I pushed through the door, and warmth hit me like a wall. The smell of fried food and coffee and gasoline clung to everything. The floor was sticky near the soda machines.
The guy behind the counter took one look at me and his face changed.
“Dude,” he said, voice sharp with concern. “You okay? You need help?”
“I need to borrow a phone,” I managed, voice shaking. “Mine’s dead.”
He didn’t ask questions. He grabbed his own cell and slid it across the counter.
My hands were trembling so hard it took two tries to dial.
I called Mason’s dad, Mr. Henson. He picked up on the third ring.
“Mr. Henson,” I said, swallowing pain, “it’s Blake. Something happened. I’m at a truck stop. Miller’s Travel Center.”
There was a pause, and then his voice went firm in a way that made my chest loosen a fraction.
“Stay inside,” he said. “Stay warm. We’re coming.”
He hung up.
The clerk poured me coffee and let me sit in a booth. I wrapped my hands around the cup even though it burned, because the heat grounded me. My whole body shook with delayed shock, and I kept glancing at the door like Dad might walk in and drag me out by my collar again.
About forty-five minutes later, Mason and his dad came through the door.
Mason’s face went white when he saw me.
“Blake,” he said, voice breaking.
Mr. Henson didn’t waste time. He took one look at my hands, my soaked clothes, my hunched posture protecting my ribs.
“We’re going to the ER first,” he said. “Then the sheriff’s station.”
Mason sat across from me. “Tell me everything.”
So I did.
The words came out in jagged pieces. The rent. The ambush. The drive. The grain elevator. The hits. The ditch. The storm.
Mr. Henson listened without interrupting. When I finished, he nodded once.
“We’re going to do this right,” he said. “Medical records first. Then we file a report. After that, we figure out next steps. But tonight, you’re staying with us. Understood?”
I nodded, throat too tight to speak.
The ER took almost four hours.
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