Smells Like Winter

09: F*ck the Police

"How much more?" grumbled Maddy, barely breathing anymore.

"Stop complaining, princess. We're almost there."

"Almost? I can't feel my legs." She hated the whining tone in her voice, but she just couldn't help it.

"God, you're giving me a headache," he scowled.

Maddy gritted her teeth at that. "Well... I don't even know... where... we're going," she reminded him in between struggling breaths, as if he was stupid. Which he was, she told herself.

"Are you always so nosy?" he scolded her.

"Answer the question, Carter. Where... Where are we going?" She was still running next to him on full speed, but the effect of the adrenaline was subsiding and her bleeding toes were killing her. She winced at the pain.

"The salvage yard."

"What?!" Maddy almost stopped running.

"Are you deaf? I said we're going to the salvage yard."

"But..." Maddy hesitated. She had overheard so many rumours about that place, spreading like wildfire from Clarke's mouth and straight to her ears. If Clarke was good at one thing, it was gossiping. The reputation of that place preceded it. And it was a bad reputation. But she pushed that thought away. It's not like she had much of a choice anyway.

"That's where I parked the car."

"You have a car?"

"Logan does."

"Then how is it that you parked it?"

"Can you stop asking so many questions? I just borrowed it."

"For what?" she asked before she could help herself.

He gave her a dirty sideways glance, smirking. "Do you want me to show you?"

Maddy blushed so hard she wanted to slap herself. "No, thanks."

She looked the other way to hide her burning red cheeks, and saw the entrance of the salvage yard.

Thank God.

Carter led her through the old, rusty scrap and discarded pieces of cars, the sound of their pursuers following close. They'd better hurry, because that police cruiser was damn fast. As they were running, Maddy saw homeless people muffled in dirty blankets, thugs smoking weed, the orange fume lingering at the end of their cigarettes, and men dealing... drugs. All staring right towards her direction in her passage. Somewhere in the back of her head, she was aware of the fact she was still wearing a skirt, and she was suddenly glad she was also wearing safety shorts. Turning her head in every direction, she gulped down her dread at how the place was literally full of such thugs, lurking in every single god damn corner.

Driving into a corner, she finally saw it, and almost cried from relief.

A sleek, ink-black Ford pick-up with tinted windows sitting low on their chassis was parked near the ruins of disassembled cars, Logan's tousled blonde hair in the driver's seat. Maddy squinted. Mia was sat on the front passenger's seat, and Sia in the back seat.