Lone Girl (The Wolfling Saga) (8 page)

“Let me go,” I said breathlessly.

“No,” he panted.

“Tom,” I hissed, kicking my leg until he released me from his grip.  I fell to the dirt with a thud, but I managed to break my fall with my hands. It hurt – and my palms were grazed and bleeding from the fall. However, I barely noticed as I scrambled to my feet and looked around.

I was behind the motel, which backed onto an empty field that was surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence. The gap between the Motel and the fence was no more than a few feet wide. The car was parked at the end of the small alley – hidden from sight by passing motorists.

Tom’s face appeared in the window. “What are you
doing
?”

“Meet me by the front door. I’ll honk. Okay?” I didn’t wait for his
response; instead I began to run down the narrow strip.

“What? Rose! Come back! No!”

I sprinted along the narrow pathway, which was littered with empty beer bottles, needles and used condoms. Clearly a spot for getting up to no good. How many other people had escaped from the police through this alley?

Reaching the end of the path I saw the car parked in the adjacent lot. I fumbled with the keys in my pocket, pulling them out with a shaking hand. It took several second
s to jam the key into the door.

Swinging the door open, I threw myself into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Now came the tricky part – the part that would get me into a lot of trouble if it didn’t pan out the way I hoped.

This had to be the
most stupid thing I’d done in my entire life.

Dust flew into the air
and the tyres screeched as they spun on the dirt. The rear of the car kicked out as my foot slammed the accelerator to the floor.

I swivelled the steering wheel, mounting the pavement and flying around the corner towards room twelve.

A few yards ahead, Police officers stared in disbelief as the old Ford Escort barrelled towards them. They shouted and grabbed their pistols, but there was no time to shoot out the wheels. I held the horn down as I approached them at speed and they were forced to jump out of the car’s way.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I yelled to myself. Numbness had taken over my body. “What the fuck am I doing?”

I slammed on the breaks and the tyres screeched against the concrete. I stopped right outside number twelve – the passenger door a mere foot away from the motel door.

Tom was quick.

He flung the motel door open and paused outside for the briefest moment. Gun shots fired before he leapt into the passenger seat.

I slammed my foot
onto the accelerator before Tom had closed the car door and we disembarked the pavement with a jolt. However, in my panic I hadn’t see the support beam ahead and the passenger side door was torn from its hinges.

“Rose!” Tom gasped, grabbing the dashboard and holding on for dear life.

“Sorry!”

Tom momentarily fumbled with his seatbelt, as to not be
thrown from the vehicle. His face was pained and sweaty.

The car
reached the dusty road at speed, causing Tom to hit his head on the ceiling.

“Fuck
!” Tom cursed loudly. I didn’t look at him.

In my rear-view mirror I could see the police
men running back to their vehicles and jumping in.

“They are
not
having you,” I said, my knuckles white upon the steering wheel. “It’s my fault they found us and I’m going to fix it.”

“Jesus Christ, Rose,” sai
d Tom. His voice was strained and panicked.

He was shell-shocked, I knew it. But what was I meant to do? I wouldn’t have him taken away from me. Not again.

I shifted the car into its highest gear. Behind us the sirens sounded as the police pursued us. The engine of the Ford Escort whined piteously as it was forced to drive at speeds it wasn’t accustomed to.

We barrelled along the highway at eighty miles an hour.

“Rose,” Tom groaned. “It’s not-”

“It is,” I interrupted him, knowing what he was about to say. “It
is
my job to keep you safe.”

“No,” h
e said through clenched teeth.

“
You asked me to run with you,” I interrupted again. “So that’s what I’m doing.”

I didn’t need Tom to lecture me. He wasn’t my teacher anymore.
I ignored him and kept my foot to the floor, the car gaining speed every second and the rev indicator red-lining.

“Rose,
pull over,” Tom pleaded with me. He tried to grab the wheel and the car swerved dangerously to the right.

“Tom!” I
growled, re-establishing my grip on the steering wheel. “Don’t you dare!”

He stared at me, fear in his eyes.
“Rose,” he breathed in disbelief. “We’ll never outrun them.”

The police-car
s were hot on our tail. He was right, of course. I’d made an incredibly stupid move, thinking I could escape. But I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

“Please, Rose. If you pull over now, I’ll … I’ll tell them I forced you to – to run. I’ll say I kidnapped you
and you panicked. Okay? It’ll be fine, I promise,” he said through laboured breaths.

The very idea of allowing Tom to do such a thing angered me, but made me sad at the same time. He’d give himself up if it meant keeping me out of harms way. But what had he expected?

We passed a road sign that said the next exit was in one mile. My grip tightened on the wheel and my foot remained pressed to the floor.

The exit loomed into sight and I narrowed my gaze, concentrating. I was not an excellent driver by any means; I’d barely had my license for twelve months. 

The Ford Escort whined as we sped along the highway, getting closer to the off-ramp every second. Tom anticipated my next move and clung to the edges of his seat. He groaned, as though pained.

I turned the steering wheel at the last second and barrelled along the exit, the car swerving dangerously and the tyres smoking.

The car screamed as though it was in pain, but I showed no mercy. We sped along the exit until a set of lights came into view ahead of us.

“Slow down! It’s an orange light!”
Tom gasped.

I didn’t slow down. We roared along the road, getting closer to the intersection every second.

Behind us, the police had just turned onto the same exit. 

Tom covered his eyes
and I screamed as the lights turned red a split second before we zoomed through the intersection. The timing was perfect; we made it through before any other cars crossed the intersection.

We were now
speeding through a town slightly larger than Halfway. In the distance I saw a shopping mall with a giant sign that said ‘P’ for parking.

I had an idea.

The police cars had fallen back a little bit; they’d gone through the intersection much slower than we had as a safety precaution. After all, the traffic was against them now. 

“Where are you going?” Tom asked, sweat beading on his brow.

I pointed to the mall up ahead.

Tom looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “This isn’t the time to stop for a bit of shopping,” he said.

“We’re going to stop in the under-cover parking lot and get out,” I said.

“What? Why?” asked Tom.

It was probably the most stupid idea I’d had so far.

“We’re going to take a different car,” I said. “And drive past the cops in the opposite direction while they’re still scouring the parking lot for us-”

“Fucking hell, Rose. You want to
steal
a car?” It seemed my crazy idea was the last straw. “No. You’re only making things worse. You don’t even know how to steal a car! I’ll let them catch me-”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You can’t go back to jail – you’ll get killed by the next full moon.”

“If that’s what I have to do to stop you from getting locked away, then I’ll do it.”

The sound of the engine was magnified as we sped through the car park. Heads turned in our direction, followed by looks of curiosity. The police sirens could be heard in the distance;
they would be entering the parking lot any second now.

I weaved through the empty
spaces, heading for the back of the lot.

“There!” yelled Tom, pointing forwards. “Right next to the elevator!”

“Too obvious,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said. “They’ll expect us to be in the mall if we park next to the elevator.”

My eyes snapped to Tom. “Do you mean – are you – will we?”

His chest rose and fell rapidly. “Grand theft auto? Yeah.”

I did as he said and parked the car right beside the elevator that took customers into the mall above.

Getting out of the car I noticed that Tom was limping.

“Why are you-” I began to ask, but he waved it aside.

“Don’t worry. Just go.”

Tom took my hand and together we began to run through the parking lot, our shoes slapping loudly against the concrete, though they were soon drowned out by the sound of sirens. Tom’s limping slowed us down considerably.

Up ahead was a
pickup truck which had a tarp covering the load in the bed. 

“Follow me,” said T
om, crouching low and moving stealthily towards the rear of the truck, between the other vehicles.

As we crouched behind the
pickup the sirens wailed throughout the car park.

“Won’t be long before they find us,” said Tom, peering over the truck.

“Let’s get in,” I said, hoisting myself into the
bed as silently as I could manage.

Tom followed quickly,
lying on his side so he wouldn’t be seen.

“Grab the tarp,” he told me.

I did as he said and pulled the stiff, blue fabric over our heads, throwing us into darkness. I lay beside Tom, my legs curled up so my knees pressed into my chest. I was breathing heavily and the lack of oxygen under the tarp made me feel claustrophobic.

“What if they check the
truck?” I whispered. “We’ll be trapped.”

“There are a lot of
pickups in this parking lot. It’s a country town.”

“So we just hope for the best?” This plan of hiding seemed more foolish by the second. Then again, fleeing in the first place had been rather stupid.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Tom hushed me urgently.

Suddenly, the sound of keys jingling was right beside the
bed of the truck.

Bang
.

Something heavy dropped into the
bed, right next to Tom’s head. Through a hole in the tarp I could see that it was two large barrels of pesticide. I could also spot a man in a red plaid shirt, but I couldn’t see his face as he unlocked the cab.

The owner of the
truck had finished his shopping.

“Shit, Tom. He’s getting in-”

“Shh,” Tom hushed me again.

The truck
sank a few inches with the weight of the driver added to the cab and a moment later the engine roared to life, wheezing and spluttering. It sounded as though it was on its last legs.

“What do we do?” I hissed. “Do we get out?”

“No, this is perfect,” said Tom. “He’ll drive us right out of here.”

I couldn’t help but think that today had turned int
o a scene from an action movie. What had my life become? Running away with criminals, car chases and stowaways. It had been the most eventful twenty-four hours of my life and yet it seemed so surreal as though I was watching these events unfold through another’s eyes.

With a crunch and a lurch, the
truck moved forward as the driver began weaving through the parking lot, unaware that he was accompanied by two stowaways.

“Is this really happening?” Tom asked me, his face pale. “Are we really leaving in the back of a stranger
’s truck?”

After a minute the sun streamed through the hole in the tarp, indicating that we were now outside.
The sirens sounded distant. We had slipped by them.

“I don’t believe it,” I breathed. “We got away from them.”

“Famous last words,” Tom muttered as he peeked through the tarp.

As the
truck trundled along I had no way of telling how much time had passed.

Ten minutes. Twenty.
It seemed like ages when curled in an uncomfortable position.

“How long have we been driving?” I asked Tom.

He shrugged. “Twenty minutes, maybe? I don’t have a watch.”

“Me either.”

“Cell phone?” Tom asked with a slight edge to his voice.

I quickly checked my p
hone, only to find that the battery had, at last, died.