Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
What if I show them the money and they just take it and still bring me back to my uncle? “Okay. I'll prove it to you, just… Please don’t hurt me. Let me go and forget you ever saw me.”
Savage and Crank exchange glances, and neither of them look happy. My shoulders sag. Crank’s arms relax a little, enough for me to pull away. I do, but as stupid as it might seem, I immediately miss the feeling of being held.
“Honey, we're not doing this to be cruel.” Crank easily lifts the dresser that I struggled to drag across the floor and puts it back against the wall. “It's just business.”
That'd feel a lot better if it mattered at all. “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.”
“Pack your things.” Savage snaps. He looks pissed. “You don’t know shit about us, and we’re already giving you way more leeway than we should. I sleep like a fucking baby.”
I pack the little I've got in silence. All I have is some drug store toiletries, a cheap backpack, and clothes I thrifted after I ran. It looks pathetic all gathered together. Enough to last me a few days before I have to start washing stuff in the sink. Other than that, all I have is my wallet full of cards I was afraid to use, and a phone I’ve kept powered off in case someone could use it to track me.
“That's it?” Crank looks confused.
“I’m not exactly on vacation, you know?”
“But if you supposedly have all this money…” He trails off for me to explain.
“I had my reasons.” And right now I don’t trust these guys any farther than I can throw them. Which is exactly nowhere. Once my bag is filled, I toss it over my shoulder and give my little hideout a last look. It was good for a couple of days.
Back at the diner, Poe and Mike are talking next to a black van with a motorcycle trailer hitched behind it. Mike’s put his shotgun away, so I guess I'm not getting a miraculous rescue from him.
“Took you long enough,” Poe says as he sees us coming.
I glare at him, heading straight for Mike. “Listen, I don’t know what he said, but I'm not—”
He pinches his lips together. “I'm sorry Sarah. Or I guess I should call you Paige now. You seem like a nice enough girl, but they’re licensed and everything. I hope you get your life back on track, kiddo. Nothing I can do.” He throws his hands out apologetically, like he wants me to give him a hug for trying.
Blah blah blah. No help coming. I don’t blame Mike, but it’s hard to feel understanding at the moment. “They broke your door, by the way. Split it right down the middle. That’s not my fault. They wouldn’t wait for me to unlock it.”
Savage’s expression looks caught between pissed off and amused. “I'll pay for it,” he grumbles.
“In you go.” Poe opens the back door of the van to reveal a couple of bench seats and not much else.
Crank fetches his bike from behind a tree and rolls it onto the trailer. “I'll be keeping you company.”
“Yippee.” Great. Not that I thought I'd be able to break out of the back anyway.
A few moments later, I'm buckled in with Crank sitting across from me while Poe drives us to the bus station. Savage leads the way on his bike. I close my eyes and pretend I’m somewhere else, anywhere else.
“You okay?”
Crank’s question has me look after all. With his shaved head, beard and tattoos, he looks like the kind of guy you’d cross the road to avoid, but his blue eyes are kind, and I remember the feel of his strong arms around me. He’s strong enough to have really hurt me, but he didn’t. He held me like I mattered. They didn’t get me into this situation. I can’t even totally blame my uncle. He tried to warn me off, but I couldn’t stop poking my nose into things.
I want to stay angry, but it’s hard to maintain when the mercenaries that are probably going to ruin my life keep seeming like decent people. “Been better.”
“Fuck, it's just a shit situation. You're cute, you're young, and you don't seem like you’ve really let the habit get to you yet.”
“Do I seriously look like I'm on drugs?”
“Jesus, ease up.” He sighs. “I didn’t mean nothing by it. You can’t tell by looking at someone, you know? I’ve known people who should be fucking dead considering how much they shove into their veins, but they hold down jobs and join the PTA. And then someone else makes one shitty decision and it fucks up their whole life. I’m not here to judge. Do I look like a fucking boyscout to you?”