A Thousand Ways To Run

Chapter 4

Apparently, when the son of the president goes slightly crazy and almost discovers a secret CIA operation going on in the White House, the CIA agents trying to protect what’s left of the secret forget to actually feed the secret. Pancakes only last a girl a few hours.

I waited.

I waited for eleven hours, thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds before I thought it was safe to break out again. Which was exactly five hours and nineteen seconds after my stomach started to eat itself.

Damn CIA.

For a moment I wondered if they had installed their cameras in the hallway, then I remembered how little I cared and how I would have killed one of them for some food. I waited until the wee hours of the next morning to creep out. The situation was eerily similar to the night before, but I knew my way to the kitchen this time.

All of my training meant I was as silent as a cat when I entered the kitchen. My eyes were adjusted to the dark, and my hand was halfway stretched towards a cabinet I hoped contained some bags of chips or anything cheesy. Unbeknownst to me, there was another pair of eyes that were well adjusted to the dark.

The small light of a flashlight blared right in my face, and I felt exactly like a criminal on Cops, caught in the spotlight of a waiting law enforcement helicopter that was ready to take me to jail. I should have laughed. I mean, it was a freaking flashlight. But what it meant was actually quite terrifying. I had been caught again.

And by the same boy.

I turned and felt the light shine too brightly in my eyes, making it sting. I covered them and waited for what I guessed would be a pre-practiced speech. I was right.

“They tried to convince me I was sleepwalking, but I knew better. Now tell me why you’re in my kitchen, or I’ll call the cops.” He tried so hard to sound threatening. He should have practiced the speech to sound less like an actor who had just been handed a script and pushed onstage.

“You can’t be serious.”

“W-what do you mean?” he stumbled. I’d driven us off script.

“It’s the freaking White House. All you would have to do is scream,” I explained, already feeling disappointed in the lack of competition. “Idiot.”

“Oh, right.”

“I suggest you turn off the flashlight before you seriously regret it,” I threatened and felt relief on my eyes.

I was blinded to the dark, though, and felt around for a lightswitch.

I felt a little bad for the guy. This was probably supposed to be his shining moment. He caught me, and now I was treating him like chopped liver (which I would have gladly eaten). Instead of playing along in his dramatics, I searched through cabinet after cabinet until I found food sufficient enough to quench my painfully hungry stomach. My hand looked like it was wearing a powdered cheese glove before Warren spoke up.

“Um, wow, you’re really hungry.”

Between mouthfuls I spoke up. “I haven’t eaten for fifteen hours, twenty-eight minutes and thirty two seconds.”

Shit.

And that was the first clue I ever gave to Warren Layne Edley that I was far from the norm.

And it wouldn’t be the last.

“How do you know that?”

I never answered.