Ill post the ellipsus link later, right now its giving me trouble signing in. for now, here's the Tumblr version <3 (tbh, I'll probably end up revising this again just cause I feel like it could be better.)
Bite your nails
Luis
Luis’ jeans were still damp at the rolled-up ends from wading through the lake.
He thought Joel’s car would pull free of the park. In the sparse moments between heaves, his mind ran through every outcome that began with them being caught– handcuffs, red and blue flashing lights, cold concrete floors, metal bars.
If he could catch his breath, he would have yelled—begged—for them to stop. But all Luis could manage were ragged pulls of air as his feet tore across the gravel.
The car crept closer to the road. Closer to exposure.
Fear hit him all at once—sharp and paralyzing—something he could only compare to being held at the wrong end of a gun. Luis held his breath entirely.
Then he saw the image of uncle Rufus standing at the entrance of the trailer park, chin held high in the streak of streetlight.
Luis thought two things:
“God, please, please don't hit him,” and, “Rufus, don't move. Don't let them get out.”
When he heard the screech of brakes tear through his ears, only his first worry was satisfied. Headlights stung his eyes as they caught up.
He and Ruby slowed when they got closer, watching Rufus slowly walk to the right side of the car, dragging his hand along it as if he was calming a spooked horse.
The heaviness of the humid air filled his lungs as Luis paused to breathe. He intertwined his fingers behind his head, clenching his eyes shut for a moment- long enough to let the hum of insects rush back in.
He held like that for a minute, focused on the hum. His short hair prickled along his hand, slowly guiding the tingle of adrenaline out of his system. They're stopped. They stopped.
Slowly, he peeled his eyes open, looking up into the dimmed windshield of the car.
Sherri and Joel stared back- like rabbits in a trap- pupils blown and chests heaving.
He felt something in his gut twist.
Uncle Rufus’ hand slowly slid toward the driver side door handle, and for a moment, Joel lunged to push down the door lock knob.
Rufus was faster, popping the door open, causing the lights in the car to turn on.
Joel flinched back, almost landing on Sherri, whose knuckles had gone white gripping the ceiling handle.
Luis felt like he was watching from the third person. Like this scenario he had always feared would happen, was happening to someone else. He was still.
“Out.” Rufus barked.
No one moved.
Rufus shifted, positioned to reach toward the two.
Joel shook his head rapidly, eyes wide.
Rufus waved his hand toward the passenger side door, motioning for Luis and Ruby to help him.
Ruby moved, her bracelets clinking together and breaking Luis out of his state of shock.
He staggered, taking a second to uproot his feet and follow her.
He didn't look at anyone's face. Not Ruby's, not his coworkers, not Rufus’s.
He barely registered how fast it happened. They took the two- now silently captive, by the shoulders, as casually as they could through the trailer park. Luis with Joel, Rufus with Sherri, Ruby hung back to move the car.
“Dont yell,” Rufus started,
“Dont tense up, don't try to run, just look forward.”
For a second, Luis didn't know if he was talking to him or their awfully familiar hostages.
Luis tried not to take it in. He tried not to think about who he was holding onto, but the way Joel shook when his hands settled on him seemed to cement itself into his memory.
It felt so wrong. He looked over at Rufus, who held a closed foldable pocket knife against his palm and sherri's shoulder.
Luis was used to the struggle. On a night like tonight, when he and Ruby were forced to cull, it was the fight that justified the outcome. Now, here, the lack of resistance blurred the line of morals for him.
They walked straight down the dingy gravel road, heading towards Rufus’s trailer.
Joel was muttering what sounded like shallow pleas, or prayers. Luis almost loosened his grip on him. Joel slowed for a second and for a moment Luis did as well, before Rufus shot him a glance. He gave Joel a small push.
Sherri said nothing, and walked with her arms stiff, as if they had forgotten how to balance with her steps.
When they got to the porch, Luis heard the grumble of gravel under slow tires as Ruby pulled Joel's car under the carport.
His eyes stayed locked on the home's welcome mat beneath their feet as they waited for his accomplice to catch up. His grip tightened when Joel shuddered, and god, he wished he could forget that feeling.
The situation started to catch up to Luis- he felt the thump of Ruby's boots skip up the stairs, and the creak of the door as they stepped in.
Warm lighting, the smell of cedar and sweet tea. Rufus’ place.
Luis doubted the inviting atmosphere did much to soothe the nerves of his colleagues. Rufus guided Sherri to a wooden dining room chair and Luis did the same with Joel.
He could see them both now, disheveled and paler than he remembered. Eyes glazed and sick looking. Luis felt his throat catch, and looked away. Trying to find anything else to take in but them.
His eyes landed on the cup-ring stained coffee table that stood in front of the too- quiet TV. Nighttime news played, and a half drunk beer sat next to an open notebook with names scrawled in neat rows down the page.
Probably a list of people Rufus wanted Luis and Ruby to check out next.
Looking around the room proved not to be a good idea, because when he thought about that list, he realized what their next steps with Sherri and Joel would be. Trying to explain.
Ruby's boots creaked the wood next to him and he felt a couple soft pats land on his arm.
“Dont zone out on us, buddy.” she spoke.
Too casual, too self assured, like this was just another problem they had to fix. like all the rest.
Rufus was one step ahead of them, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a huff.
“Ruby, the lake,” he grunted. “Did y'all get the body in the lake?”
Almost like the mention was a curse itself, Luis heard the old kitchen chairs creak as the two held captive snapped their heads to look at her.
Ruby glanced at Luis, like a kid who forgot their homework, and shook her before heading towards the door, ushering Luis out of her way and rambling, “No, no. But I've got it. I'll be back, y'all, give me a few.”.
She hustled her way out, and with a few moments of silence after the door closed behind her, Luis heard a faint, shocked whisper come from Sherri.
“Oh my god-”
she stared at the floor, before her eyes shot to Luis.
“Oh my god– we're next. Are you guys gonna–”
Luis cut in, not wanting her to complete that thought. Not wanting her to breathe it into reality.
“No–” he huffed, “no, of course not,”
Unspoken but loudly conveyed, the idea that people believed Luis and Ruby were killers made Luis sick to his stomach. They did what they had to do.
He just didn't know how he was gonna convince them of that.
He suddenly became very aware of how he must look.
His clothes stuck to his body uncomfortably, either from humidity, or sweat, or both. He was standing rigid, and when he brought his hand up to his mouth to bite at his nails, he realized they still had lake-shore silt stuck under them.
A hair was pasted to the back of his hand. One that must have come off the woman when they were moving her into the water.
Rufus coughed, now leaning back onto the counter that bordered his kitchen.
He took his hat off, and ran his hand through the sparse thinning hair underneath before putting it back on his head.
“Are you kids okay?” he asked, crossing his arms.
The question was almost amusingly simple. Sherri scoffed, and Joel squirmed in his seat.
There was a long moment before Luis broke the stagnant silence, moving past the other three to the kitchen sink, yanking the knob to have freezing cold water to rush over his hands.
Rufus might have turned to look at him, maybe. Luis didn't know, instead he focused on cleaning out his fingernails.
Joel peeped up, sputtering a bit before biting out a question; “What's gonna happen? With us, I mean, I won't tell anyone, just-”
“Do you want me to answer you?” Rufus cut in, his voice just like how he used to talk to Luis when he got in trouble as a child. Stern. Steady. Luis cut off the sink.
“Yeah- yes. Sir.” Joel chirped.
“I'm gonna tell y’all whatcha saw.” he started. “And I'm gonna tell y'all why it happened.”
Sherri squinted, like she was just given a riddle.
“But first, y’all tell me why you were here tonight,” he continued. “Why you had to see that.”
“The purse-” Sherri spat, as if it was an accusation.
“We came to drop off Ruby's purse- She left it on the hook at work.”
Joel looked to his feet, but Sherri kept her eyes trained at Rufus, who looked as if he was just told the world's worst joke.
Luis almost cracked a grin.
A purse. She left her purse. It's one of those things that he wouldn't believe if someone told it to him in a story. “My sister forgot her purse, and it led to my coworkers thinking I was a murderer.”
Something so small, something so easy to fix, had led to this.
Rufus, rarely caught off guard, now spoke with a little hesitation.
“Right, then.” he turned toward Luis, nodding for him to join him, “Alright.”
Rufus cleared his throat, the way you would if you were about to give a speech. Luis was worried. The expectation of him helping explain the situation– what they did, what they do– he didn't know how he could help the outside observer understand.
Luis started small.
“That person, the woman– she was sick.”
He paused for a moment, and sherri's eyebrows furrowed together.
“Sick in a way doctors can't fix.” he specified.
Rufus side-eyed Luis, trying to get him to continue.
He felt like he was being interrogated, no cuffs visible, but the pressure of having the two there, the feeling of being seen when he shouldnt— made him skip right to justification.
“When they get that far, they don't recognize pain. She didn't feel a thing.” he blurted.
Rufus sort of huffed, like the sound an old dog makes after it lays down. His voice grumbled out,
“You ever seen an animal with rabies?”
This version of explaining was easier for Luis to build off of. He remembered a shift he and Joel had one time. He jumped in-
“Yeah– yeah, Joel,” he said, making Joel jolt his head up from where he was staring at the floor,
“You remember, right, when that sick dog was at the gas station. Nipping at people.”
Joel didn't open his mouth, but nodded slowly,
“Mhm.”
“We had to call animal control. It was rabid– had rabies– it was aggressive.”
Luis waited. For Joel to react, or for Sherri to say something, but it never came. They waited for Luis to continue, so he did.
“That's what we do. Some people– they're sick. Too far gone. It's the sa-”
“It's not.” Sherri cut in. “It's not the same. What do you mean, sick? You're crazy- all of you-”
The door creaked open, then slammed shut. Ruby was back.
The earthy smell of lakewater filled the room, as she brushed off her jeans, and plopped her mud-ridden boots by the door. Sherri glanced towards the darkened, handprint-shaped stains that lingered on Ruby's jeans.
“We're good. got it done.” she announced. She looked up at Luis and frowned. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but met Rufus’ eyes and stopped.
Rufus turned back to Sherri, taking the reins of the conversation.
“I know how it looks.” he eased, “but ya’ll gotta just have faith in us.”
Luis wondered how hard it would be for them to have faith in anything right now. They hadn't explained well enough, which was apparent by the still panic-stricken expression on Joel's face, but there was no way Luis felt he could talk his way through this.
Rufus stood straight up, leaning off the counter before starting towards the small sunroom.
“Ruby.” he barked, “C’mon.”
She shrugged her shoulders, giving a disgruntled look to Luis before following behind Rufus.
Inevitably, Rufus would want to yell at someone for this. Luis knew he was in the clear when Sherri had said it was Ruby's purse. Their reason for being there.
Rufus would trail the situation back in his mind, looking for the moment where someone had screwed up, and make sure that person knew it.
Through the thin walls and the sound of the TV droning, Luis and the others could hear indistinct arguing from the sunroom. He felt that pang of guilt twist in his stomach again, thinking about what he could have done differently– been quieter, not used the light, followed protocol– things you only think about after they go wrong. Things past fixing.
“Luis,” Joel spoke, voice stark and tight. “What's gonna happen?”
The question snapped him back into reality. He didn't know. He couldn't think of a way out of this one.
“It's not– we’ll see.” he faltered. “Rufus, he'll know.”
He’ll know. He wasn't sure what that meant anymore. Direction without input. The next steps were just that- steps. Not something he had to choose, not something to give him a dilemma. Sherri leaned back in her chair, and Joel held his gaze at Luis. Luis couldn't look back.
From down the hall, the sunroom door creaked open and shut, and two pairs of footsteps started back towards the kitchen.
Luis brought his hand up to bite his nails, a habit he thought he'd broken.
Working the graveyard shift at a Florida gas station is anything but quiet.
A familiar hum of cicadas and old truck engines made their way in with every open of the doors. An occasional crackle of old fluorescent lights, the spinning of refrigerator fans. Sherri knew this sound by heart now, four months into her job as a night-cashier at the SunStop 24/7 Pump-n’-go. The whirring of Icee machines and rustle of her coworker restocking chip bags kept her awake through the customer-less gaps that came with the slow humid evenings. she grabbed a cleaner- dampened rag and began to wipe down the front counter for the second time that evening.
For Sherri, the worst part of her night was when she finished her task list early. It happened almost nightly.
Majority of people would usually feel rightfully pleased, checking off every chore and enjoying their minimum wage hourly through a peaceful night. But Sherri- she would fill her nights with miniscule labors that kept her endlessly moving.
Once everything was done, she would wipe down counters again, check to make sure each fridge door was closed fully, double check her inventory, count cash early, and try to keep that list going until it was time for her to clock out.
Tonight was no different. She stayed on task, perking up when that familiar outdoor symphony alerted her of a customer.
A small group of teens scuttered in, one in the front gripping a tattered twenty dollar bill while the others followed behind him, bickering with each other far too loud for this late at night. Despite that, Sherri was grateful to at least have something happening in the store. The last customer had been over an hour ago, and sherri was already halfway through her task list.
The group moseyed their way through the store, seemingly debating which snacks they would have to leave behind with their limited funds. They ignored Sherri, who vigilantly watched the small CCTV monitor under the counter she was stationed behind.
Instead of catching the group of teens stealing, which happened far too often for her not to be on the lookout, she saw her coworker not-so-secretly slip a diet soda into the oversized pocket of her cargo pants, before going back to stocking chips. Sherri groaned.
After a while, the teens came to the front counter with an armful of junk food, piling it on the small empty space between the lottery ticket and lighter displays.
“this all for today?” Sherri spoke, well versed in her up-pitch customer-service voice.
“Uh-huh.” the boy holding the money grunted.
Sherri rang up each item, taking care to make separate piles of what she had scanned, and what she hadn't. The group watched as the amount on the register slowly raised with each beep of the scanner. The analog display revealed the total: $21.74.
The group held silent for a moment before the kid in the front spun around and started asking the rest to check their pockets for change, to which Sherri leaned back on the cigarette shelves, watching as they patted their jeans and produced a variety of coins, handing them to the open palms of the main boy.
After all their pockets had been turned inside out, the boy put a small pile of change on the counter. “Is this enough?”
Sherri took a deep breath, her well trained employee smile never wavering as she counted the pile. She noticed her coworker watching her count the change, leaning against a rickety spinning magazine display that currently held trashy playboy releases.
Luckily the group had made the total by ten cents, taking their late night snacks with them and leaving with a return of humming cicadas. Sherri stretched and yawned.
“You tired?” her coworker asked, smiling faintly.
Her uniform matched Sherri's own: a yellow visor with a smiling sun logo, a gaudy yellow polo with the same logo, and black work pants that layered over the required non-slip shoes. Sherri couldn't see how the uniform could be flattering on anyone.
“Nope.” she replied, eyeing the obvious soda can sticking out of the other's pocket.
Normally, Sherri would be fast to tell her boss about the blatant theft of store property. However, Ruby, her coworker, had worked there longer than she had, and was somehow in their boss’s good graces.
“I am.” Ruby laughed as she went over to the roller grill, sticking her hands over the machine to warm them up. “I get outta here in like, twenty minutes though.”
Sherri grimaced, checking her wristwatch.
“No-” she said, "you're here till one. You leave in thirty minutes.”
Ruby squinted, thinking, before she took the tongs to the roller and put a taquito in a foil sleeve. “Well, I was rounding down.”
Sherri ignored that statement, and instead wondered if she should tell Ruby how old the food on the roller is. Days old, she thought, but before she could say anything, her coworker had already taken a bite. Gross.
she made a mental note: make sure to switch those out tonight.
“Can you mop before you leave?” Sherri started, “ Joel is coming in after you- you know, he hates the smell of the cleaner. He won't do it.” She bent down and clicked the key back into the lock for the cash drawer.
Ruby spoke with her mouth full- “Yeah, for sure.” She took another bite, then slid the foil- wrapped appetizer into her other pocket before heading towards the storage closet that held the mopbucket.
Sherri went on to toss the old roller food, grease practically dripping off the old shriveled snacks. She couldn't imagine eating them. She enjoyed the fact she could hear the mop squeaking against the tile floor, and took a moment to admire the work she had done re-organizing the gum shelves that sat right under the lottery ticket dispenser.
Minimum wage meant nothing to Sherri. she would work dawn to dusk if it gave her something to do. She was good at getting stuff done. Fulfillment came to her in the feeling of exhaustion that caught up to her when she got back to her apartment. The feeling that she had worked hard, got stuff done.
Headlights beaming through the front windows snapped her out of her trance- a familiar little silver car pulled into the parking lot. Joel was here to clock in, about fifteen minutes early, which Sherri knew Ruby was gonna try to take advantage of and leave early.
Almost on cue, Ruby came pulling the now-dirty bucket of mop water behind her. She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by her phone buzzing in the same pocket as the stolen soda, and she continued back to return the mop to the storage closet.
Joel came in with his polo untucked and his glasses crooked. Sherri greeted him and he returned it with a closed- mouth smile.
Sherri didn't mind Joel. Compared to Ruby, he was a great employee. Sherri and him had been hired at the same time, and despite his semi- awkward nature he was good at his job, and sometimes even helped Sherri with her “second list” she would make herself. He guided himself to the backroom to clock in, and ruby reappeared, this time with her visor missing and her frizzy hair down.
“Hey,” she barked.
Sherri rolled her eyes. “What?”
“I really, really gotta go.” she said, phone still in hand.
Again. Sherri should tell Joel to start being later, she thought. Ruby would have no excuse to ditch her shift early, then.
“Really.” Sherri raised an eyebrow, "what's so important you can't wait fifteen minutes?”
Ignoring Sherri's question, Ruby almost trips over herself, and continues,
“Joels already here right? It's no biggie?” she was already on her way out. Sherri scoffed.
She yelled a goodbye and rushed out the doorway, just as Joel came back from the employees-only room. Sherri didn't know how Ruby hadn't been fired for behavior like this.
Ruby's car pulled out of the driveway, completely ignoring the stop sign and running over the curb with the back tire.
Sherri wasn't gonna let a few bad parts of her shift ruin the rest of it, and her mood lightened when Joel spoke up with his unsteady voice.
“Has it been slow? Got anything you want me to do?”
Yeah. Joel was her favorite co-worker.
She checked what she had left on the chore list.
“Mm-hmm. Yep, could you take out the trash? There’s not much else to do but-“
“But we’ll find something.” Joel finished, already tugging the bag out of the trashcan behind the counter.
After a while of cleaning and waiting for customers, Joel started talking about some new sci-fi film that had come out a couple weeks prior. Sherri, being the great coworker that she is, let him rant and rave while they did their jobs.
When they had both gotten hired, she sort of picked up that Joel was sort of- sheltered.
He was always talking about some new game, movie, or show. Sherri took it as maybe he was just a little naive. Joel was a bit husky, his posture slouched, and for the first couple months Sherri thought she was taller than him. till one day he tried to help her get styrofoam cups down from the storage shelf, stood up straight and turned out to be her height. Still not able to grab the cups, they ended up getting a stool.
Sherri didn’t mind the one-sided conversations he had with her about his weekly new interests. It sort of made the time go faster, even if she didn’t get half of what he was saying.
They only had a couple more customers through the rest of the night, and Sherri ended her shift with the shop being spotless and organized like always.
They locked the doors, shut off the lights, then, right before they were about to walk out the back door to their cars, Joel spotted a bag hung on the hook in the employee break room. Ruby's purse, she had forgotten.
Sherri hoped Joel would leave it, let Ruby get it on her own, Sherri knew that was wishful thinking. Joel grabbed it off the hook, eyebrows furrowed in concern.
“Should we drop this off at her place?”
With an internal eye roll, and an external huff, sherri responded,
“Do we need to? She rushed out of here. It's her mistake”
Joel nervously shifted on his feet. Sherri felt a little pity for him.
“You can,” she said, "I'm not sure where her place is.”
She opened the door and started out, hearing footsteps follow behind from Joel.
“Okay well, you don't think it's weird right?” he yelped “like, if i just run by there?”
Sherri just wanted to go home. She unlocked her car.
“I don't know, there's no harm to it.”
she slid into the car, the door held open so she could still hear Joel.
“Yeah, okay well, I'll see you later. Tomorrow."
Sherri heard his car door shut, and felt a little relieved. She closed her own, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. The engine struggled, rumbled a bit, then fell flat. She tried again, same thing. She stepped out, headed to check under the hood, and saw Joel's Prius pull up, the driver's window rolled down.
“Sherri-” he half-yelled. Sherri shut the hood. “Need a ride?”
It was late, humid, and Sherri had classes the next morning. The last thing she wanted to do was wait to try and get her car fixed.
“Sure. Yeah."
Joel's car was surprisingly clean, and sherri noticed a polaroid photo of a grey cat tucked on the sun-visor in front of Joel. After giving him the directions to her apartment, they set off.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Sherri thought she might as well try to make this as painless as possible, and start up a conversation.
“You have a cat?” she asked, pointing to the photo.
Joel glanced up, smiling a bit.
“Yep. That's Ripley. He's like, the best.” he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, turning the wrong way from Sherri's apartment. “Have you ever seen Alien? Its-”
“Oh-” sherri interrupted, “its the other way,”
“Oh, oh yeah I'm just gonna drop the bag off." he had that sort of voice that just sort of made him seem unsure of everything all the time. “Sorry.”
“Right, right, my bad.”
A few more moments of awkward silence followed. She started again- with fake curiosity.
“So how do you know where Ruby lives?” she didn't really care, but anything was better than sitting through the rest of this ride in silence, with what may be the most awkward dude she knew. He shifted in his seat.
“Well, not really where she lives, but- do you know Luis?"
Luis. She knew him vaguely. He worked the day shift, so the only time they ran into each other was when he was leaving and she was clocking in. She knew Joel had worked some shifts in the daytime with him, but not much else.
“Sorta.”she answered, “ The short guy?”
Joel smiled,
“Yeah, him. Well, I've hung out with him before, and him and Ruby are like- neighbors.”
That sort of surprised Sherri. Not the neighbors thing, but the fact someone had invited Joel to hang out with them. She appreciated Joel as a good co-worker, but she can't imagine him thriving socially. That may sound mean, Sherri thought, but still.
After a few more minutes of driving, and talking about Joel's cat, they turned the corner into a road lined with trailer homes. A couple dingy, orange colored streetlights created small beams of light onto overgrown grass. They slowly pulled down the road, which ended at the start of a lake framed by cattails and old kayaks flipped over on the muddy shore. They stopped at a trailer a few down from the lake.
“This is Luis’s. I think Ruby's is the one on the other side- I'll be right back.”
Joel got out, the opening of the door giving way to that familiar sound of cicadas. Sherri leaned back in her seat, looking out at the water. It was nice.
After a second of enjoying the view, from the corner of her eye she saw a small shaky light come strolling out of the brush. A tiny, floppy eared dog with a light up charm on its collar walked into the glow of the car headlights, and started yipping at her.
Joel was knocking on the door of Ruby's supposed trailer, ignoring the thing, so Sherri got out and knelt down, stretching her palm out towards the dog.
“Hey buddy,” she cooed, “c’mere..”
The dog stayed in place, still yapping, and wagged its tail furiously. Sherri found it amusing.
Joel came back, looking defeated, and tossed the bag in the back of his car before joining Sherri in trying to befriend the dog.
“No luck?” she asked.
He shook his head, “no, but-” he was cut off by the flicker of a flashlight.
The rustle of struggling footsteps followed, and what sounded like something heavy was being dragged. Then the sloshing of water.
Voices, barely discernible whispered over the hum of nature, made Sherri and Joel's attention snap to the shore. They went silent.
Distantly, barely illuminated by a handheld flashlight, were two figures knee deep in the lake.
The one further in wore an unmistakable yellow polo. Ruby. The other, who was now looking at Sherri and Joel, was Luis, the day-shift employee Sherri barely knew.
Between the two was a limp, skinny body, being dragged by the arms into the lake by Ruby. Its head was unnaturally lolled back, hair dredged in the water.
The humming of cicadas seemed to be the only sound in the world as the four stood frozen, staring at each other. It was only when ruby dropped the arms of the body, causing a splash in the water, that brought them back to reality.
Terror and adrenaline tore through her. Sherri barely thought before she slammed herself back in the car, Joel a half step behind her. The two in the lake were now rushing toward them, slightly slowed by the slip of mud beneath their feet.
“Lets go- GO, C’MON” Sherri shouted, as Joel put the car in reverse, pushing the pedal all the way down. The motion made them both jolt forward, the car recklessly speeding backward.
Joel was turned around, looking out the back window and somehow managing to avoid the mailboxes that lined the road. Sherri's eyes stayed locked on the two chasing after the car, who were now waving their hands over their heads, trying to get the other two to stop. Sherri couldn't stop herself from struggling to breathe, gasping breaths between frantic exhales.
They were almost to the end, feet away from pulling onto the main road to safety. For a second, sherri lets herself take a full breath.
Then she heard Joel, through her own rapid heartbeats.
“No, oh my God-” he yelped, before the car slammed to a halt, making Sherri tense.
Her ears rang. She turned to Joel, and saw him still staring out the window. She followed his gaze, hands gripping the roof handle she didn't realize she grabbed.
At the start of the road, a man. gait wide and feet planted, his face was partly revealed by the streetlight. Worn features. A baseball cap. Things Sherri wouldn't forget.
He looked them right in the eye, as he stood between Joel's car and their escape. His gaze only broke when it shifted to catch the two closing in on them past the other side of the car.
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