A Misunderstanding : The Music Freaks :

Returning To Safety

"SPEED UP!" Jake shouted as he ducked to the floor of the car. The window exploded as bullets flew through and Hailey sped up, terrified. Bullets ricochet off the car as Hailey dared not look in the direction they were coming from. "WHATEVER YOU DO, DONT STOP!" Jake shouted again as the bullets rained down upon them. After a few seconds, the sound stopped. Jake peeked out the window and realized they had gotten out of range. Jake sighed in relief. "You can slow down a bit, Hailey" The car began to slowly decelerate. They drove in silence for a minute before Hailey noticed something. "Jake, there's a road up ahead" Jake looked through the front windshield and noticed that the tarmac expanse narrowed to a two lane highway. "Perfect. That should take us somewhere" Hailey got on the road and continued to drive. They seemed to be in a rocky desert. There was no one around except large cliffs and rocks. After about ten minutes of driving, they merged onto an actual freeway with other cars and both of them breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's make it to the closest town and figure out where we are" Jake suggested. "That's a good idea. Ill turn off at the next exit" Hailey agreed. They drove uninterrupted for a while before Hailey turned off the freeway into a small town. Once they entered the town, their feelings of unease and insecurity melted away immediately and were replaced by feelings of freedom and exhaustion from the stress of the entire situation. "I didn't see anyone following us" Jake said as Hailey pulled into a gas station. "Ill go in and ask for directions" Hailey stopped at a gas pump and got out of the car. "You fill the car's gas tank up" Jake nodded. Hailey walked into the gas station and went up to the counter. "Is there something I can help you with?" A polite old man asked Hailey. "Yes, actually. I was wondering if you could tell me where we are right now. I'm a bit lost"

Jake was thankful he still had his wallet on him as it allowed him to pay for gas because the car they had taken had a nearly empty tank by now. Jake filled the tank and paid at the gas pump. As he hooked the nozzle back onto the pump, Hailey came back from the gas station and they both got back in the car. "So it looks like we're about an hour drive from our city. The cashier told me if we get back on the freeway, it should be a straight shot there" Hailey started the car and they pulled out of the gas station. "At least we know where we are now. It shouldn't take that long now" Jake responded. Hailey nodded. "As long as nothing else happens we should be alright" Hailey pulled onto the freeway and merged with the flow of traffic. At this point, it finally hit Jake. "Hailey, we should try to contact people we talk to or work with daily. People who would notice our disappearance" Jake rummaged around in the car's compartments until he came across what he assumed was the phone belonging to the man who's car they had stolen. "I'm going to call one of my officers and explain what's going on" Jake was thankful to realize the phone did not have a password. He opened the keypad and called Trevor. 

Panic was ensuing at the research center where Jake and Hailey had escaped from. Alarms were still being sound and people were franticly running around the main hall. Their orders were to let him escape the room he was in and make it outside the facility, and then once they thought they were free, they crush their hopes of escape and capture them again. However, what they hadn't anticipated was the strategic mind of a police Lieutenant and the moronic decision making of the brainless driver they had sent to capture the pair. The head researcher, a composed man with deep magenta hair, began collecting reports from other researches and security camera footage of the highway cameras in order to figure out which direction the pair had gone after escaping. "I need someone to prepare a camera drone to send North-East. That's the direction they went" He gestured to a tech support worker and they nodded, running off to prepare what he had asked. The head researcher walked out of the room and began filling out a report to their department manager about the incident, knowing it might very well cost him his job.

Jake and Hailey drive in silence for a while, an eerie feeling washing over them. Jake seems paranoid, constantly watching the cars behind them and the sides of the highway. "Jake, you don't need to worry so much. I'm sure nothing will happen on a public highway. They aren't stupid enough to cause a scene like that" Hailey tries to reason. "I know, but what if they are that stupid? We would never even see it coming and before you know it, we could be right back where we started under even tighter security. We would have no hope of escape at all" Jake responded, pausing his highway scan for a moment to give Hailey a reassuring smile. "But don't worry. We're pretty far so you're right, its unlikely they do anything right now before we get back home"  Hailey smiles back through the rearview mirror before turning her attention back to the road. "It should only be another ten minutes before we get back into the city. Where should we go first?" Jake thought about it. "We should go report this incident to my captain so he can get support for us. He can launch an investigation into the people who kidnapped us and he can assign you some guards to make sure you and your house are safe from any intruders" Hailey nodded. "Sounds like a good plan to me".