One Way Ticket to Anywhere | ✔️

Chapter 18

He grabbed my arm and yanked me up from the table.

My friends burst into a blur of commotion, scrambling up from the table, cursing in confusion, and stumbling after us as I was shoved out the door into the night.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing with Raegan?" Matt screamed, breaking into a jog after us.

I gripped Sebastien's arm. "Sebastien, these are my friends. You can't just do this. They'll think I'm being kidnapped."

Sebastien didn't stop. What the hell did he think he was doing? Had he gone absolutely mad? He was practically dragging me now, due to him breaking into a sprint and me resisting him with every muscle in my body.

"Help! Help, somebody help me please. This man is kidnapping me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, hoping for Sebastien to freak out enough to stop and talk to me.

But he didn't stop, he just kept on running. Now I was actually scared. What was he up to?

Calling out the same thing in German I screamed, "Hilfe! Hilf mir doch jemand. Ich glaube, ich werde entführt!"

I thought maybe this time it would stop him. A lot of people spoke German here or could at least understand it, due to how similar it was to Dutch, so he would be scared enough to stop this stunt he was pulling. But I hadn't truly thought out the consequences of screaming out to the streets that a strange man is kidnapping you, when in fact he isn't.

Before I could register what was happening I heard the "ooo-wee, ooo-wee" of European police cars surrounding us. The men and women jumped out of their cars and rushed toward us, guns in hand.

One of the officers looked at me and then the firm grip Sebastien still held on my arm. "Is he the one?"

Sebastien dropped my arm and looked at me with such contempt, it was as if we'd never been friendly before. "You fucking clueless, privileged bitch."

The officer didn't wait for me to say anything. He simply yanked his arms behind his back and practically threw him into the police car. Sebastien's stone cold eyes stared at me as the car sped away.

One of the female officers touched my arm gently and I involuntarily flinched. "I'm sorry, miss," she said with a thick Dutch accent, removing her hand. "But were going to have to ask you to come to the station."

"What about my friends?" I looked over behind me where I saw Matt, Emma, and Ada looking betrayed and confused.

"You can catch up with them later. We really must go. We have to question you at the station."

Question?

Me?

Oh, what the hell had I done?

"Ma'am, I am really so sorry but his is all a huge misunderstanding. He didn't do anything wrong, we were just fighting, that's all, and I got overly angry and said some really stupid things that most definitely weren't true—"

"I'm going to have to stop you there. You must save your statement for the station." The officer said cutting me off.

As I was guided into the car, I slowly started to realize what I had done. Sebastien was a criminal. He was wanted for murder. And I had just handed him right over to the authorities without a second thought.

If I ever saw him again, he would never forgive me for this.

March 22, 2:07 AM
Amsterdam, the Netherlands

I sat on one of the police station's chairs, squeezing my fingers and bouncing my leg up and down. I was scared out of my mind. By telling me he was a hitman, Sebastien had made me a part of his crime. We had been on the run from one of the most powerful gangs in Africa for the past month.

I could be charged with withholding information on an international scale. I would never see Sebastien again and I would be sentenced to live in a Tanzanian prison. I might never go back to America.

I hadn't truly thought about the burdens Sebastien had put on me when he told me about his past. He had put his crimes on me and done it knowingly, knowing I would be forced to live with secrets for the rest of my life.

How could I forgive him for this?

But another part of my couldn't stop worrying about Sebastien. I loved him and the thought of this night being our last felt like needles were stuck in my lungs. I was privileged and I didn't know better. I was privileged and had made a privileged mistake.

And now I would pay for it.

I flashed back to our annual county fair that always came to town the last week of August. The people who worked the rides and the games were always Mexicans, people just trying to get by in anyway possible.

Walking around the fair, the workers would always harass you to play their games, for the money you spent was their paycheck. Most of them looked miserable and would get into full on fights when one of the other game workers stole one of their customers, swearing and having the tensions of feuds that had been going on for years.

While I was there the summer before my sophomore year we were standing in line to play a game, a lady stormed out of her booth and stormed right up to the kid at the game we were at, "You can tell your boss that I fucking quit. I'm fucking done." She said, throwing her apron on the ground and then storming into the distance. The kid just shrugged and said okay, as if he'd seen this sort of thing happen everyday. We found it hilarious at the time, but looking back on it, it really wasn't at all.

They weren't all miserable. In fact the kid the lady had screamed at was incredibly nice and we talked to him until the day turned into dusk, but there was a clear divide between us and them. Us: the privileged white Americans taking everything for granted. And them: the Mexican immigrants traveling from state to state, making horrible pay, and having to watch all of these privileged people simply take everything for granted.

Privilege. It was something I had barely thought about before leaving the US and meeting Sebastien. He was right about what he had said during our fight at Alec's house. I had a life to go back to when I was done here, a pretty damn good life; college, family and the like. But Sebastien? He had killed people trying to get what I was born with. And as a result he hadn't stopped moving for over four years.

He wasn't a bad person. He had just been left with very little choices. It didn't make what he did excusable, but slightly understandable. He had gotten caught up in a situation due to one man's charming words and false promises and when he was in too deep, he couldn't back out without risking everything.

Wasn't that exactly what I had done? Followed Sebastien on a whim, due to his charming words and false promises? Now I was neck deep in his world, drowning in his punishments, too deep in to back out without falling in completely. The real world is quicksand: you don't even notice that you're sinking until it's too late.

I had taken everything Sebastien had entrusted me with and thrown it back in his face. And because of it, we both might never see the light of day again.

What the hell had I done?

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I hope you enjoyed Chapter 18! Please vote, comment, and share if you haven't already. Come back next Sunday to find out how Sebastien is going to react to what Raegan has done!