𝐈𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝

Chapter Eighteen: Cheerios

I felt myself starting to wake up at the sound of a loud beeping noise coming from somewhere inside the van. I took a deep breath in and kept my eyes closed, snuggling closer into the firmly packed and somehow warm duffle bag next to me, trying desperately to go back to sleep. However, I could hear frantic whispering around me which made it difficult to find sleep again.

"Turn it off, dumbass!"

"Don't you think I'm trying to do that?"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't been an idiot, this wouldn't have happened."

"Oh, shut up."

All of a sudden the beeping noise stopped and I slowly opened my eyes. Charlie turned his head to the back when he heard me shifting around.

"Look what you did, you woke her up," Charlie whined accusingly at Dylan from the driver's seat as he turned around to face the front again.

"How was this my fault?" Dylan whispered angrily, keeping his voice low since I just woke up. I turned my head at the sound of his voice which seemed extremely close to me and when I looked up I realized that the 'warm and firmly packed duffle bag' I was snuggling into was actually Dylan, who hadn't moved away from me yet with his arm draped comfortably around my shoulders. Feeling embarrassed by the fact that I was sleeping practically on top of his chest, I quickly sat up, my cheeks flushing.

I adjusted my shirt and gave Dylan an awkward smile before turning away, hoping he didn't see how flustered I felt. Maybe my hair hid my face enough.

"Whatever," Charlie mumbled before turning around to face me, "good morning Norman," he flashed me a goofy smile as he continued steering the car.

"Good morning, Charlotte," I returned the goofy smile and rubbed my eyes to wipe away the sleep. I could tell the two boys had been bickering for a while based on how fed up Dylan seemed to be and how annoyed Charlie was.

"What was the noise?" I asked neither boy in particular.

"Well your little genius over here somehow managed to accidentally turn on the radio, but couldn't figure out how to turn it off when it started blaring those beeping noises," Dylan explained sarcastically, glaring at Charlie from the backseat.

"Well I wasn't the one to say, and I quote, 'hit it with your leg,'" Charlie countered, which made Dylan scoff.

"Well at least I-" Dylan tried to fire another snide remark back before I interrupted him.

"Can you two just stop bickering for like two minutes? God, you're like an old married couple," I groaned, rolling my eyes. The two boys blinked at my comment before reluctantly nodding their heads and turning back to the road.

"Thank you," I muttered. I turned to look out of the window in the back. It was already sunny out even though it was only 7:30 in the morning, which wasn't anything new to me since I was used to getting up early for tennis practice.

"How far away are we, Charlie?" I asked.

"About 400 more miles," Charlie answered. Only 400 miles left to go. I tried to brush off the pit I felt in my stomach at the thought of the remainder of our drive.

We're getting closer to Carson City. Closer to Connor. Closer to danger. Closer to the possibility that I could lose Raine, or Connor, or everyone else I cared about forever. Everything seemed fine when we were making our plan, but I was high on the rush of the moment and my need to save Connor. Now, I feel weak and frightened.

As much as I tried, I couldn't help the fearful and uneasy thoughts from entering my mind.

There was no guarantee that Connor was even there and that if he was, all of us would make it out safely. What if our plan fails, what if everything goes to shit and I lose everything?