How to hide a body

Market squares

Tyler packed the last things she needed in her backpack: money, pocket knife, her phone, first aid kit, some food, and water, along with a few random things like a paperclip and a screwdriver. She wrapped a bandage around her hand tightly and gulped as crimson started to seep through the white. The floorboards seemed to sway underneath her as she picked some of the dry blood out from underneath her nails. Staggering to her feet, she checked in on her room making sure everything was in place; they had ripped her sheets and pulled her curtains down to make the play seem more convincing and for their sake, it had to be. Among the glass on the floor, drops of her own blood were painted in clumps and the knife was placed off to the side of the fragments of glass. Again, coated in her own blood.

She slid a hairband up her right wrist, being careful not to knock her hand in the process, and reluctantly walked away from the room. Quinn was standing outside the window when she pushed open the door to the living room. She had tied her dark hair back in a ponytail and now wore a dark orange bucket hat with a brown shirt tucked up at the sleeve that was over an orange t-shirt. Her face glowed as the morning's sun made a halo appear around her making her dark eyes radiate an amber colour mixed with dots of black ink.

Tyler joined outside and leaned against the railing in her elbows, closing her eyes as she just breathed, taking in the sound of the city. She listened to the market that always opened at that time in the morning, she listened to random honks of horns, she listened to the distant chatter on the streets out of the alleyway, and she listened to the sound of children laughing in the playground nearby. The heat of the sun warmed her eyelids and she could see a honey orange that reminded her of when she was younger and she and Quinn used to sit in the sun and just talk about random things. Like what people were wearing that day, whether green or red apples were better, Quinn's new girlfriend, or even the new drawings that had appeared in the girl's bathrooms. Or when they'd cycle along the coast in Pevensey Bay when they'd just visit for a day with a set amount of money and plan random things, like dying their hair lots of different colours for the day or watching a film on the beach as the sunset with random people who joined as they passed by and had seen them. They all feasted on the food everyone had in their bags that day and they both bought drinks for everyone. Only to return home at three in the morning and have a massive hangover but they never regretted it. Except for having to remove the permanent hair dye which just resulted in Quinn getting more of the hair dye out and spraying it at her. But getting it on both her and the ceiling. Meaning they had to spend the next few hours cleaning it off the white paint. Or the one time they just spent the whole day on the bus and basically set up a tent on the back of the top of the bus with blankets they'd bought that morning. It ended up raining so they dancing on top of the roof with their umbrellas and waved to passersby, sometimes cheering when they saw a jogger or a cyclist. The bus driver was sick of them by the end of the day but nevertheless told them that they had made his day better. They ended up trudging home in wet clothes and had to throw away their shoes because they were ruined by the amount of rain that day.

"Ready?"

"Yeah," she gulped, "I am. You?"

"No."

Tyler rested her hand on Quinn's shoulder, "we'll be fine."

"That's not what I'm worried about," Quinn stared into Tyler's eyes. Tyler traced her thumb on her shoulder then closed the window with the same hand, hesitating slightly as she looked longingly through the window before she followed Quinn down the stairs. They walked side by side out of the alley and to the right. They gazed into the glass as they passed the cafe they were at the day before and reluctantly ignored the familiar smell of freshly ground coffee mixed with chocolate.

After wandering around for ten minutes, they reached the bustling streets of markets and followed the stairs down into the main area, squeezing through the small gaps in between the stores whilst pushing people away lightly when they stopped randomly in the middle of the path to glance at the items displayed in the stores.

Tyler rolled her eyes when Quinn pulled away from the line shuffling down the path and looked at a small store that sold tiny birds carved out of wood. She stopped for a few seconds looking amongst the birds with bright eyes and grinned childishly at Tyler when she picked up a baby blue one with a white beak. Tyler waited off to the side and watched Quinn closely as she paid for the bird. She raised an eyebrow when Quinn walked back over to her.

"What?" She shrugged, "My future niece will love it."

Tyler chuckled, "I'm not sure she's the one you bought it for."

"Well, that's just rude. I'm a thoughtful future aunty."

"Sure."

Tyler waited for Quinn to zip her bag back up after she hid the bird away amongst her clothes then gestured for Quinn to hold onto her arm as they pushed back into the crowd. They zigzagged through the stores and everyone around them; ignoring the smell of different types of foods as they passed the takeaway. Avoiding the store owners that they regularly bought food from because they knew they'd be stuck in conversation or just spend all their money on all of their favourite foods that they'd buy from each store. Occasionally getting stopped as someone knocked one away from the other making them lose each other in the sea of people only to find the other ten minutes after nearby. The reason being that most of the time Quinn would get distracted by something at a store and try to buy everything she could like a little child, forgetting that they were running from the police.

After they found each other again, they sneaked into a smaller alley behind a store at the end of the market and reached the lanes that went through the back of the houses where most of the bins were lined up outside the back entrances of each of the houses. The pathway led to all of the back gardens which could probably only fit a two-person tent in at a stretch. Most houses had plants in window boxes instead to make up for the loss of space. But any of the plants rarely stayed alive. Most of the times they'd come there someone would get new plants and they'd be dead within the next few days or eaten.

"Any ideas?" Tyler turned to Quinn and took a swig of her water bottle.

Quinn shook her head as Tyler offered her the bottle and scouted around the nearby alleys, returning after she spent quite a while in one specific alley. She pulled her phone out of her bag and whilst it rang she stepped towards Tyler, "I know someone who could help."