Refugee Prison Break

Chapter 28

Everyone was exhausted, including me. But we had to keep working in order to keep to schedule. I wanted to break into the sewer that night, and all our equipment, stuffed into the RV's cabinets and strewn all over the floor, needed sorting and preparing.

We were parked in a strip mall. I went outside in my wig and glasses to a drug store and bought the most powerful energy and concentration boosters I could find. They came in little canisters.

"You don't have to use this if you don't want," I said, depositing small vials into the hands of Erny and Aunt V.

"I can try one, I guess..." said Ernesto.

"You guys have any medical conditions I should know about?"

"Aunt V. is in better shape than either of us."

"No heart conditions, nothing like that?" I confirmed.

Aunt V. punctured the cap and tipped the vial's contents down her throat. Erny did the same, though with greater hesitation.

I had never used such potions before. My old housemate at college would use energy drinks around deadlines, enabling her to stay focused for days at a time with almost no sleep. She paid for it once the project was over—she became a zombie for a week after, and looked a decade older. I preferred working at a slower, steadier pace. But fate meant there was no luxury of time, and the stakes were much higher than coursework grades.