dripping from his mouth, and he’s now curled up in a fetal position on the dirt ground. Considering my hands are still cuffed, I won’t be able to take his car, but I start running. I’ll run until I pass out at this point. I’ll run until I die because at least I know I’ll have died trying.
Running without my arms is difficult, a struggle I hadn’t imagined fighting against. The air is thick today and the sun is hotter than its normal blazing temperatures. My skin is burning, and I need water badly. What’s worse is this highway is dead, and there isn’t a car or a person in sight, but there’s a sign ahead, and I’m praying it’s to warn of a nearby exit or gas station.
As I approach it, though, I’m gutted to see a sign that says twenty miles to the next rest area. I won’t make it twenty miles, and if I did, it would be dark, and I’ll be eaten by a frigging coyote or something. Fear is still running through me, though, and adrenaline keeps me running at a fast enough to pace to put as much space between Landon and me as possible. Although, he has a car and I don’t, which makes this rat race almost impossible to finish when he finds his feet again.
I have no way to measure the distance I have already gone, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it has been less than a mile. Sports and physical activity haven’t ever been my strong point. If you ask my mother, a woman’s physical activity is in the house: folding, cleaning, cooking, and prancing around her man. Every day of my life up until I moved out a few years ago. she was training me to be someone’s housewife. I hardly knew how to pay a bill on my own or pump gas. I can paint my nails with my eyes closed, but so far that hasn’t gotten me very far in life.
Today will probably be the end for me, and I’ve accomplished nothing except breaking a few of my own rules these past few weeks with Jags. At least someone has made me laugh and smile. I guess I can be thankful for that. He’s made me live a little but I’ve recently decided I want to live a whole lot, and now I’m running down a highway surrounded by nothing but barren desert, with handcuffs around my wrists. This is like a scene from a bad movie.
With the sound of my own footsteps crowding the air around me, I don’t hear an oncoming car until it’s too close to run from. Though, running from an oncoming car on this road would be like running into a middle of a battlefield holding a white flag. You can see anything and everything for miles.
The car slows as it approaches me. If it’s Landon, he’s obviously going to throw me back in the car. If it’s anyone else, they’re probably a little freaked out to see some girl running down a highway with handcuffs on.
“Ma’am, do you need help?” I look toward the vehicle, finding a rusty old pick-up truck and an unkempt man with a straw hat. I’m officially a hitchhiker and yet, anytime I’ve seen some cruddy looking man or woman walking backward down the street with their thumb in the air, I’ve curled my lip and pressed a little firmer on the gas. I don’t deserve kindness. Then again, who’s to say he’s kind. He could be just as bad as Landon, or worse. If that’s possible.
I’m in handcuffs. I do need help.
“Is there any chance you could take me to the nearest gas station?” I ask, breathlessly.
The man leans over and opens the passenger side door for me, and I walk closer while praying to God he doesn’t have a gun, knife or something else to hurt me. His truck is lifted higher than a normal truck, and I’m not sure how to get up without my hands.
The man notices, though, and reaches for my arm. “Place your foot up on the running-board, and press up when I say so.” I do as he says and he pulls as I press up, trying to keep as much pressure from my wrists as possible.
Once I’m inside the truck, the man leans across me and closes the door. “What’s your story, girl?”
“My ex works for some bad people. Evidently, I somehow ended up with a