What's your Price?

Chapter 15- A Criminal's Choice

Chapter 15

Date: August 16th

Location: University of Michigan Campus

Time: 9:36 p.m.

I sat in the turned off car wondering if this was the right move to make or not. If I went in there would they understand why I needed to leave, why I couldn’t explain to them what was going on? I sighed and hit the wheel in frustration, nothing could ever be easy.

I shouldn't be here. I should be as far away from here as possible, yet I couldn't think of anywhere else to go, I couldn't think of anyone else I could turn to.

After I left the Hilton Hotel in New York I went to the park and thought and thought, then thought some more when I realized something. I wasn’t meant for this life, the life of a criminal. I didn’t have the hard skin or cut throat attitude so I left, I left them waiting in that room for my decision. It was only then did the criminal in me come out.

I stole a car and left the city immediately. Hotwiring it was easy enough and since there were a lot of car thefts in New York City the cops were bound to miss a few. Even though I was planning on leaving them and my life as a criminal behind, for good this time, I took my part of the money and just drove not really knowing where I would end up.

One day when I had to fill up the sky was pitch black and the neighborhood I was in was a little shady. A group of big guys came up to me noticing the car. I didn’t flinch, I didn’t back away, I didn’t do much of anything, and I felt like a shell.

“Nice car you have here,” One of the men said, he was bald and had a scar running down his scalp. “I always wanted one like this.”

“Then you should go buy one,” I had responded coolly wishing that the tank would fill up and I could go already.

“Why don’t you give me yours.” He leered.

“No,” The tank had just finished filling up and I took out the nozzle and clicked the cap back in place. He grabbed my arm and my body tensed, not in fear but anticipation.

“Come on don’t you want to help a man out beautiful.” The last word of endearment made me snap. I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back like I had seen so many movie stars do before. He grunted in surprise and his friends looked on in shock.

“Don’t ever call me beautiful again.” I hissed in his ear. I twisted his arm even more and he had let out a cry of pain. “Now leave.”

I let go of his arm and he had stared at me with an incredulous look. I glared at him and he and his friends had run away like scared children. They were all bark no bite.

I had got in the car again and started to drive having no more of those encounters. I drove for a few more days until I ended up here, my college, my life that was torn away from me. I felt like I had to do one more thing before I continued with anything else, but actually going through with it made me stall.

So I sat in the car for a few hours until now, thinking of how I was going to explain this, how I could make everything alright when I knew nothing was. Could I really put myself through this? Torture myself by seeing them again only to leave. More importantly could I put them through this? The answer that kept popping up was yes, they needed closure just like I did.

I grabbed the laptop on the passenger seat and made a few precautionary moves. I hacked onto the school’s website and went to their security, it needed a username and password and instead of going through a long process I clicked on the right side of the button and pressed view source code. I pressed control F and typed in username and it showed the default one for workers who forgot theirs.