I woke up to my stomach growling. I realized I was the only one awake. I stood up and stretched before I woke Lauren up. I rubbed her arm ‘til she stirred. She didn’t even open her eyes.
“What?” she asked bitterly, knowing it was me.
“I’m going to see if I can find food so prop the chair against the door after me.”
Lauren slowly got up and followed me to the door. It didn’t take her long to shut me out in the hall. I ducked, dodge, and ran, attempting to avoid getting hit with random objects that were getting thrown across the building and outside. I finally managed to get into a building that had a slanted, half-blinking grocery store sign. The shelves were mostly bare so I took the few things that I could find as I heard a few gun shots. Running as fast I could, I jumped over pieces of what used to be buildings and ran back up the stairs.
“Lauren, let me in!” I yelled as I kicked the bottom of the door which bounced as I did so.
“How do I know it’s you?”
I wanted to strangle her for leaving me in the hallway out of spite, as a plate whooshed past my ear to smash into a million pieces. I tried to think really hard of something that would bother her so she would know it was me.
“You have a birthmark on your upper thigh the size of a quarter,” I smirked as I could see her red embarrassed yet livid face as she heard that.
I remembered seeing that when we were swimming. I loved making that girl squirm with discomfort. She opened the door with her cheeks crimson just like I knew they would be and I smiled as I waltzed into the room. I dropped the stuff on the floor, kind of curious as to what I had even grabbed. It was mostly cereal so that was good, since for one, cereal didn’t go bad as quickly if not opened and two, they ate it.
I collapsed onto the mattress that everyone moved from and tried to gain my breath back from my adventure. There was no way in hell I was going to tell Lauren that she was right about this place not being a good idea. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, ready to go back to sleep.
“How do you know about the birthmark?” Lauren’s voice was on edge.
I smiled big as I left my eyes closed for a second. I opened them just enough to see her feet and my grin widened as a thought came to me. She was going to want to kill me even more, but when I was talking about that birthmark of hers I had to do this. I swiped my foot against her ankles which caused her to lose her balance and to fall onto the mattress. Acting swiftly I straddled her waist and pined her wrists to the mattress. I stared into her wide, shocked blue eyes as I could see my chain hanging a couple of inches from my neck.
Every fiber in my body screamed at this action. My whole body shouted to kiss her. My mind blared at me that I was going against my goal to stay away from her. Yet at the moment, she tested me. I couldn’t help but do it to her. The moment I had the chance to make her squirm my body commanded me to take the opportunity.
“The birthmark, I saw a little bit of it when we were swimming because my black shirt that you were wearing moved a lot. I didn’t really know if it was there, but you just confirmed it.”
The fear washed away from Lauren’s jean blue eyes. Pure confusion settled in her eyes as she tried to figure out what I had planned to do. I was trying to figure out the real reason I had just pinned Lauren to the mattress.
“You cheated! You cheated, you jerk!” I heard Jill howled in the bathroom and I looked back down at Lauren very baffled.
“They found a deck of cards in the corner so they decided to play in the bathroom. I didn’t want to ask questions.”
My heart started to race. I forgot that there were kids here with us that could be watching. Sean could have walked in to see me over his sister. I couldn’t believe I was this close to her when I had my plan to work on. Then there was that biggest question that would beat all the questions. What the hell drove me to do this?
I quickly got off her and she got back up to go check on the card players, not looking back at me. I fell backward and groaned at how stupid I was acting, as my hands drove into my hair in frustration. I needed to get away from this. Well not this, but rather Lauren and the two little ones as they stared up at me so trusting and I was falling into this life too easily—the ‘we’re a family’ formula. I stood up and went toward the door. I never felt so ashamed of myself, even more so than that day when I got Manson arrested, but I needed this to happen.
“Lauren, I’m leaving. I won’t be back for a while,” I called out my voice had no trail of emotion as my hand hovered over the handle of the door.
I knew something good could happen between us if we worked together— maybe a nice, long-lasting relationship could form. That could also lead to the group being stronger, well except for Cole plotting my death while I slept. I also knew she might have some not-so-nice words to say to me after what I had just done. If not words of anger at least more questions that I didn’t have the answers to. So I ran out before she could do anything. I needed to clear my head. I needed to figure a few things out. I was useless to them in this state. Even though half of me hated myself for doing this, but, I knew I had to. I took off in the chaos, never looking back.
Roughly 100 days later…
Chapter Seven
Lauren
End of the Line Page 18