“An ex-boyfriend and his buddy just spotted me. I wanted to get away before they try to corner me, or at least dissuade him from coming over. He’s not a good guy.”
“Oh?” he asked, tapping at his cell phone and dropping it into his pocket. “He’s not a big guy, I hope.”
I liked him. He was quick and willing to play along. If I hadn’t been in panic mode, I would have kissed him. “Can we just go into a shop and pretend to make out or something?”
“Sure,” he said with a hint at a smile, like he didn’t believe I really meant the making out part. He pointed at the closest store. “How about that one?”
“Perfect,” I rattled off, without actually looking at where he had pointed. We just needed to get going.
I followed him inside a Love Culture store. I couldn’t spot anyone tailing us, which was good, but I wanted to make sure. If they were still trying to find me, I wanted to be out of view for a bit. I’d backtrack and find an exit when I was sure they had passed us by.
I clung to the nerdling’s bicep, surprised to feel a bulge of muscle. He had a fit body underneath his T-shirt and corduroy slacks. I noted the confident way he carried himself into the store, and how eager to please he seemed to be.
Nerdlings weren’t usually my type. They were usually “yes men”—you could tell them to jump off a cliff and they’d do it and beg for another order just to make you happy. Some girls liked that, but I hated it.
But I tried not to presume based on looks, or fashion choices.
He headed toward the back, and picked a spot behind one of the clearance racks. He nudged me beside him, so we were both hidden from the front of the store. “How’s this?” he asked, a blond eyebrow going up.
I nodded, and then stopped short when I realized we were in a section of bras and ladies’ underwear.
He followed my gaze and studied the displays. His cheeks tinted again. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just ... didn’t mean ...”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. I wanted to make him comfortable since he was being such a good sport about the situation. “I hadn’t noticed either.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Bambi,” I said, going with my initial lie. I wasn’t sure why I did it. I was just sure I wouldn’t see him again. A shame, but really, it was for the best. I wasn’t his type, or anyone’s type, for that matter.
“I’m Corey,” he said, oblivious to the fact that I’d just lied. That brought back some confidence. I wasn’t that horrible at lying.
He held out a hand, and looked expectantly at me.
I took it quickly, shaking it and hoping he didn’t notice me rattling from leftover panic. “Sorry to inconvenience you.”
“Not a problem. I wasn’t in a hurry.” He tilted his head, focusing on my face. “Did you try telling him to back off?”
“Who?”
“Your ex-boyfriend. The one we’re hiding from.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. He doesn’t listen very well.”
His eyes flicked up as if checking to see if anyone was paying attention. He returned his focus on me and smiled sympathetically. “And I’m sorry.”
He seemed so sincere about his apology that I had no idea what he was saying it for. Because of the place he picked out? “I said it was fine.”
“Not that,” he said. “I mean ...” and he angled his head to indicate I should look behind me.
I turned, surprised to see pretzel boy leaning against the wall. His bicep muscle bulged as he put his weight on his hand. His smile played on his lips as he cocked his head toward me. “Hey there, pretty girl.”
I tumbled backward in a panic, flat into the rack of bras. A space between the top and base of the rack allowed for an escape. I weaved through quickly to the other side. I stumbled forward and shot between two sales racks and hauled it to the exit.
My target in the red jacket had parked himself by the entryway. He weaved, his arm outstretched to catch me by the elbow. I diverted, turned and ducked out of range. He probably wasn’t expecting me to get away from his pals.
This time I didn’t stop for any more games. I was going to find an exit and run home. Mall security must have caught on to me.
I had to cut through two more crowds before I found the entrance to a small service hallway. I launched myself between a couple, breaking their hand holding, and made a dash for the hallway.
I started to slow when someone from the other end of the service hall came out of a side door. I combed my fingers through my hair, away from my eyes, to try to look presentable, like a tired employee going home.
As we closed in on each other, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. He looked almost exactly like the nerdling, except his clothes were different, wearing a red T-shirt depicting the local college football team, jeans and Nike sneakers. He also carried himself differently, with a swagger. It was like the nerdling had managed to get all cool in a blink.
I slowed, staring, sure I was going crazy.
The guy, once he caught my eye, stared right back at me. His head tilted, a curious smile played on the side of his mouth. When we got close, he slowed. “Hi.”
“No time,” I said, trying to sound apologetic. “Have to get home.” I turned my body sideways to squeeze by him.
His hand shot out toward the wall, right next to my head, blocking my path. His blue eyes focused on me.
These were different that the nerdling’s too. Same blue shade, but dimmer. Sad. Wounded. Embedded so deep inside him that it seemed overwhelming and I wanted to tell him I was deeply sorry for whatever hurt caused his otherwise incredibly handsome face to look so down.
Those eyes stilled my lips as well as my legs. His gaze seemed to penetrate through me, right to my core, begging me to find what was lost in him, wanting to fix him, so the smile on his lips actually reached his soul.
“You don’t have to run,” he said in a tone that was soft, deep, and suggested deeper meaning.
The sound of a door crashing open behind me told me otherwise. “I have to ...” I said. I inched to move under his arm.
His arm slid down, until his fist was against the wall, at my chest height. His eyes were still sad, but he masked them somehow with a teasing glint. “Stop it, sweet pea. You aren’t in trouble. Yet.”
My eyes widened at him. I turned my head, catching pretzel boy, my target, and Corey, the nerdling coming down the hall.
My panicked heart was unrelenting against my rib cage. Despite what the cool guy was saying, this was clearly a security team, obvious in the confident way they approached me. Pretzel boy had taken the lead over the other two following him. His mismatched eyes zeroed in on me, the smile on his lips smug, satisfied. He’d caught his prey.
But I had one more last trick. A dirty girl trick.
“Rape!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The entire group of boys stopped dead, except Corey, who jumped a short step back.
I took my chance. I ducked under the cool guy’s arm.
“Wait,” pretzel boy called. “Bambi!”
I didn’t stop. I felt the brush of the cool guy’s fingers swiping at my back, but he wasn’t fast enough. I darted down the hall toward the exit.
An alarm didn’t sound. I was out in the parking lot and weaved amid the cars. Losing my breath. Losing my mind. Losing the boys.
For now.
BETTER THAN A CARDBOARD BOX
The short walk to the extended stay hotel was almost as terrifying. I was going nonstop to get there. Every couple of minutes, I checked over my shoulder at every passing car, any shadow, every bit of noise. My senses were in overdrive, paranoid that pretzel boy and his gang were following me.
That was too close. Way too close. Someone must have noticed me hanging around more than usual, and had been ready for me. Now that I was away from the situation, I realized my mistake: the red jacket. The easy target, when it was still warm for early October.
I’d been too
greedy and too eager to hurry and get out of there. The setup should have been obvious, but I’d never been caught like that before. I’d been getting too lax with my targets. Maybe one too many wallets had been lifted at that mall in the last few weeks. I didn’t think I’d done that many, but there might have been more pickpockets there than just me.
The problem was I only had the forty dollars, still short of what I needed. I only had tomorrow morning to find the rest or we’d get tossed out into the streets. The Citadel Mall had been an easy spot, full of tight corners and distractions. It was also close to the hotel we were living at, and closest to the Savannah highway in West Ashley. I wasn’t sure I had time to scout a new area, like one should do, when picking a new place to haunt. I needed time to figure out cameras and security routines.
I turned the corner down the street, walking through the parking lot of the extended stay hotel, where rent was over two hundred dollars a week, and the place was usually always packed.
A white utility service truck pulled up just as I crossed through an empty parking space. It took a spot near the staircase I was heading to. The window rolled down on the passenger side. An old man with a grizzly beard stuck his head out and catcalled at me. “Hey there, pretty girl. Staying here? Need a free room?”
Ugh.
I ignored him, and rushed for the stairwell. I skipped the steps two at a time and took my key out for Room 221B.
“I’m home,” I called out the moment I had the door cracked open.
“Kayli!” my brother called. He could usually hear when it was me.
“Wil!” I called back, like I always did. I locked the door behind me, and turned from the short corridor to the wider hotel room.
Wil was in the kitchenette. He waited by the coffee maker and emptied a packet of oatmeal into a coffee mug. “Where have you been?” He looked up, his green eyes covered by a pair of glasses meeting mine. His thin lips pursed as he studied my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to slow my breathing and look casual. “Those jerk construction workers were just bugging me.”
“Work ran late?”
I checked the time on the clock over the microwave. Six was pretty late to get back if I wanted to be here before our old man got up. If I wasn’t, he’d root around for money, sometimes breaking things and sometimes finding our stash and taking it to go drink at the bar. “Yeah,” I said, avoiding his eyes by pretending to be engrossed with a crack in the tile on the counter.
“How’s Tasty’s?”
Tasty’s was the name of the Chinese restaurant where I worked part time. It was the only place within walking distance that would hire me. The owner paid me barely minimum wage under the table and it wasn’t enough for the outrageous rent required by the hotel. “Busy,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe the line of customers.”
“Liar,” he replied. He sighed. “No leftovers for us today. Damn. I was hoping for something else besides bananas and oatmeal.”
One of the few benefits to living in a hotel was it served free breakfast in the morning. Unfortunately, it often consisted of oatmeal, bananas, apples and a few pastries. And lately there hadn’t been any pastries. To save money on food, we picked up more than our fair share of breakfast staples to last throughout the day. Occasionally I got rice from the Chinese restaurant, and if I was really lucky, I’d get someone’s order that didn’t get picked up.
The coffee maker beeped. Wil poured his hot water into the coffee cup, and started stirring the oatmeal mix. For being the younger brother, he was taller than I was, with the same eyes, and the same dark brown hair. His was cropped really short. Mine was straight and reached midway down my back. From that point, our looks differed. He was gruff, wiry and usually had a playful grin that seemed permanent to his face. Meanwhile, I hardly ever smiled. There isn’t much to smile about when you live in a dump hotel and scrounge for food and pick pockets to make the rent.
A snore broke through our mutual silence. I turned my head, spotting Jack in the bed closest to the wall. Daddy, Dad, Papa and other father names never really fit well between my lips and his ears. Jack was the thing we’d settled on. And those moments he wasn’t cursing at me, he sometimes remembered my name was Kayli.
Wil and I were more like roommates to him. He stayed up all night, drinking my hard-earned money away at the local bar, while my brother and I tried to catch some sleep before he got home. Most of the time he came back alone, but every once in a while he bought enough beer for one of the barflies to believe his promises about drugs, money, or more beer at the hotel room. He’d shoo us out, and we’d escape to spend the night in the hotel lobby on the overstuffed sofas, or by the pool that was always under repair. Management only hassled us every once in a while. If that happened, we’d break in and sleep in the hotel’s laundry room, cramped up together in the overheated space.
The lump in the bed shifted. I groaned internally, rolling my eyes and turning away from him.
Wil didn’t say a word, but looked at me, asking me quietly about money.
I yanked out the twenty-five dollars I had earned working too few hours today. I also dug out the forty dollars I got at the mall.
Wil sighed. “I didn’t get that much either,” he said. He pulled out thirty dollars and a few ones.
I counted it again just to be sure, but including the money we’d made earlier that week, we still didn’t have enough for the rent that was due tomorrow. Jack had broken into our stash this week. I could have shot him for spending nearly seventy dollars on a barfly and himself.
“I should just quit,” Wil said. “School isn’t that important. It takes up too much time.”
“No,” I said. “You have to finish high school. Mom would have wanted it.”
Wil grunted. “Do you think she’d care at this point?”
I didn’t respond. He knew the answer to that. If I didn’t think it was important, I wouldn’t have objected. But I managed to get us this hotel room after our father had a scrape with one too many landlords and we couldn’t get another rental apartment within city limits. We were one step away from a cardboard box.
“How did you get the money anyway?” I asked. “You went to school, didn’t you?”
“I got a quick job helping mow someone’s lawn on the way home.”
I scrutinized him. Unlike how Wil could read me, I couldn’t tell when he lied. I think it was those big eyes and the way the smile tripped in the corner of his mouth almost constantly. A goofy type of smile, and I was always a sucker for goofy smiles.
“But I should do more,” he said.
“You should get through your senior year with those good grades and get a scholarship into college.”
“We don’t have the money for college.”
“Colleges give you the money. And you can get loans and stuff, too.”
“The last thing anyone would give me is a loan.” He dipped his spoon into the coffee mug and took a bite of oatmeal. He grimaced. “I think he put out the expired packets again.”
I groaned, but shooed him out of the way to take one of the bananas. “The point is, you’ll be able to go to class and eat campus food and maybe even pick up an internship that will pay you. You’d be set for like four years. Maybe even longer if you decide to become a doctor or something.”
“Do you want to tell me which classes to take, too?” he asked, ending his question with a smirk.
“No, dummy. I want you to go to class so we don’t have to live here anymore. Not with him.” I nodded toward Jack.
Wil’s eyes narrowed. “We can just leave him here,” he said. “No one will say anything.”
“They did last time. He may call the cops on us again and tell them you’re a runaway. Finish school.” I stuffed pieces of banana in my mouth and chewed and swallowed. “You can’t leave mid-term anyway. And if we left and you continued going, your school is the first place he’ll come looking for us. There’re only a few months left. This is your last year. And you
can start applying to colleges in January. Maybe you can get in on the summer semester."
“There’s fees.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “We’ll get Jack to buy the cheaper whiskey.”
Wil pressed his fingers to the edge of his spoon, smoothing over the metal. He started shoveling the oatmeal into his mouth. I ate my banana and took a glass of water. When I was done, I cleaned both the coffee pot and the glass. With nothing better to do with my time, cleaning the tiny room helped.
Wil settled into the second double bed. Textbooks were stacked neatly in the corner and he picked up one. The room had a television, but since Jack slept during the day, we rarely ever turned it on. The hotel had a complimentary business nook, with a single old computer with internet access and printer. Late at night, when everyone else was mostly asleep, Wil would go down and do whatever homework he needed. If he didn’t need to use it, I sometimes used it to look for jobs.
I left to steal newspapers from the front lobby. I returned, sitting on the floor, scanning for jobs I could do, hoping to find one open close by.
After a while, I gave up. Most of the jobs listed were repeats. Some I’d tried before and failed. Most were out of my skill level.
I told Wil I was going to bathe. I pilfered through one of my two book bags for clothes and locked myself into the bathroom. I ran the shower as hot as I could, undressed and under the spray with my arms crossed over my body until I could adjust to the temperature.
While I did, I thought about pretzel boy. How had he spotted me from across the mall? They must have caught on to what I’d been up to for a while. Maybe they hadn’t been sure who I was, but they knew how I operated. So they set up the tall guy to be a target? And their plan was to corner me?
Why did pretzel boy offer me a job? What was that about?
And how was it I managed to run smack into the nerdling who was part of their team? And then his doppelganger, his brother most likely, in the hallway?
It made me wonder if they had a whole team of people working every section. One thing was for sure, I had to switch stomping grounds for good. This made it harder, especially with rent due the next day. It couldn’t be another mall, as they’d likely cover any of the others now. There weren’t many crowded places with people carrying full wallets walking around. People rarely used cash these days anyway, since they had credit cards. The mall had been my best chance.