Road Trip

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This is a snippet of a story I've been working on for a while so consider this an exert from my eventual great American novel!
Enjoy!

"Run! Run!" The words don't sound like words, they sound like barking, but not dog barking. A strangled howl, like a wolf trying to bark. 
I feel so heavy, like my feet are encased in concrete and I'm dragging fifteen bowling balls. I feel myself stumble. 
I'm falling.
Down.
Down.
Down.
"You've got to be kidding me. Monica!" I'm being lifted. I know I'm being lifted because warm hands tuck themselves under my armpits and I'm strung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 
Should I feel embarrassed? Because I feel embarrassed. 
No. 
This is a life or death situation. Nothing matters but surviving.
So we can live.
Live.
I can hear gunshots, powerful bullets flying through the air, missing.
We have a gun- Sean has a gun. He grabbed it off one of the guards- one of the guards I killed. 
Though we learned about them in Academy, I was never good at remembering the names. They all look disgustingly intimidating.
Dani would know the name. Sean most definitely knows the name.
Pain blossoms from my shoulder and I cry out. A few more inches and it would've clipped my head. Sean swears, then whips around fast making me dizzy. 
One.
Two.
Three.
Three bullets soar through the air, each finding a home in the heads of three guards. They fall. And I pass out.
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I can't keep up. Correction: we can't keep up.
He's too fast.
Daddy.
He kicks up sand as he runs from us, switching between jogging and back pedaling as we chase him. Felicity is ahead of me, it looks like she'll get him. They're both smiling. 
That smile. 
The world freezes and I'm in water, the sky is blue above me.
Then I'm running again, but I'm fast this time. Paul challenged me to a race. I'm winning. I can almost feel the rocks under my feet.
Almost.
I look back and he's smiling, everyone is. There are seven other people, teenagers.
Names? What are their names?
Tristan is the one with dirty blonde hair and dark eyes. It strikes me as unusual that they are, in fact, black. 
The girl...the one with the red hair, her name is Mackenzie. She's Paul's girlfriend. She doesn't like water.
BANG
It rocks me back and forth. The world shakes and trembles. 
He falls. Paul collapses. Blood stains his white shirt.
They are gone. His friends- my friends. 
He is on the ground. He doesn't move. He just looks at the sky. I look as well. It's white.
Not sky, ceiling. 
I screamed so loud but no one heard a sound.
My faithful, solid ground is crumbling.
M O N I C A
My name looks weird as it floats through the air.
"Monica"
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The fire is hot. It warms my face, turning my cheeks pink. 
Someone is speaking.
Sean.
"Get up. Get up."
"What do you want?" I groan. My shoulder is throbbing.
"I want you to get up, now get up." He says through gritted teeth. He hates me. 
I sit up a little bit but blazing heat from my shoulder makes me lay back down.
"Wimp." Sean murmurs. I glare at him. I hate him too.
"Call for Kyle." He says.
"It's not that easy ya know." I say and try to sit up again, fighting through the pain. He puts a hand on my back, helping me. 
"Try." He looks me in the eye.
I close my eyes and look for Kyle. There's a pulse, east. It's him. He's alive. I reach for it. Clawing my way through energy and barriers meant to keep things like us out.
"Kyle? Kylie?" 
Nothing. No response. He is far away. But he is there. I know it.
I open my eyes.
"Anything?" Sean asks.
"Time for a roadtrip. Me and you." I say. I can't help but smile. "The unlikely team."
"We leave in the morning." He says bitterly. "Now rest up so I don't have to carry you." 
I give him a look.
"Your hip bone was digging into my neck like a blood sucking tick." He says. He throws a couple twigs into the fire.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Neither do you."

Xoxo KKHughz

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