Page 9 of Run Away With Me

‘Well, I don’t have a huge amount of cash,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should get some money out near here, then ditch them?’

‘There’s cameras at ATMs, though.’

‘Does it matter? Once we have the cash, it’s not traceable. All they’ll know is that we took it out.’

Brooke stared at me, and I wondered whether she had put mascara on. Her eyelashes were so dark, and so long,showing off her beautiful eyes. Then her lips stretched into a smirk.

‘You’re outrageous.’

‘I’m not,’ I said quickly. No one had ever called me outrageous. I liked it, even though she was wrong.

‘Audacious.’

‘Definitely not that.’

Brooke laughed brightly. ‘Okay. We should drive somewhere, go to an ATM and draw out a shitload of cash, then double back and keep heading down to Disney World.’

‘Why Disney World?’

‘Why not? You’ve never been.’

‘It’s a long way from Seattle,’ I murmured.

‘Exactly.’ Brooke leaned back in her seat, like that settled it.

Maybe it did.

We got back in the Mustang and Brooke drove around until she found a strip mall with multiple ATMs in the parking lot. I got out of the car and walked in one direction, toward CVS because I’d left my toothbrush behind in the motel bathroom and I needed a new one, and Brooke went in the other direction, to the grocery store.

Just walking across a parking lot made me feel like a felon on the run, like every pair of eyes was on me, even though I was under no illusions. Actually, I was a nondescript teenage girl giving no one a reason to look at her. That didn’t stop my heart beating up into my throat, like it had yesterday when I was walking to the bus station.

Only yesterday? Time moved fast.

The drugstore was relatively empty in the middle of the day, and I tried to act normal. What did normal girls do in CVS? Look at makeup? I only ever wore makeup to cover up bruises, scars or zits, and I always felt conspicuous when I tried on my mom’s bright lipstick, so I never bothered with it. I browsed the aisles under the fake fluorescent glow of bright white lights, threw powder and concealer into my basket, then went looking for toothbrushes. At the checkout line I picked up two Snapples and a bag of chips and waited for the woman in front of me to be finished.

‘Hey,’ the cashier said as I walked up to her counter.

‘Hi.’

I looked around as she scanned and packed my stuff, checking out where the CCTV cameras were. They’d already caught me, I was sure of that, so there was no point in trying to hide now.

‘Forty-two twenty-six is your total.’

‘Thanks.’ I swiped the card and watched the screen on the card reader for it to clear.

The machine beeped.

My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard, hoping my famously bad lying wouldn’t expose me now. We had only just crossed the border into Oregon. If the cashier called for security, then the Seattle police would be able to get here in no time.

‘Can I see it?’ the girl asked, and I couldn’t find any reason to tell her no.

‘It’s my stepdad’s card,’ I said with a shrug, playing it cool.

The Creep wasn’t my stepdad, he was just my mom’s scummy boyfriend who liked to smack me around. Explaining all that took time, and was way too personal, so ‘stepdad’ was a useful shortcut, even though I hated giving him that title.

‘Huh. It’s coming up with a code I don’t know and saying to call your card provider. You wanna call him?’

‘He’s at work,’ I said apologetically. The lie was far preferable to the cold reality that I was avoiding thinking about. ‘He’ll get pissed if I call him now. I’ve got cash …’ I didn’t want to spend it, though, not when I’d picked up a bunch of junk I didn’t really want or need.

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