Heaven's Crime (gxg) ✓

eight. we get chased in a parking lot. don't trust convertibles.

                I wake up to the sound of gunshots.

                My arm is jerked upward, startling me, and I realize it's Veah reaching for her gun on the nightstand.

                 "We have to go," she says, her face pale.

                  So . . . this is definitely not the good morning I had anticipated.

                  "What? Why?" And I remember how the hotel manager had noticed our handcuffs, had paid special interest. 

                  "They found us," Veah says grimly.

                  Okay, maybe that dire pronouncement is a little short of a soft morning whisper, or a sleepy kiss, or a pina colada. 

                   I scramble out of bed and━Veah is shoving on her jacket hurriedly, as if she's trying to hide━

                   "Your gunshot!" Maybe I faint a little bit. Her hand is suddenly on my shoulder, holding me upright. Her dark eyes peer into mine.

                   Her injury is bleeding heavily, soaking through her bandages and into the white━or really, if you could call it that━blankets of the bed we just slept in. 

                    It looks like a murder scene. Or the morning after my period.

                    "I did that," I moan, closing my eyes, stumbling back a few steps. "You're going to die because of me. Because I can't even stitch a goddamn straight line!" 

                    "Please, shut up," Veah says, arming her guns with bullet casings. But I see the faintest flicker of a smile on her face.

                    My stomach clenches. Butterflies or nausea━who knows at this point? 

                    "Duck," Veah says calmly, and she throws me to the ground a second before a gunshot fires through the motel window.

                    The damn hotel manager sold us out. 

                     None of this feels real. And I'm still dressed in a slutty pumpkin costume━although it's stripped down to the bare essentials. Black leggings. Orange turtle neck. 

                    Veah notices me examining myself and tosses me a shirt. "Get changed and let's go."

                   "We don't have time━"

                   For God's sake, someone just fired through the window of our room, and she wants me to get changed. But she gives me the kind of look that I don't question it.

                   "In front of you?" Stupid question.

                   "Are you shy?" A daring smirk that makes me want to throttle her. But I only meet her eyes as I throw my costume to the ground, letting her see exactly what's beneath the slutty pumpkin.

                   Her lips part. Briefly, I wonder what they taste like.

                  But then she lunges towards me, pushing me to the floor a second time. I wince as I hit the ground. The scent of unwashed bedsheets and grimy dust is enough to make me sputter. But my real worry lays in the fact that Veah is bleeding again━is still injured.

                   She pulls me to my feet a second later, after the sound of the gunshot fades. I have no idea how she knows in the moment before they strike.