I woke a few hours later to find her fully dressed, sitting on the bed across from me. I felt a little better, but I still felt terrible.
“What time is it?” My mouth felt like I’d been sucking on a cotton ball.
She looked over at me. “It’s going on ten. We have an hour, and we have to check out. Are you feeling well enough to hit the road?”
I pushed the blankets away and groaned as I sat up.
“I have to,” I said.
“We can stay for another night if you need.”
I shook my head. We needed to keep moving.
“You drive. I’ll sleep in the backseat. Deal?”
She nodded.
I was moving slowly, but I managed to get up, shower, and get dressed. I brushed my teeth and took a couple of Tylenol. I sat on the edge of the bed to pull on my shoes. Then I grabbed my wallet off the bedside table. My busted phone was sitting there, plugged in.
“Did it ever turn on?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t try. I just plugged it in.”
I pulled the cord from the charging port and grabbed the phone, holding the power button down on the side, but it did nothing. Shrugging, I just slid it into my pocket as I stood.
“Alright. Let’s get going.”
I climbed into the backseat of the car, and she took my usual place behind the wheel. I noticed she’d added another bag to the backseat floorboards.
“Where did you get the bag?” I mumbled, my stomach still upset.
“There’s a shopping center down the road. I got us some new clothes and a few other things. Snacks and this.” She reached out and handed me an electrolyte drink.
I took it and gulped greedily at it before capping it and placing it into the cup holder and closing my eyes.
I was asleep within minutes of her driving.
I slept off and on for many hours as she drove. Since I was lying in the backseat, I had no idea where we were or what was going on around us. It wasn’t like it really mattered, though, since we were just trying to get as far away from our mess as we could. I knew we needed to start making a plan and get rid of the stolen car we were in, but I didn’t have the energy to give that any thought. We’d already had the car for a few days. I didn’t know whether it had been reported stolen, but if it had, we wanted to be far enough away that the police hadn’t heard about the missing car.
In small towns, stolen cars were big news, with all the local police hunting them down. But in the bigger cities, stolen cars were a dime a dozen. It was impossible for the police to remember every single one that had been reported stolen. As long as you didn’t draw any attention to yourself by breaking laws, you usually slid right through. And that’s what I was counting on to get us through another day or two.
“I’m going to stop and use the bathroom,” Crash said, glancing over at me.
I nodded. “Yeah, I could use a stop too.”
“How are you feeling?”
“A little better. That’s the last fucking time I get meatloaf from a diner.”
She chuckled. “Now you see why I stick with chicken strips.”
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples as the car veered right and began to slow. I knew we’d be getting to the gas station soon, and I needed to stretch my legs. I’d been wadded up intoa ball for too long. I was thirsty and slightly hungry, but I didn’t know if I could trust myself to put anything other than fluids into my body yet. The last thing I wanted was to eat something and end up throwing up in the car the second we got back on the highway.
She pulled into the gas station and climbed out to pump the gas. I wanted to take it slow, so I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. When I let my hands fall from my eyes, my vision was blurry for a moment, but the second it cleared, I caught sight of the black SUV that was parked in front of the building.
“Fuck,” I muttered, hiding myself behind the driver’s headrest. I kept my eyes on the SUV, waiting to see if they were following us.
Crash climbed back into the car. “Do you want to go inside for anything?”
