He stepped out into the middle of the road, and I heard the car sputter to a stop, the leaves and foliage blocking my view of who was inside. “Get out,” I heard Lucas say in a near growl. “And leave the phone.”
“Please,” a woman responded, her voice edging on the border of hysteria. “Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my babies!”
I shot out of the woods at the words, finding a young woman with her hands up in the air beside the driver’s side door. To my horror, there were two kids in the back, strapped in the car seats, their eyes wide at the gun that Lucas had in his hands.
No! No! No!
“Get them out,” he said to me, motioning to the back seat.
I debated whether or not to defy him, but the last thing I wanted was for him to handle the children. Hating myself as I did so, I hurried to the first door, and unclipped the seatbelts on the car seat.
The little girl was the spitting image of her mom, with curly blonde hair. She couldn’t have been more than three, but she allowed me to pick her up without any protest.
“Shh,” I told her. “I’m just taking you to your mom, all right?”
“Binkie,” the girl responded, reaching back for the seat. There was a ragged bunny in the seat. I grabbed it and gave it to her, my heart twisting as she hugged it close. What I wouldn’t give for a security blanket myself!
There were tears in the mom’s eyes as I handed over her daughter, ignoring Lucas as I went back for the little boy. It took me a while to realize that the kids were twins. The boy watched my movements with solemn eyes, and I made sure to grab all the things I could see, including the woman’s purse from the front seat.
“Here,” I told her, awkwardly giving her the kid as well as her things. “We don’t want anything but your car. I will call for help, I promise.”
“We’re wasting time. Let’s go,” Lucas snarled and cut off any other words I wanted to say to the woman.
I knew that we needed the car, but I hated the fact that we took it from a family. From kids. I was nothing more than an accomplice at this point, and it didn’t make me feel any better.
So much for looking out for my own interest.
Lucas climbed in the car, and we peeled away from the woman and her kids.
“What the fuck was that?” he growled once the three had disappeared from view.
I ignored him, fished the phone out of the cup holder, and dialed 911.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“There’s been a carjacking,” I said. “Please hurry. Track this phone.”
“Miss? Where are you? What’s your name?”
I rolled down the window and threw the phone out, hoping that it would still be working by the time the authorities came. It was the least I could do.
“What the fuck was that?”
I glared at Lucas, incredulous at his lack of tact.
“You took her car! She had kids, Lucas! Kids! I knowyoucan’t process that, but we did something terrible, and I’m just trying to make it better.”
“You just set the cops on us!” he roared back. “Did you forget that we’re on the run?”
“Then you better drive fast,” I answered, crossing my arms over my chest. “Because you know I did the right thing.”
He could push me out of the car for all I cared at that moment. But my conscience would be clean. Small victories.
Luas’s jaw clenched tight, and he put his eyes on the road as the speed picked up. I wouldn’t be like him, or like Adrian, or like my father. I refused to be a monster, and those kids reminded me of my own nephews. What if that had been Rory on the road alone?
That singular act wouldn’t erase the rest of what we did, but I could only hope it would give the mom a measure of security.
We drove on in silence, and soon, familiar scenery started appearing. We passed by the diner where I had tried to escape to when Lucas first bought me.