The Runaways

Chapter 23

Hailey

Caleb's eyes flickered out fast, faster than the cop cars careening down the dirt driveway.

We had to move, to find the fire we first had back at Union Station. We used to be fast, fast enough to outdo the angels. But Caleb could barely move. He hardly had it in him to stand.

He’d lost more spirit than strength. Even when he cried his eyes were dull— like all that beautiful blue had melted into deadpan grey. Every time he faked a smile, pain lingered between the lines of his lips.

He stood there, listening to the shrinking distance between us and danger, and flashed the kind of grin I used to be good at—the kind that hid the fact that I was a big fat mess behind my expensively whitened teeth.

I grabbed his hand so he’d believe that we'd be okay—that I was okay, and that the echo of his Mom’s story wasn't rotting me from the inside out. He’d lost too much, too soon, and had come too close to losing himself last night.

I'd spent hours waiting, waiting to hear him cry out in the dark, or for Jack to come and tell me he was gone.

But I shouldn’t have been afraid of those things. Losing Caleb should've felt like losing a stranger. An enemy. But he didn't feel like one of the bad guys. Bad guys don’t save lives. Imposters do.

From the second stood between me and a bullet, he’d trapped me in feelings I didn't understand. And when he cried in front of me like he'd been holding in a hurricane, I sunk six feet further into him. Mistake or not, I didn’t have anyone else to follow. I didn’t have anyone else to trust.

        “You ready?” I asked.

He kept quiet, his right foot anxiously tap, tap, tapping a hole halfway to China through the worn wood floor. If he didn’t get moving we’d both die under his dad’s roof, under his dad’s thumb. The seven o’clock news would have a field day about the whole thing.

24-hour manhunt ends anticlimactically in teenage kidnapper’s childhood bedroom.

Both of us deserved better than cheap headlines, but Caleb was caving under the pressure. Earlier, he'd been ready to hit the road raw and reckless, only to end up waist deep in doubts.

He'd stopped paying attention. Stopped trying. I’d lived that way most of my life. I stopped trying when my parents did. In high school, I figured my problems were bigger and uglier than everyone else’s, so I was miserable, so much so that it got comfortable after a while.

Caleb pulled me out of that comfort, made things terrifying, exciting, and different. I needed something different, someone different, and the scrawny smooth-talker who stole me out of a train station, was it. We lost too much to die here without trying.

        “Get it together, Evans. We’ve got a tree house to scale,” I said.

He stuck his fingers knuckle deep into his sweaty, dark hair like it would take away the tension.

        “What if I can’t do this, Hailey?”

        “You can. You will. I’ll be right behind you.”

Caleb limped across the room; eyes married to the floor like he’d disappear into if he didn’t stay focused. I dug through the remaining pieces of the first aid kit for a solution to his pain. Two bandages later I found the medical motivation to keep him running.

The best thing about scrawny boys in blue jeans is, there’s only a belt between the world and their boxers. I waited by the door until he just about passed me and pulled his belt loose. His pants hit the floor, and before he could blush about it I jammed an Epi-pen into his thigh. Quick liquid energy.