Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Fifteen

[ unedited, thank you -- x ]

[ fifteen ]

monday - four days until graduation

As soon as the silver doors slid away, Elliot took my hand tightly in an instant and yanked me out into the hall, which was thankfully free of the authorities. For now. We started bolting to the end of the hall where our room was the last door on the floor.

"How could you be so careless?" Elliot muttered through his gritted teeth as we sprinted through the abnormally long stretch of the hallway.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," was all I could say between gasping for breath and trying to think of where I could have put that useless piece of plastic. I was ninety-nine percent sure that I had left it on the counter next to the first-aid kit, but I sure wasn't going to admit that to Elliot, who looked concentrated on getting us out of here.

Elliot gasped right then, and I followed his gaze. Right in front of us was a large white laundry cart jutting out of our room with our door left ajar, removing our desperate need for our key card.

"Oh, thank you God!" Elliot screamed into the ceiling, running inside. We found that our room was being serviced by a cleaning lady, who turned around to look at us.

"Whoops! Sorry dears, I'll just be out in a--"

"No no no!" I exclaimed, while Elliot grabbed our bags and shoving various toiletries in our packs quickly. I continued, "You're absolutely fine, thank you for cleaning our room...Meanwhile, just pretend we were never here, okay?"

The poor lady seemed confused.

"Vienna," Elliot spoke through gritted teeth, hoisting our packs over his shoulder and handing me mine, "I hear footsteps. Running footsteps."

I picked my head up and sure enough, I could hear a rumble of feet pounding on the hall, with someone screaming, "Which room?"

Elliot turned around and grabbed me by the arm, intent on wasting no time. He hastily thanked the cleaning lady and casually reminded her, "Remember, we were never here!" Hands firmly clasped around my arm, I was literally dragged to the door, when my face collided with his chest.

"Ow!" I rubbed my forhead, confused. He had stopped half-way to the door and plastered himself against the wall.

"There's no time," he breathed, worry flickering in his usually calm eyes, "They're in the hall, knocking on every door. I'm pretty sure they called the police."

"Oh, that's ridiculous. We didn't even steal that much stuff," I droned.

"Yeah, except their names and their identities, plus we pretty much hijacked their tour--"

"Whose side are you on?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You're right," he nodded, peering out at the hall. "But face it, we can't get to the elevator if we can't pass them. Got any bright ideas now?" He truly seemed desperate as his eyes wavered with the slightest glimmer of doubt.

I bit my lip as my stomach twisted into a variety of complicated knots. The situation looked pretty hopeless, and as the combination of hotel guards and police officers swept from door to door, they were inching closer to us both. And then what would happen? We would never get back to California, and we'd probably spend a month in juvie, forever scarring our permanent records and tarnishing our whole entire life and we would probably die.

"Well?" Elliot begged. He truly was lost.

Suddenly, I saw the laundry cart that the cleaning lady had brought out of the corner of my eye and pointed towards it discreetly, rolling it in the room slowly so as not to gain the attention of the cleaning lady (who had gone into the bathroom) and the guards right outside the hall (who were in the middle of interrogating the poor guests next door.)