A Scandalous Job

Chapter Thirty-Three

Cooper wasn't lying when he said that he was good at hot-wiring cars. As soon as we located a vehicle with it's doors unlocked in a nearby parking garage, Cooper got to work, and within seconds, the crappy Toyota sparked to life.

Cooper drove and Chance sat in the front, leaving the backseat to myself. I stuck to one side of it. There were suspicious stains on the other side, and the whole thing reeked.

"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to hide the disgust in my voice. Every time I took a breath, the rancid scent flooded my nostrils, making me gag. It smelled like cat piss mixed with rotting trash. 

"I have some friends who live in the area," Cooper said and changed lanes. There was hardly any traffic on the road except for an occasional car or stray dog.

"How do you know them?"

"I've done business with them in the past. They'll be cool with us crashing at their place until all of this blows over."

The term "blows over" implied that the situation would rectify itself, but I knew that wasn't the case.

Even after we finished Miguel, Chance would still be hunted by the law. He'd have to go in hiding, or flee to a country with no extradition. The same rules applied to Cooper. Pretty soon they would apply to me too. My old life was gone. All of my old goals were obliterated along with my hopes and dreams. I was a different person now with different motives.

We were currently traveling along the back roads considering the main roads were flooded with police cars and search points. Most of the roads were dirt, and the few that were paved had large potholes in them. Fields stretched for miles around us. I hadn't seen any source of civilization for miles now.

It seemed as if every person in the state of Florida had their eyes peeled for Chance Burke. According to the radio, the police were still looking for us at the cruise ship port. It would only be a matter of time until they figured out we stole a car, though.

As soon as they figured out what kind of car we stole, we would need to ditch the Toyota and find another set of wheels. But as of right now, we had gotten away. Temporarily—that is.

Still, we hadn't relaxed at all. The atmosphere was still tense in the car. Cooper never went one mile over the speed limit, and on the rare occasion when we did pass another car, Cooper would turn his head the other way and Chance would duck.

Both of the boys were quiet, and I knew that Chance was thinking deep, most likely planning out our next move. That, or he was thinking about where he would disappear to once this whole thing was over.

I tried to get some sleep, but it was no use. I was too wired to get an ounce of shut eye. Or, I was too uncomfortable. The adrenaline was starting to fade from my blood stream and I began to feel again.

The first thing I was aware of was the cold. The waves on the boat ride had soaked my clothes and chilled me to the bone. Fingers numb, I shucked off Chance's hoodie and threw it to the floor. It did little to warm me up because my clothes underneath the hoodie were wet too.

"Can you turn the heat on?" I asked.

"Why? It's hotter than hell in here," Cooper chuckled.

"Yeah but you're not soaking wet," I muttered and crossed my arms, trying to preserve some type of heat.

Chance turned around. His eyes looked me up and down. Before I could further explain my predicament, he shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to me. His other hand reached out and turned on the heat despite Cooper's incessant protests.