The Chase ▹ Ashton Irwin

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

More whistles blew, and by now everyone in the whole lobby of the hotel were staring at us. I held onto Ashton's hand for dear life as we pushed past the crowds of people in the bottom floor. I looked out of the corner of my eyes to see Michael, Calum, and Natalie running in a different direction. I wanted to scream out to them, but I decided against it. It would just attract more attention.

I could feel sweat generating between me and Ashton's hands as we ran harder and harder. Faces blurred past me, and I couldn't keep up. Ashton was fast. "Brooke you gotta keep up." Ashton said behind his shoulder. I nodded and kept going. We finally made it to a staircase that led down to the underground parking. Ashton stopped, and looked around us to see if we were being followed. I couldn't see anyone after us, but I could hear the heavy footsteps of angry security guards. "Keep..going." I panted. We rushed down the stairs and broke out into the underground garage. People were still looking at us, utterly confused as to why we were running for our lives. I looked across the big room to see Michael, Calum and Natalie.

"Michael!" Ashton yelled. His voice was raspy from the smoke he had taken in earlier. "Did you lose em?"

"No!" Calum yelled back. All 3 of them ditched Michael's car and ran straight for the road. "What do we do?" I asked, still running. "Keep running!' Ashton said. At this moment, he was right beside me. My eyes shot over to him, to see him smiling to himself. What he enjoying this?!

We took a turn onto the main road. "Okay good there's a lot of people." Ashton said. "Follow me."

We ducked down, trying to loose ourselves in the crowds of tourists and "vegas" kinds of people. I could still hear whistles behind us, and I wondered how long it would take to loose them. Just then, Ashton stopped, I tried to stop as well, but my momentum made me bump into him. He looked around, then whipped his head around to the sound of another whistle. "Shit." he said under his breath. His eyes shot over to an alleyway inbetween 2 junky motels not too far away. "Follow me." He said. I obeyed. We sprinted into the alleyway. My legs were starting to give out, but I was too scared to stop. Ashton grabbed me by the hand and practically slid behind an old dumpster.

We crouched there for a few seconds, panting. "Ashton-" I tried to say, but Ashton put his big hand over my mouth at the sound of the security guards near by.

"Shhh." He said. We waited. Finally, he perked his head out from behind the dumpster to look around. A flashlight flashed, and he threw himself back. We were both silent for a while. I looked at Ashton, who was still trying to catch his breath as I was. He smiled.

"Adrenaline," He breathed. "Gotta love it."

"Oh my God I can't believe I just did that." I said. I really couldn't believe it. It felt...amazing. I've never had that feeling of pure adrenaline as I did just moments ago. I could tell Ashton gets a lot of it, but he never gets tired of it.

Ashton whipped out his phone to see Michael texted him. His eyes darted back and fourth as he read the messages, then he sighed a sigh of relief. "They lost them."

"Thank God." I replied.

We waited in silence a few more minutes, then Ashton finally stood up, giving me his hand to help me get up as well. "We have to get my car." He said. "Just stay close."

I happily agreed to that.

...

"And the way Natalie totally called them out!" I said loudly. Ashton and I had sucessfully gotten his car out of the garage with the help of pulling our hood over our heads. Now, we were bombing down the dirt road to Ashton's house, laughing in hysteria at what had just happened.

"They were such dicks!" Ashton laughed. I knew niether of us were drunk or high, but it sure seemed like it. It was the adrenaline that was still pumping through my veins. We finally pulled up to the trailer and Ashton parked right beside it. The, he went quiet. "Its like 12:30am," He said. "I don't want to wake up Gram."