Walls

04

Abbie had already made up her mind. She had one easy and simple thing to do. Steal the car, make it to her dorm room and act like nothing ever happened.

As soon as the door to the store shut, Abbie tiptoed to the car. With her luck, the windows were down, and the door was not locked. She climbed onto the driver seat, easing the window closed so that no one could see her inside. She locked the doors and looked down under the wheel. Sure enough, the keys dangled over her legs, already plugged into the ignition.

She rolled her eyes at how some people could be ignoring security like an upvote-thirsty meme!

Without letting the thought get into her head, she pushed the key. The engine rose to life with a soft purr, lighting up the console. Abbie's face fell - the tank was only half full.

Taking a deep breath, she hoped that it was enough to get her to Angelora.

She stepped on the gas, and the car lurched forward into the road. The door to the store flew open. The man in the baseball cap appeared outside, followed by the storekeeper. Their faces were twisted with a range of emotions that Abbie did not want to decipher.

The prospect of having to deal with cops regarding the car was the last thing on her mind. She only wanted to evade the man who was hell-bent on shooting her to death. She probably should have asked the storekeeper where on Earth she was and should have probably asked him for help - without stealing a damn car.

But what if the storekeeper called the man who was hunting for her? What if they were friends? She bit her lip. Her thoughts were not helping at all.

But whatever the 'ifs' were, the damage was already done. She'd stolen a car, and every police officer in the state was probably looking for her.

With her heart hammering and her head pounding, she gripped the wheel tighter as she kept her foot on the accelerator. The road was winding left and right like a cobra. Abbie required every ounce of her concentration to keep herself from driving straight into the fence that ran on both sides.

Her eyes crept to the side mirror and the rear-view mirror every now and then, checking for a motorbike. The road was deserted without a sign of any vehicle in both directions.

With all the terrifying thoughts hammering into her mind, her heart was starting to beat painfully fast, and her vision was going hazy around the edges. Also, her throat hurt like she'd swallowed a bunch of transistors.

She checked her side mirror and her rear-view mirror as if the two did not reflect the image of the same road (which it did, by the way). With no sign of a motorbike, she eased the car onto the side of the road and pulled to a halt.

The car probably had a water bottle, right?

She checked the back seat, which had a whole closet of jeans, caps, sweaters, and whatnot. Poking out from under the huge pile on the seat was some red laced lingerie. She eyed them warily. But the many pockets in the back of the seats did not seem to have a bottle of water.

She checked the glove compartment and came up with a half-drunk bottle of coke. Couldn't be bad, right?

Wrong.

When she tipped her head and took a sip, the liquid burned her throat all the way down to her stomach.

"Ow!" she winced, grabbing her throat, "I am not drinking alcohol ever again!" she vowed to the strange ballet figurine on the dashboard.

She took another sip. It hurt her throat worse.

"Damn!"

She pulled out the phone that was tucked in her pocket. Maybe she could have a go at hacking it again. Still, the timer ticked each second down, giving rise to a mild form of panic in her belly. What if this was ticking down to a bomb exploding somewhere? Is the bomb on her person?

She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. She has got to stop watching CSI with her roommate.

The phone still wouldn't power down, which meant she could not reset it. She had hoped that wiping the phone would clear all the safety mechanisms. They usually did. But there was no luck with this one.

She cursed loudly and punched the wheel, just as her elbow scraped against something poking out of her other pocket. It looked like a credit card. She pulled it out.

The coke she just drank was rising in her throat - burning. Her eyes watered as she held the card in front of her eyes.

Her mind froze as she stared at the card. It was an exact replica of the card that Elias had in his pocket - A light blue plastic with the funny logo and the words Acute Inc in tiny letters. But this one had her name on it - Abigail Diaz.

She couldn't remember what this meant.

Abbie stared at the plastic card while the initial shock wore off. She had a plastic card that looked like identification for a corporate company.

With her name on it.

"Acute Inc...," she tossed the name around her lips, but the name did not sound familiar.

Her heart was cramping in a very heart-attack-like way. Abbie wouldn't know what a heart attack felt like. But she imagined it felt exactly like what her heart was feeling right then. She poured some more coke into her mouth. That didn't help.

If the sudden sweating and the elevation of her breathing were any indications, she was most probably having a heart attack. Or a panic attack. Abbie did not know the signs of either. She cracked the windows open to let in some fresh air.

The morning sun was shining brightly right in her eyes. She hoped that another sip of coke would calm her. It did not.

The glove compartment was hanging open. Abbie rummaged around looking for paper towels, face towels, whatever. Something. Anything.

Her hand groped around the cavity, digging deep into the chamber. But nothing showed up. A fat stack of papers and coke was apparently what the glove compartment was made for.

She checked the papers. They were insurance documents for the car and the owner. Apparently, the car belonged to a James Garret with an address in Angelora.

Abbie took a look at the dirty clothes and the lingerie in the back seat. She hoped they were not an indication that James Garret was taking a vacation in another State. Because Abbie did not want to be in any other State. She wanted to go home.

She took another sip of coke to kill the nerves in her stomach. And just like she guessed, it didn't help. Chucking the bottle back into the glove compartment, she cursed loudly. It was then that she caught a piece of paper lying folded at the edge of the chamber.

She pulled it out, unfolding it. The paper was a printed-out email about a dinner reservation at some fancy place in Angelora. What stopped her heart still was not how much the dinner cost- but the tiny numbers at the top.

The date.

It was five years into the future.