2173

XIV

May 31, 2173

When Ash and I get closer to the town we see that it is massive, it will take us the whole day to get through it.

I look at a telephone line to see if our pictures are there, and they are.

If we take off our glasses our covers are blown.

Ash can't hold my hand so he rubs my back reassuring me that everything will be okay.

"It's going to take the whole day to walk through here." I say sighing.

"Yeah. . . but we will be okay." He answers.

"What about food? We only have seven slices left."

"Seven slices should be good enough to keep us alive long enough before we find more money."

"Okay, where would we find money?"

"On the ground, here is a dollar." he says picking up the dollar from the ground.

"Thanks." I say putting it in my pocket, now we have thirteen dollars. "If we get too desperate for money we might end up stealing some or pretending to be homeless."

"We are technically homeless right now so we don't have to pretend." He says.

"True, but they might get suspicious because we have glasses and hats on and we are saying we have no money."

"We will get to Canada and get jobs so we can live a life there, don't worry we will be okay."

"Okay."

╝╚╔╗╬ ═╓╩

We are about halfway through the city now and we are beginning to feel hungry but we have to wait until we are back in the woods.

"I'm starving." I say.

"I know but we have to save the pizza--only a slice a day."

"We should spend the little money we have and buy something more nutritious than just pizza. We aren't getting the protein we need to survive." I say.

"There is restaurants but we are risking to be caught, Jess."

"Okay, but if we still haven't found any money by the time we run out of pizza we need to buy something with protein, like eggs."

"Got it."

We walk in silence hoping that nobody will notice us, our glasses are the only thing that are keeping us from getting arrested.

Everything goes well until I trip on something and my glasses fall somewhere.

Someone helps me get up, but when they look at me they must recognize me because all the color drains out of their face and she runs away screaming, "The wanted are here! The wanted are here! The wanted are here!"

I run up to Ash, "We need to run" I say and we both run as fast as we can.

"We have to hurry up, or get a taxi because we aren't going to make it out." Ash says.

"A taxi won't take us far with only thirteen dollars."

"It will get us as far as we need." He says as a taxi pulls up near us and we jump in.

"Get us out of this city! Go North!" I yell at the taxi driver.

"How much will it be to get us out of the city?" Ash asks.

"About ten dollars, I charge a dollar per mile." The driver says.

I look at the floor and notice the tip bottle is spilled over and full of dollar bills and a ten.

I quietly and quickly collect the money then put it in my bag, leaving then ten out so we can pay the driver.

When we get to the outside of the city we pay the driver and walk to the woods, after about ten minutes of walking I tell Ash about the money, "I took the money from the drivers tip bottle, I don't know how much was in there but I just stuffed it all in my bag."

"Really? Let's count it." He says taking out the big pile of cash from my bag.