Kidnapped, Unfortunately

Chapter Thirty

Apartments flew by me as I pumped my arms and willed myself to go faster. I felt light-headed, but tried to focus on the length of my strides.

I expected that I'd have at least twenty more seconds before Carson got back and noticed me gone, with the door wide open.

I needed to get out of here.

Noticing a small alley, I ducked out of the main streets and continued running down the sidewalk.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, I chanted to myself.

What if they found me again? What would they do?

And what would happen to Hayley?

Why am I such an idiot!?

Argh!

Pushing away the fear threatening to overwhelm me, I focused on the pain in my face instead.

Ouch.

Ok, that was better.

When I finally reached the point where I couldn't run anymore, I slowed down to a jog, and then a walk.

"What am I gonna do?" I groaned to myself, taking my fingers through my hair.

Just when it felt like things were getting better, of COURSE the world would chew me up and spit me back out again.

Life SUCKS.

I spotted a dumpster in the middle of the thin, dark alley, and crouched down behind it.

This could be a good spot to stop and figure things out a bit.

And, without realizing it, I began to fall asleep, as I tended to do in compromising situations.

~~~

Someone roughly shook me awake, and I was on my feet in half a second.

In another half second, I brought my wrists up to protect my face in case the person was a thug or something.

"Hey, quit it! It's me," The person said, backing away from my threatening fists.

I narrowed my eyes, the sleep fading away. When the figure finally came into view, my eyes widened. "Hayley? What are you doing here?"

"While they were looking for you I snuck out the back door, and climbed the tree over the fence," She explained, looking somewhat proud. "Then I just took the most secluded paths so they wouldn't find me." Then she took a closer look at me. "What happened to your nose?"

"Jacob punched me on accident," I said, and her eyes widened.

"Wow. Christmases ARE bad for you," She agreed.

I smiled grimly, and looked around. I didn't exactly recognize this part if town, so I wasn't sure how to get home.

"I don't know where we are," I said, frowning slightly.

"It could be worse," Hayley said, trying to raise my spirits. "At least we escaped."

I nodded, but somehow I felt like this was only the beginning of worse things to come.

I was incredibly pessimistic at times.

Hayley looked around the damp gray alleyway with a frown, and spoke, "So... what now?"

"Now we find out where we are," I said, racking my brain for what to do in these situations. "My mother always said that when I get lost, thievery may be the only way to survive."

Hayley frowned at this. "My mom told me to hug a tree."

I glanced over my shoulder at her with an eyebrow raised. "Well, do you see any trees around here?"

She shrugged.

I began walking down the alley, and Hayley rushed after me, but went too fast and almost tripped.

"We are looking for a sign or something, or a telephone booth," I said, looking straight ahead.

"Do they even make those anymore?" Hayley asked, looking around.

I didn't answer, just sharply turned into an adjacent street, grabbing her arm so she didn't trip and run into the brick walls.

After muttering a quick thanks, we continued along our way.

I ended up giving Hayley the job of looking for people and signs, while I tried to keep track of where we were going and which way we came.

It was probably a bad decision because she got distracted easily and missed about half of the signs.

We were doomed.