Playing Criminal

41 - Old Friends Become New...

“Shit.”

“What?” I asked as my heart skipped a beat.

“We’re almost out of gas.” Caden frowned, biting his lip.

“What? Caden why the Hell didn’t you think about that earlier?” I frowned as I looked at the posh town we were passing by. It was a closed-gate residential kind of place. Exactly not the kind of area where you want to jack a car…

“I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to stop here and get another car. I don’t think there’s another exit for miles and we’re really really low on fuel…At the closest store or shopping center, we’ll have to make do with whatever car we find. That is unless a random miracle happens and we run across a gas station in the middle of all these houses…”

I sighed, feeling my gut tighten. I didn’t like the idea of this. Stealing a car from Walmart was one thing, but stealing a vehicle from a nice side of a nice town was a whole other story…

God, Jack would never have let something like this happen.

At least he seemed to understand that stupid, careless mistakes like this could mean complete and utter disaster.

“Fine.” I replied curtly, my voice tight.

“Ally, I’m sorry, what else do you want me to do?” Caden’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as he turned off on the exit.

“Nothing. I just really hope this doesn’t go the way I think it’s going to go...”

“We’ll be careful.” Caden asserted.

I didn’t feel like arguing and instead paid strict attention to the places we passed. As it appeared from the highway, the area we were in was more residential than commercial.

Large two-story houses, all pristine white in color with mahogany roofs and manicured lawns. Welcome to Suberbia where everything is pristine and peaceful…where two ratty teenagers trying to steal a car would stick out like a sore thumb…

Just then I heard the Lexus beep again, warning Caden and I that we were low on fuel for what had to have been the fifth time in the last five minutes.

Crap.

I pressed my head against the cool glass of the car window, willing my fast-beating heart to slow down.

If I wanted to pull this off, I needed to be levelheaded.

“I think we found our place.” Caden said softly as he turned his blinker on.

I raised my head to look at a nice modern strip mall. Whole foods stood in the middle, flanked by a bunch of retail stores selling clothing, makeup, greeting cards and an assortment of other goods.

“I guess so,” I replied just as the car beeped one more time.

It wasn’t like we had much time to drive around aimlessly.

We pulled into an empty spot near the back of the fairly crowded parking lot.

I scanned my eyes across the lot; noting that all the cars were shining and well cared for. Sure they weren’t all Mercedes, but there definitely weren’t any cheap used cars hanging around.

“Fuck,” I mumbled as I tugged on my hair. It would be just our luck to have the cops called on us by some strict suburban woman who thought we looked funny.

The oversized t-shirt Caden had lent me certainly wasn’t going to do me, or him, any favors in this situation. We both were grimy and sweaty, with hopelessly tangled hair. We’d have to work faster than we’d ever worked before if we wanted to boost a car here without detection.