On the Run

Chapter Three

Kymber and I stayed huddled in the corner, hoping we wouldn't be noticed. I didn't think Ryder had heard me when I hissed his name seeing as how I'd left him watching CNN and working out. He proved me wrong when he was behind me a few seconds later, huddled next to us.

"What's going on?" he questioned, doing a quick assessment of the both of us. When we appeared okay, the look on his face changed from slight concern to demanding an answer.

Kymber pointed towards the front door, where we could also see out the window.

"If it's another wild animal, I'm going to feed both of you to it," Ryder threatened.

"If it were a wild animal, I wouldn't be curled in a corner whispering like an idiot!" I snapped back.

"There's some strange woman at the door," Kymber explained. "When I woke up, she was there, but I don't think she saw me. She's literally standing there, peeking in through the windows."

Ryder leaned around the corner to take a look himself. "That's Rhonda."

"Really? Lazy-good-for-nothing Fro Queen Rhonda?" I said, turning to look out the window and get a good look at her. "Huh. Guess I didn't recognize her in daylight."

"Be nice," Ryder warned, standing up from the floor.

"Nice? What is this nice that you speak of? Is it deadly? Contagious?" Ryder continued towards the door as I sat down on the couch, watching him with interest. "Am I going to catch this 'nice'?"

Ryder sighed and shook his head at me, his hand resting against the doorknob. "No, Sara. Honestly, I think you're immune."

I grinned as Ryder opened the door and stepped out of my view to talk to Rhonda. I could hear their voices but it was nowhere near loud enough for me to make out what was being said.

"Should we be good little girls and wait until they finish talking or should we disrupt it?" I asked Kymber, watching as Rhonda handed Ryder some sort of covered dish. He nodded, pretending to be interested as she blabbed on and played with her hair.

Kymber shook her head. "At the rate she's going, there will never be a need for us to interfere. She's doing all the work for us."

I considered this. "As much as I appreciate her doing all the work, decreasing the amount of work I have to do, I'd rather do the work so at least I'll have something to do."

Kymber agreed and we sat in silence for a couple moments. Rhonda had started laughing at something Ryder had said, her voice some sort of shrill noise that vaguely reminded me of nails on a chalkboard.

Kymber glanced at me. "How much do you want to bet that we could do something incredibly insane and Rhonda would never notice?"

I scoffed. "Ryan Gosling could go streaking outside and she wouldn't notice. She's too busy mooning over Ryder." Her shrill laugh reached my ears and I spotted Ryder's shadow as he cringed. Guess I wasn't the only one she irritated. I was just the only one blunt enough to say it to her face.

"Makes me wish the bobcat were here about to eat our faces off," Kymber muttered, making me laugh. She walked over to the window and leaned against it, pushing the curtain back so she could watch the two outside. "Then again, maybe the bobcat can come back and eat her face off."

I shook my head. "No, the bobcat would get here in time to hear her laugh, decide that's way too irritating and run the other direction." I joined her by the window, but I pressed my face up against the glass and started making faces at the two outside, but Rhonda didn't notice. Ryder did.

He bit back a laugh as I pressed my nose against the glass and sucked my cheeks in. Unfortunately, Rhonda thought the laugh was because of something she said and kept jabbering, the shift in her tone hinting at things that I had no business knowing about. It made me feel kind of bad that Ryder didn't notice.