a look at us.
"Oh fuck," I breathed, rooted to the spot but Maverick was faster to react, grabbing my hand and dragging me towards his bike.
"Come on, beautiful, we gotta run," he urged, tossing his can and making me move as the cop yelled after us to stop.
I leapt onto the back of the bike, dropping my own can of paint as Maverick started her up, loosing the throttle and aiming for an alley beyond the hotel as I clung on tight.
"Stop!" the cop bellowed, blue and red lights flashing as he turned on the siren and a laugh tore from my lips as Maverick raced away down the alley.
"Holy shit," I gasped as he sped on faster and faster, navigating back alleys in the dark from memory alone, swinging left and right before bursting back out onto the street.
The cop was far behind now, but I could still see his lights when I looked over my shoulder and I yelled out for Rick to ride faster as he turned off of the main road and headed down a side alley again. He kept his lights off to make it harder for the cop to keep track of us, but that meant we could hardly see down in the dark alleyways.
This one cut behind a row of stores and ejected us on another street where he turned right and sped away from the town towards the forest and one of our favourite hang outs.
I squeezed him tight, grinning as we left the police in our dust and my hair whipped out behind us in its high ponytail.
Maverick finally slowed down as we came up on the Rosewood Manor, cutting the engine and getting off the bike as we approached the drive.
The old dear who lived here was like a hundred and fifty so she never even noticed us sneaking onto her property and we never left much sign that we'd been here either. But we were always careful to stay fairly quiet just in case.
I hopped off and Maverick wheeled the bike into the trees to the side of the drive, leading the way down the well worn path around the edge of the property.
I glanced over my shoulder as a flash of red and blue caught my attention and I hissed at Maverick to hurry up as he quickly hid his bike behind a large oak tree.
I ducked down as the cop car turned onto the road and Rick dropped down beside me half a second later, taking my hand as we hid in the bushes and waited for it to pass on by.
My heart was pounding so fast that I could hear it thrashing against my eardrums, a shaky breath passing between my lips as I watched the car roll past.
When it moved on down the street and turned out of sight again I turned to look at Maverick, finding his dark eyes on me instead of the road, the look in them making my pulse skip as I bit down on my bottom lip.
"I think they're gone," I whispered.
"Yeah," he agreed, but neither of us moved for another moment.
The sound of a coyote howling in the distance drew my gaze away from his and Maverick stood, tugging me after him as we approached the gap in the fence which we'd used a hundred times before and slipped inside.
He didn't let go of me as he led me onto the Rosewood land, drawing me along with him as we headed for the summer house that we'd all claimed as our own a long time ago.
The little wooden building sat beside the pool and we slipped inside, glancing at the distant manor house where a single light glowed in a downstairs window as usual. I was pretty fond of the old woman who lived there – she was arguably the only adult in my life who actually gave a shit about me. Four years ago Miss Mabel had caught me and Chase sleeping in this summer house one night when his dad had been knocking him about and instead of kicking us out or calling the cops, she’d invited us up to the house, given us both a cup of hot cocoa and told us we were welcome to come whenever we liked so long as we were willing to do a few jobs for her. She’d even turned on the electricity for the summer house so we had lights out there whenever we came over. Last year we'd