surrogate

Chapter IV

Breathe Bonnie, just breathe don't stop. You have to run she was telling herself. They were in a really bad situation. She looked behind and finally there was no sign of them. They might have finally escaped. She felt all her stamina vanish and she stopped running. She was tired and her heart was still beating erratically. She put her hand on her chest and started coughing. It was hard to breath. She felt his hands on her shoulder and she lost it. She angrily glanced at him and violently slapped them away.

"What was that all about?" she painfully yelled, she was still having difficulties to fully draw air into her lungs. She had just run miles in her pajama trying to escape a group of men she did not know.

"Just calm down Bon. I need to think" He said with heavy breathing sounds escaping his throat overtaking the sound of his voice. He eventually tried to regulate his breathing, but he failed, still too scared to get his heart to slow down.

"Don't tell me to calm down after that, I have just been forced to escape from my hotel room at freaking 4 o'clock in the morning." She yelled once more and dropped on the floor. Her legs were in pain and tired from their early sprint. "What was that all about?" she repeated her question.

For a second he looked at her and kept quiet. He needed to think, he was in a lot of trouble and having Bonnie yelling at him was not helping. He once more looked at her, sat in the spot next to her and leaned on the white wall behind them. They were in a small dark alley trying to hide from whoever was after them.

"I messed up Bon, like big time messed up" he said and put his head on her shoulder. She looked at him consternate and also blasé. This was his line I messed up, when are you not messing up she wondered, but said nothing. She kept quiet and waited for him to continue.

"I am sorry, I told you I would stop but I lied. I was running short and shit this time it was big." He pursued disoriented. He started tearing up and she squeezed his hand showing her support. She breathed deeply and inhaled the early morning's fresh air; it could not be that bad. Was he back to gambling or was he back to using heroin. She really did not know but it could not be worse than the other times. She grabbed his face and made him face her.

"What is it this time and how can we fix it?" She asked always willing to help. So young but always there to carry the world's burden, she was always fighting others' battles. She had been enabling his antics for far too long to know where and when to stop. In the beginning, she was covering his drug addiction, later she was helping him every time he went to rehab then it became him betting his money and hers. He had promised to quit and she had believed him. And now they were sitting on the ground and still she was willing to help.

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Let's go on a trip and use it as a new start. She was mad at him but it could wait, now he needed her help.

"I owe some shady and dangerous people a bunch of money. And they are the kind to get their money back" he continued still crying on her shoulder.

"How much?" she simply asked

"Twenty-five thousand dollars!" He replied. His voice was barely distinctive and he was staring at her. She looked around tired and disappointed so this time it was gambling.

"You know we don't have it, even if we decide to use the money left it won't be enough, but we still can get the fuck out of here. Go back home and we can change the date on the plane tickets." She told him. Their finances were not amazing; they were teenagers on a trip and had spent way too much. Since Lucy had left for Paris it had become worse.