Day 4 (still)
Freedom tasted sweet. The adrenaline was pumping. Both of them were accustomed to a life of looking over their shoulders, prepared to see a loaded gun. There was nothing particularly unique about this situation, if it weren't for the fact that they were paired together.
The summer heat was stifling, especially in the dank alley. Sweat began to pool at the back of Kiara's neck. Even a lifetime of North Carolina summers couldn't stop human biology.
Kiara wasn't someone to ask a guy what the plan was - particularly not a guy like Rafe, for whom "the plan" usually involved homicide, assault, and/or attempted drowning. "We need to find somewhere safe, where we can get a phone," she said. Her words tumbled out quickly.
"Yeah," Rafe agreed. "I think, uh, my dad keeps an extra lying around at the house. It'll just need a charge."
"No way. Going all the way to Tannyhill? On foot?" Her eyebrows knitted. With one of her usual sarcastic expressions now plastered over her face, Kie dropped her voice to a whisper: "Plus, that's the first place Singh's guys will look."
"Okay, so what's your idea? Hold up the convenience store?"
At the Stop N' Go, illustriously named as per the peeling yellow sign, Kiara set her shoulders back and walked up to the counter. It wasn't her favorite game to play, but it was a role she had occasionally played for the Pogues during their adventures.
After all, sex sells.
The cashier was bored, his left thumb lazily scrolling down his phone's screen. Kiara pegged him for a sophomore, maybe someone like her who worked for his parents' business. She glanced around the store, eyeing the sad Pringles and Hot Cheetos, glowing fluorescent under the lights. The amount of single-use plastic pissed her off.
"Hey!" Kiara said, sultrily, while she raked a hand through her curls. The effect was a little overly come-and-get-it, she admitted to herself, but it appeared to be working.
The cashier, so-called JOSHUA, gulped and let his thumb hover. "H-hey."
Somewhere by the honey-roasted peanuts, Rafe tried not to scoff too loudly at the pubescent voice-breaking.
"So, uh," Kiara said, leaning just slightly towards Joshua. "There's, like, something really embarrassing that just happened." She didn't have much cleavage to use in her rouse. She also didn't have Sarah Cameron's innate ability to make anyone with an ounce of testosterone simp over her.
"Uh, what?" Joshua looked from side to side, as if expecting the crew of Netflix's hottest new prank show to pop out from behind a potted plant.
"My ex -best friend, like, posted this truly hideous photo of me on her story," Kie said, her voice trilling. "And, like, I know her password so I can just delete it buttt my phone battery just totally died on me 'cause my parents won't buy me a new one. So can I use yours for like five minutes and I'll give it right back, I swear!"
She narrowed her eyes slightly, the seductive look that had so far worked on not one, not two, but all three of her male best friends.
"Yeah, of course." Joshua, a creature of hormonal base instincts, urges, and impulses he barely understood, passed his phone into Kiara's hand.
"Ugh, you're the best!" Kiara jumped up and down on the spot. This character was one she'd perfected during her Kook year. It was an easy persona to slide on, with nothing more than a slick of Lancome lipgloss.
Now, everything might have all gone differently.
At this moment, Kiara had a phone in her hand. She could have sent her location to any number of people who would've helped her. Her parents. Her friends, except of course she didn't know what phone number they used or if they still had one. Possibly the Sheriff's station. One of those choices might have led to them being rescued. Rafe would go back to where-the-fuck-ever Carribean island he was demonizing. Kie would go back to Pogue life, or Kitty Hawk's suffering summer camp.
That all could have happened, if Rafe hadn't materialized behind her, and dropped his chin onto her bare shoulder. Kiara saw her chance of rescue whittle down to nothing.
"R- Rafe?" Joshua choked out. His brown eyes seemed to pool with anxiety.
"What are you doing?" Kiara hissed through clenched teeth, her thumbs starting to type out her mom's cell number.
"I just get jealous, I guess," Rafe said. His breath was hot on her shoulder. She could feel him watching what she was doing on the phone. Oh great. He was fully fucking up their plan because he couldn't trust her for forty-five seconds.
She sent a quick text to her mom: im in obx. pick me up? love you, kiara.
Fully playing it up, Rafe drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. He towered over the younger boy by what felt like a foot, but wasn't. He slung his arm around Kiara's shoulder, his fingers reaching down to brush her waist, where a strip of bare skin was exposed skin between her shorts and her cropped top.
"What you're about to do," Rafe drawled, "you really don't wanna do."
"I know who you are," the boy said, slightly more confidently than before. "And she's a missing person. I saw the posters, I just didn't recognize you at first." His eyes darted to Kiara and softened.
"No, no, no," Kie said, throwing Joshua a big, (what she hoped was) sexy smile and shaking Rafe's arm off. "There's a mistake, see. I just texted my mom." She flipped the phone back towards him, showing the green text. "Look, I should've been honest with you, probably, but I didn't want this whole drama, okay? I'm not missing."
Joshua leapt from behind the counter, trying to make himself as big as possible. Next to Rafe, it was a bit laughable. He couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. Normally, he was deadly calm in an unpredictable situation. At least, until things started going south... But Joshua didn't even look like a fun fight.
More like flicking a bug off the windshield, he thought.
"Give me my phone back!"
Kiara held it tighter to her chest. "Please, just let me send my location to my mom first."
"No, give it back!"
Joshua would later regret what he did next, when he was sitting in his bed nursing six stitches and a set of bruised ribs.
He lunged towards Kiara, his hand reaching out to pry the phone she was holding tightly to her chest. The sudden movement set her off balance. Joshua grabbed Kiara's wrist, which she tried to shake off.
Rafe struck, swiftly and efficiently. It was like a Major League pitcher playing T-ball.
Joshua barely had time to react to the first punch that hit him in the underside of his jaw, before he was on the floor. One, then two, sharp kicks to his side sent him reeling. He cried out in pain.
"Stop! Get off him, Rafe!" she screamed, throwing all her body weight at the blond and wrapping her arms around his waist.
It was incomprehensible to Rafe to stop now, but the logical side of his brain knew any move he made next could accidentally hurt Kie.
Plus, this was the first time she had touched him of her own free will. Since...that one party?
Shit, I gotta start beating up on nerdy assholes more often.
As Kiara was attempting to pull Rafe back towards the front door, the phone now stuffed in the pocket of her shorts, the door opened with a loud pop and the jingle of the bells positioned at the top of the doorframe.
A petite female police officer with dark hair put her hands on her hips when she saw the scene. "Well, I'll be damned. Those silent alarms are good for something. Hello, Miss Carrera."
Kiara rubbed the back of her neck. "Heyyy!"
"And hello to you too, Mr. Cameron."
"Officer," he mumbled.
Well, freedom was nice while it lasted.
