April stared at feet, pulse racing. A black and brown hulk ambled into view, snout shifting dirt around the trailer riser's weak spot. The Rottweiler pawed ground, burrowing towards her hideout.
You traitor!
She crab-waddled away in a blind panic, clambering on knees and elbows under her looming prison. A patch of sunshine gleamed on the other side of the house—another blessed escape hatch in her stinking, cobwebbed hillbilly hell. Without thinking, she burst out amidst chuffing copper kettles, blinking in the glare.
"April—what?" Her brother's face was a tear-stained nightmare. His wrist was attached to a drainpipe.
"Nick! Are you okay?"
"Get outta here, April..."
She snatched up the steel handcuff and twisted it this way and that. "What about you?"
"Did you bring the money?"
"Yes!" She craned her neck around the side of the house. Empty, muddy lane. "The backpack is out front. It's all there, I swear."
"Then, go. Just go," Nick shoved at her, hands slipping on sweat. She stumbled away, the cut on her back screaming. "There's a bike over against that tree."
"Are you sure—"
He raised a foot and kicked her away. "All they want is the money you're making it worse go!"
Her eyes focused on a dirt bike, leaned against a gnarled oak tree about two hundred yards away.
"Alright, if you're sure..." Her face scrunched in tortured indecision.
Nick went suddenly calm. "Please."
How could she leave him?
"Don't go to that party with Zach." He looked so ashamed April felt like she was naked. "It was just a joke. Go home."
"He never told me about a party, Nick."
Nick shook his head, twin brother gaining ten years on her in an instant. "Forget it."
She hauled ass to the edge of the clearing.
YOU ARE READING
Gaslight
Mystery / ThrillerFlash fiction, 300 words or less, young adult thrillers, one every day in April (except Sundays). Segments will follow the life of seventeen-year-old April Turner, who hates the fact that she is named after a month. April Fools Day is always the wor...
