
    “Whoa!” Rob spun in his seat and grabbed Marshall’s arm. “Hold on. What the hell are you talking about?”
    Leigh watched as Marshall discreetly lifted up the bag of marijuana and gave Rob a wink. “I think we found the answer to our little import problem.”
    Rob’s furrowed brow and frown immediately flipped into a foolish grin.
    Alex, too, caught on right away. She whispered, “Ooh, nice thinking, baby.”
    Leigh wasn’t exactly certain what her cohorts were plotting, but it was obvious it involved this unknown man. While Leigh wouldn’t have called herself a distrusting person, putting her future in the hands of someone they knew absolutely nothing about seemed to fall short of intelligent.
    “Hey, wait!” Leigh tried to call from the backseat, unsure as to what exactly she was objecting to. “We should…think about this.”
    But as the words were leaving her mouth, the stranger reached the van and leaned on the sliding door frame. Viewing him from this close up, Leigh had to second-guess herself. Perhaps she had read one too many thriller novels in her life, heard one too many urban legends at the sleepovers of her adolescence. This clearly wasn’t the hitchhiker of campfire tales, dressed all in black and brandishing a hook for a hand. On the contrary, Leigh could only think of one way to describe the college kid who stood against their van:
    He seems nice enough
.
    As if to further suggest this point, the boy raised the brim of his cap, lifting the heavy shadow from his eyes. “What’d you folks have in mind?”
    Alex flashed her perfectly white teeth. “Why don’t you get in and we’ll tell you
allll
about it.”
    “Whoa!” Rob raised a hand toward the boy like a Force-wielding Jedi, apparently less trusting than Alex, to Leigh’s relief. “Now just hold up there, pal. We haven’t exactly voted on anything yet.”
    Leigh found herself surprised to be siding with Rob for the first time since meeting him. While he and Marshall seemed to have been on the same page before, Rob hadn’t considered that the plan would involve giving something to this outsider in return, even something as mundane as a ride. That, of course, was in direct violation of the “asshole code,” which clearly stated one should never fall victim to the follies of