It’s a start. And right now a start, a direction, is all I need. I’m tired of running from what I don’t know.
But the problems with my plan begin to mount almost as soon as Malcolm stops trying to walk away.
Namely, he can’t walk. Not well, at any rate, and definitely not far. Plus walking to my grandfather—who lives in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania—is not an option. I don’t know where Mom drove us, but as far as she could get us in a night is a safebet.
“Columbus, Ohio,” Malcolm says when I ask.
Okay.
That’s not too bad. It may be two states away from our home in Bridgeton, New Jersey, but it’s only one from my grandfather.
And if my mom could drive it in one night, so can I.
I just need a car.
I don’t have a car. Malcolm doesn’t have a car. Or he does, but not currently. I also don’t have enough money. Mom left with whatever money she may have had. I’ve got maybe twenty bucks on me, and Malcolm doesn’t even have the fifty he tried to bluff the motel manager with, a fact he almost cheerfully informs me of when I ask.
Aiden has a beat-up Dodge Ram that could probably plow straight through the woods behind us, along with anything else that got in its way. Right now, he thinks I stood him up, ghosted him, but he’d still answer if I called. And he’d come. Even if I told him it was dangerous, he’d try to help.
Because he’s a good guy. And he cares about me. Or he did. Maybe he hates me a little bit right now, but he’d still come if I needed help.
And I care about him too much to even consider lettinghim.
Mom thought she’d stashed me somewhere safe, at the motel, and they found me. If these people found our home, then they can find our friends. Better they hate me than get hurt because of me.
“We’ll just have to pawn something,” I say, seizing the faint memory of passing a pawnshop not too far down the road.
“Yeah, and what’s that? My bloody hoodie or your torn jeans?”
“You don’t have anything?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t find my diamonds when you frisked me before? I always keep some on me.” He starts patting his pockets, an exaggerated frown on his face.
I don’t have the energy for this. Of course he doesn’t have anything of value on him. He was bound and gagged in a trunk for as many days as I was pacing my motel room.
“What aboutthat?” Malcolm nods at the chain around my neck, and the ring hidden beneath my shirt, which I’d been unknowingly clutching. I tighten my hold.
“No.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the ring my dad proposed to my mom with, and it’s fake anyway, so…” It might be fake in the sense that it’s costume jewelry, but it’s worth more than any real diamond ever would be to me.
“I didn’t have time to find out anything about him, but you said he’s dead? Any chance your mom lied about that too?”
I shake my head. I was at the funeral. I was little, only four, but I remember the scratchy stockings I had to wear, and that Mom didn’t cry until we got back home, when I found her sobbing on the kitchen floor over the ring I now clutched. We cried together.
Vivid memories crash over me, sapping what little energy I have left.
“You think this part is hard? Wait till we have to sneak into a building that I can guarantee has papered its walls with your picture by now,” Malcolm says.
Every part has been hard. Every. Part. I’m flirting with a complete mental and physical breakdown. Fear is the only thing driving my body, and my brain is ready to surrender control. I’m already thinking how easy it would be to slide to the ground and hug my knees and shut down.
But I can’t do that. Not yet.
I suck in a deep breath.
Money.
