The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,49
everything and decide later,” I said. Translation: let me go home and google “best bear spray.” I finished the ketchup for my fries and looked under the fry container for another packet. Nate smiled and handed me some from his side of the tray. “You want any fries to go with that ketchup, Miss?”
“Can you bring some of these ketchups in your backpack? I may need them for sustenance,” I said. “To put on some tasty bear meat.”
He made a blech face, one eye closed with his tongue hanging out. “Probably not what Heinz or Hunt’s had in mind.”
“Okay, let’s be serious now. If you fall behind with that balloon animal leg of yours, you may be sacrificed to Smokey and his bear posse so I can make it to the finish line.”
“You’d use me as bear bait?” He winced. “That’s harsh. I had no idea you were so competitive.”
“It wouldn’t be personal. And I’m not usually competitive. I just really need the money right now. I don’t think teams can split up, though, so you’re safe.”
“Yeah. Good. I need the money too.” His eyes locked on mine.
Blushing hard, I looked away. Focus on the mission. Eyes on the prize. New York City.
I cleared my throat. “We should get to know each other better, since we’ll be attached at the hip all weekend. Your likes, dislikes, worst fears. You go first.”
He stroked his chin. “I’m a Ravenclaw. Scorpio, my birthday is actually coming up soon. I like romantic walks on the beach.”
Tilting my head, I shot him a narrow-eyed glare.
“Okay, fine, fine. I love BLT sandwiches, no mayo. My best friends are cool, Zach and Jaxon. I hate mayo. Did I mention that? I am scared of heights and dying by quicksand.”
“Quicksand?”
He laughed. “I’ve watched a lot of old, bad TV. Quicksand is hard to escape. It used to give me nightmares. Your turn.”
I tried to clear my throat but coughed instead. “I’m Slytherin. A Libra, my birthday just passed. I hate the beach. The salty, fishy air is gross. I like BLTs but love Cuban sandwiches even more. I hate horseradish and love mayo. I’m scared of…”
A brief wave of panic hit me. Did I tell him the truth? That I was scared of losing my chance to do theater in New York because of Dad? That since Mom died, I’d been desperately lonely, but scared to stay close to anyone because I didn’t want to risk losing them too?
“I’m scared of nothing.”
I liked him, but Nate wasn’t reason enough to alter my plans. He was a means to an end. That was it. Eyes fixed on my tray, I focused on my straw making a “hee-haw-hee-haw” sound when pulling it up and down in my milkshake cup. No one knew I’d already started looking into GED studies and was ready to bolt right after the survival competition. Not even Raina. What I needed, above everything, was to stay focused, so I could succeed in what I wanted most. To be free.
Sorry.
Goodbye, Nate Kim.
Hello, independence.
* * *
“NO! NO! NO!”
Panting hard, I slapped the bedroom wall. trying to find the manual light switch. These recurring bad dreams had really screwed up my REM cycles. When I went to a therapist, she’d told me to keep a dream journal. It made me laugh at the time, but now I wondered if that would have stopped the nightmares.
This time, I’d dreamed that a room full of humanoid robots—like Jeeves, but more advanced—had turned me into one of them. My skin glowed, but not in a radiant, free-radical, moisturized way, but in a luminescent, eerie, LED-light way. I had circuitry where my eyes had been.
Sweaty and heart drumming, I gave up on finding the switch and yelled, “Illuminate!”
My entire room flooded with eye-wincing light. It made me sound like a rip-off Harry Potter, sans cool magical wand, but that was the command programmed by my dad’s company. The command to yell in the middle of the night to relieve myself of terrifying darkness.