HIGHWAY

13

Opening the door, I walked outside wearing my new attire also a better face this time which I cleaned somehow, also covered a cut near my eyebrow with bandages, used a medicine paste for my swollen cheek and lips, all in all after clothing myself in whatever I was about to steal, I looked not much but somewhat better than before. Like, I can at least use the lie 'I fell' for suspicious questions although 'domestic violence' suited much better for an answer.

Suppressing my urge to run back and wear my old outfit I walked towards the food section in this tiny store pretending to be busy with my shopping, before that I happened to notice that the girl had already started shooting me suspicious glances as if she was reading my mind.

The gun in the back of my jeans suddenly left so annoyingly heavy that it became hard to resist the urge to just take it out and yell "stay on the ground", "don't move", "hands behind above your head", "this is a robbery" "I will shoot you if you won't comply. But that would really be hard if my own hands would shake ultimately making me drop the gun and put myself in even worse position. That I couldn't really say the same for Jon, who waited for me outside as he already gave his very helpful words of caution 'to leave me if I ruined it'.

Would he really? I frowned.

My attention swapped back to my task when my weak hands which dreamt of handling a gun dropped a pack of cigarettes I never knew I was holding. I flinched and crouched to pick it up before the girl noticed me again.

Should I take a cart? No but it will take ages to empty the cart and running with the cart towards the car will surely be more difficult.

Making sure when the girl wasn't noticing me I picked up a few energy bars and put them in my pocket along with a few cans and chips packets stuffed in my jacket. How was I supposed to rob? I was freaking looking like a balloon. He should have run me through a quick manual. If anything like that ever existed.

My anxiety was reaching heights.

You can do this Diana. You can do this. You have no other option.

Then I saw the girl shooting me another glance, a curious one. I turned around and walked behind the row to hide me from her suspicious gaze. Instinctively, my hand reached to my pocket for the gun before I saw a man walking towards me looking through the stuff placed on the shelf.

I froze and started to look as well.

Gulping, I tried to balance myself and turned to face the shelf where different types of biscuits were kept. Just when I saw him turned around, carefully, I picked one random packet and stuffed it in my oversized jacket.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Just by chance, my eyes darted towards the wall in front. A large calendar was on display. My eyes became wide.

'Oh my..' my lip-synced.

It had been a freaking month and almost ten days since I went missing from London.

It had been so long and it didn't even feel that way. It felt like I never ran away. Like I had have always been living like this. Travelling with Jon, everyday.

It was then I saw the girl still looking at me this time her full attention was towards me.

I felt my face heat up. Was I sweating? Oh god no!

Probably, she understood my unusual uncomfortable behaviour and maybe just maybe that was because she was use to it. She was running a store in an isolated area nearest to the highway which could be the best place for any criminal to commit a crime. She must have grown tough to it. Why the freak was she still running a store in this case? Who care none of my business? With that I busied myself looking at the food shelves or better say I tried to, a little harder.