“How did you sleep in here with your head hitting the window every five seconds?” I complain.
“I was dead to the world, Zoe. I wasn’t snoring, though, was I?”
“Not that I could hear over this noisy car.”
“Good. Come here, it’s open road and dead at that.” He holds his arm out and I undo my seatbelt to move towards him. Within seconds, I’m drifting off to sleep with my head resting on his right shoulder while I inhale his familiar scent.
***
“Zoe, wake up.” My body is being shaken lightly and I unwillingly open my eyes. “We’re in Bowman and I think we should get some food and find a restroom.”
“What time is it?” I’ve already closed my eyes again, still resting comfortably on Charlie’s shoulder.
“This car doesn’t have a clock, but I would say past lunchtime.”
I still really don’t want to move, but the thought of food makes my stomach grumble and I’m suddenly busting to go to the bathroom.
“Okay.”
“I think a change of clothes might be in order.” Charlie moves to grab our bags from the back seat and winces as it twists his side. I move his hand away before he can try again and grab both his as well as my own bag, bringing them back around. Joel is still completely out of it.
Charlie pulls out a new t-shirt and attempts to take off the shirt he is currently wearing. Instead, he only gets part way before he groans and stops.
“Is it your side?”
“Yeah, it hurts when I try to lift my arm,” he answers hesitantly.
“Face me a second.”
He slides around on the seat and I help him pull his shirt off. Bruises litter his entire chest.
“Crap, Charlie, look at you! There isn’t a spot on you where you aren’t bruised!” I rest my hand on his heavily bruised side which makes him instantly move away.
“Careful.”
“You really need to get this looked at.”
“It looks worse than it is,” he dismisses me. I bite back on my insistence that he get checked out.
I help him put on a fresh shirt and notice more bruises over his body. I assume they’re from training, however they could also have been from his fall. I have several from that stupid circuit. Seeing him so injured puts a damper on seeing him shirtless for the first time.
He puts on a baseball cap and I go through my own bag to try to find something to wear. I grab out a button up shirt and discover a beanie at the bottom of my bag, one from home. I feel awkward having Charlie in the car with me while I change, but I try to turn the other way a bit so that I’m mostly hidden.
“You think I’m bruised, you should take a look at yourself,” Charlie says quietly, revealing to me that he obviously doesn’t mind watching me while I change. I feel self-conscious and am quick to button up my shirt.
“Is that some new look you’re going for?”
“What?” My voice is sharp as I start feeling annoyed that he’s been looking while I dress. I pull down on my beanie and hope it’ll make it harder to recognize me.
I look down at myself and realize that I’ve missed the top hole, so every single button is done in the wrong one.
“Shut up.” I push his arm lightly and then move to redo them. My heart is racing and I’m not sure if it’s from being so close to Charlie or from being on the run and knowing we’re about to go out in public which could possibly cause us to get caught.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Charlie leans close to me and while he takes my hand and squeezes it reassuringly, he also moves his lips to my own and we kiss. My body loosens and I let myself lean in closer to him before he pulls away. “Trust me.” It’s not exactly the kiss I crave from him, although given our exhaustion and the fact that Joel is passed out behind us, I don’t complain.
We get out of the car and I nearly fall straight onto the ground. My legs are like jelly. I stretch them out and then proceed to stretch my whole body. While it feels good to do so, it also makes me want to curl up into a warm bed and sleep for days.
I look at the backseat where Joel is sleeping and decide there isn’t much point waking him up.
Charlie takes hold of my hand and we walk towards the shops that are ahead of us. I’m hungry, but unsure what for. In the end, there isn’t a real lot of choice and Charlie and I have pizza. We buy some food and bottles of water for later to take with us. We just make it to the car as it begins to rain.
“Do you think we need to swap cars again?” Charlie asks, opening his door, but still standing outside the driver’s door, looking across the top of the car at me.
“You want to steal another car?” I can’t help thinking that inconveniencing one person is definitely more than enough.
“I don’t want to, but if they know we have this car and it gets found in Nebraska, then they’ll know where we are.”
“Well, we won’t be in Nebraska long and I suppose from there, we could always get a different car? Perhaps we can buy one under one of our fake names.”
Charlie nods his head and ducks out of the rain which is starting to get heavier. I go to follow, but in the corner of my eye, I see something that gives me a chill that has nothing to do with the weather. I turn and look more carefully and see a black SUV entering the small car park. It’s too dark to see through the tinted windows, but I’m sure it’s someone from P.A.G.E. My instincts kick in and I know not to ignore them.
“Zoe?” Charlie stands back up when he notices I haven’t followed him into the car.
I duck into the car and in one swift move lean over to the driver’s seat and pull hard on Charlie’s hand.
“Ouch, Zoe—” Charlie bumps his head on the top on the car as I pull him down by his hand and he collapses onto the seat.
“They’re here!” I gasp at him, worried my heart might jump out of my chest. I already hear my breathing getting louder and I quickly lean back to my side and shut the door. My hair, that hadn’t been under my beanie, is wet and my shirt is sticking uncomfortably to me.
“What? Who?”
“Who do you think?” I borderline shriek at him.
“Shit.” Charlie tenses up and he, too, is quick to pull his feet in the car and shut the door.
The rain falls harder and it becomes impossible to see far into the distance.
“What if they’re looking for this car? It could have been reported stolen and they might have put it together with us.” I’m shaking as I realize what this could mean. We’re going to get caught. We’re going to go back to The Windmill. We’ve failed Drew.
Chapter Thirty-Three – The University
“I think they’re probably just casing the place out, hoping to get lucky. Are you sure it was them?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s just sit still, not do anything rash. We can wait for them to leave,” Charlie speaks steadily.
“How can you be so calm?” I ask as his hand comes over mine and I can tell his is rock steady. “What if they search the cars? What if they find us?”
I watch in horror, seeing their car emerge in the distance from the rain as Charlie ducks down and pulls me down too so our heads are just touching.
“We’re screwed.” I panic, shaking worse than before.
What if the owner has called their missing car in? What if they know which car they’re looking for? What if everything we have done is for nothing and we’re about to get caught?
“Zoe, it’s going to be okay. I won’t let anything bad happen.” Charlie reaches out and finds my hand again. My breathing calms at his touch, however my heart is still trying to stamp its way out of my chest.
We remain in silence for a while and I keep waiting for a knock on the car window, or even something more dramatic like the glass being smashed to get into the car. Yet there is nothing.
We must have stayed like this for at least twenty minutes before Charlie risks sitting up and looking outside the window.
“I think they’re gone.”
<
br /> “What if they saw us? What if they’ve called in backup? What do we do?”
“Let’s just get out of here.”
Charlie starts up the car and I sit up, feeling my neck click from the odd angle it had just been in.
“Stay down, just in case.” Charlie places his hand over my knee and squeezes it lightly before going back to revving the loud engine to kick it into life.
I wince at the loud noise, feeling as though it is just screaming “Here we are” to P.A.G.E. and Stan.
The car starts moving and I remain hidden until we have been travelling down Highway 12 for quite some time. We now have a map and a purpose to our chosen driving route.
“How do you think Rose and Will are doing?” I’m worried for their safety. We’ve been lucky to shake our guys. What if they haven’t? What if they’re back at The Windmill right now?
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
“I hope so.” I wish I could have a dream about them. If they don’t show up at the university how long do we wait? We had never set up a time.
“Stop worrying.” Charlie hasn’t even looked at me to know I’m still worrying, he merely seems to know that I am.
Instead of replying I look at the backseat to see nothing has changed with Joel. I watch his chest rise and fall a few times and then look away, feeling it’ll be too easy to sink into bad memories looking at him. I have enough on my plate for now; I don’t need the past creeping in, too. I take off my seatbelt and lean my head on Charlie’s shoulder. Once again the comforting feeling of being close to him envelopes me. It continues to make no sense to me to have this instant feeling with someone I don’t really know, but I’m beginning to just go with it. Obviously my dreams are playing into how I’m feeling and that can’t be all bad. It does make me wonder about how much of a role my dreams have played in other relationships through my life, though. Did I feel this close and safe to Dana when I first met her? I can’t remember. We did become fast friends. Did my dreams help that along, too?
“You’re not still worrying are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
We both become quiet as I watch the windshield wipers moving across the window, and the repetitiveness of their noise helps lull me to sleep.
***
We end up stopping overnight in a small town called Gregory. It’s in South Dakota, just on the border of entering Nebraska. After a full day of sitting in a car, I’m exhausted.
Charlie and I manage to get Joel into the hotel room where Charlie is able to get him to eat while I shower and get ready for bed. I had planned to let Charlie go first, given that he ended up doing most of the driving, but I can’t bring myself to face Joel just yet. I’m not ready for that conversation.
The hot water soothes my tense body and sore muscles. When I come out of the bathroom, I see Joel is in the other room, already asleep. There is no door attached to his room so I can hear his soft breathing.
As I walk towards the bed, I shiver from the chilled air that permeates the room; moving over to the heater, I find it’s barely doing anything and it’s on high. I walk to the bed, climbing in to find bliss at being able to rest my head on the pillow. I close my eyes while I wait for Charlie and listen to the water running in the shower. It feels as though only seconds later that I’m opening my eyes as Charlie, too, climbs in.
His arms come around me as I move and rest my head upon his chest. It feels completely natural to be like this with him. My body is craving this, in fact. A familiar feeling while in another new bed, in another new place.
“Good night, Zoe.”
“Good night.” His arms tighten around me and I lift my head, my lips finding his instantly.
We kiss softly and slowly, each relishing in the feel of one another. I move my hand to rest on the side of his neck and he brings his right hand to rest on my hip at first, but then it moves up slowly under my shirt and he gently caresses my back, giving me shivers all over my body.
Using his other arm, he moves my body so that I’m now lying over him. I pull away from our kiss, breathing heavily to try and catch my breath.
“I could do that all night with you,” Charlie sighs.
“We both need to sleep. We need to be alert to drive.” I smile, resting my head on his chest once more, feeling his heart beating hard under me.
“I would be willing to forgo sleep for this.” Charlie wraps his arms around me.
“There is always tomorrow night.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.” Charlie tightens his hold around me and I feel his heart rate slowly start to go back down. It has a calming effect on me and, soon after, he starts to softly snore. It’s not long after that I find myself also giving into exhaustion.
***
I wake up in a cold sweat, my breathing coming out harshly and my heart racing a million miles an hour.
Flashes of my nightmare come back and a cold fear grips my body. I can only remember glimpses of it, but it’s no less terrifying. I saw the men in the black SUVs chasing us. I saw Joel waving a gun wildly, surrounded by Charlie, Will, Rose and Dana. I watch as he shoots and kills them all no matter how much I beg him to put the gun away. I watch as Stan and Martha come into view and a cold chill enters my body when Martha tries to grab my arm.
Waking up ends up being a relief and I’m too afraid to even attempt trying to sleep again after that. I grab my bag that I have left on the ground by the bed and find my cell phone at the bottom. I pull it out and look at it. I’m so close to being able to look at photos of Dana on here, however I’m not sure if I should. Can I be tracked by turning it on? Is the GPS on it separate to the sim card? By turning it on, will I expose our location and sentence Charlie and I back to The Windmill?
I close my eyes and picture Dana’s smiling face. I remember everything I can about her.
There is a groan from Joel in the other room. I stand up, dropping my cell back into my bag and slowly tiptoe away from Charlie to reluctantly move over to look into the next room. Joel is thrashing in his bed. I move closer to him.
“Joel? Joel, wake up.” I can’t bring myself to touch him to get him to wake up. Instead, I call his name again and he jolts awake.
“Zoe?” Joel squints in the darkness and I take a step backwards, regretting coming in here. “Zoe, wait, please.” Joel sits up in his bed and I stop close to the open doorway.
“What is it?” I hate how my voice shakes. I want it to sound strong.
“Thank you for getting me out of that place.”
“You should thank Will, he is the one who carried you out.”
There is a pause while Joel processes what I said. “I thought that guy was called Charlie?” I hear the confusion in his voice, but also tiredness.
“He is. Will is someone else we left with. He’s with Rose, they took a different car and a separate route to us.”
“What’s going on? They wouldn’t tell me anything; they just kept asking who had paid me to try and kill you. They wouldn’t believe me when I said no one had.”
“It’s a long story and it’s late.” I don’t think he deserves any answers.
“Are you okay?” I hear his concern and it makes my blood boil. He’s concerned for my wellbeing after trying to kill me?
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I cross my arms over my chest, fearful he is about to bring up Dana. I definitely never want to talk to him about her.
“I saw that guard hurt you.” He’s referring to the kick I had taken to my side from the guard when Joel had been interrogated.
“I’m fine.” I’d already forgotten about that bruise. It’s still sore when I touch it, but I’ve noticed the color is already getting lighter.
“Zoe, I’m so sorry about—”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” Tears are falling down my face and I’m grateful it’s too dark to see them.
“Okay. What is going to happen next?”
“We’re meeting Rose and Will in Nebraska.
I don’t know what’ll happen after that.”
There is another long pause and just as I’m about to leave, his voice stops me.
“That guy in there, Charlie. He seems like a good guy.”
I can’t figure out what his tone means. He seems off, but I don’t know why.
“He is.”
“Are you guys—”
“Don’t. I don’t want to talk to you about that, either.”
Joel remains silent.
“What did they do to you?” I remember all the bruises covering him and I’m curious about what was done to him. Maybe I can feel some sense of justice in how he was treated, and maybe thinking that way makes me a bad person. Or maybe I’m just curious how ruthless P.A.G.E. really is.
“It might be quicker to say what they didn’t do.” Joel’s voice hitches and I feel a small amount of sympathy for him, however the sympathy is quickly lost when I think of Dana bleeding out.
“You should get some rest.” I turn away, wanting to get back to Charlie and away from the bad memories trying to suck me in from being around him.
“If only my nightmares would let me,” Joel mutters to himself.
I wonder if his nightmares have Dana in them, though I can’t bring myself to ask.
***
Our drive to Lincoln is done in complete silence since Joel is awake and aware in the backseat. He seems to be lost in his own thoughts while Charlie most likely can feel the tension in the car, which keeps him just as quiet. I wish Joel would go back to sleeping so I can feel alone with Charlie.
We drive until after lunchtime when we enter Nebraska. I begin to feel nervous that Will and Rose won’t be at the university. When we get there, I’m surprised at how big it is. It takes asking three people directions before we reach the student union which is in the south part of the campus. We find the bookstore easily after that and after our third search of every shelf and a few odd looks from the girl working in there, we leave and wait outside the door, leaning on the wall.
Taken By Surprise (Taken Trilogy Book 1) Page 36