Miss Taken

Chapter 13-Her

Recap: The group narrowly escapes S's (haha S's) men and arrive at a warehouse with a massive helicopter outside. They all load in the helicopter and start flying. Also, please read the author's note at the bottom :)

"Laur."

"Mm?"

"Wake up."

"Nahh.."

A pause. Something cold...

"Karter!"

"I told you to get up," he said without looking over his shoulder. Natural light was shining into the interior of the helicopter through the now open door, blocked only by the personages filing out of it.

I scowled at his retreating back and stood, shaking out the ice cubes from the back of my shirt. There was no fridge to kick them under, so I just left them to melt. Let him clean them up.

I squinted at the harsh sun as I emerged. The air tasted fresh, in a just-after-rain kind of way. Wherever we were was green and beautiful, but unfamiliar.

"Where are we?" I asked.

The Boss looked back at me. "You'll see."

"Oh, come on," I said. "That is the lamest response I have ever heard. Are all you people living in some bad action movie? That was so not intense."

"So sorry, we weren't all born as unique as the great Lauryn Everett," Karter said.

I was prepared for a retort, but before I could get a full syllable past my lips Bow called attention to the approaching car.

I was expecting the typical black SUV to pick us up, maybe shoot a few bad guys or run some dude off the road. I was not expecting a Volkswagen beetle.

"It's a... bug," Riley said.

"It's excellent off-road," the Boss said, leading the way to the car.

"No it's not."

"This one's special," Karter said.

"It's gold."

"We're volkswaggin'," I said as I climbed in behind Terry. Karter gave me a look that said he was just so done.

The bug was ridiculously small, and had only two doors (so that you had to do that slide-the-seat-forward-to-get-into-the-back maneuver. There were five seats and, now, eight people, including the man who drove it here. Bow got in the front passenger seat, working his technological magic with the GPS. The Boss sat on the right seat, Terry sat in the middle, and I sat on the right. But then there was Riley and Karter outside still.

"Uh, Boss?" Terry said, beckoning at the issue.

"Hmm," the Boss said. "Squish in."

I laughed. "The Boss said 'squish.'"

Karter switched into get-things-done mode, and pushed me so that I was pretty much on Terry's lap. Then he slid in and pulled Riley in after him, pulling the seat back to its original position. The driver, a young man with curly red hair, hopped in and closed the door.

"Where to, Boss?" he asked with a moderate accent, looking into the rear-view mirror. All that could be seen was a pale freckled forehead and light blue eyes.

"The south building," the Boss said. "And try to be inconspicuous, Martin."

Though I couldn't see Martin's mouth, I could hear the grin in his voice and the crinkles around his eyes. "Last time a cop pulled me over 'cause I ran into a trashcan... twice."