Smells Like Winter

11: Midnight Drives on the Passenger's Seat

Maddy devoured the last Jaffa cake with a moan of satisfaction, her cravings at their highest peak. Well, she had to admit: she had a sweet tooth. And an incurable addiction to vanilla ice cream.

Jaffa cakes might not be vanilla ice cream, she thought, but they are definitely chocolatey enough to take you to the moon.

She licked the tips of her fingers with her rosy tongue, the deliciousness of the sugar rush taking her stomach on an ambrosial rollercoaster.

"That was heaven," moaned Logan, lying back in his seat after stuffing his mouth with handfuls of salty, unhealthy, extremely tasty and crusty crisps.

He had pulled over near a green field, the smell of freshly-cut grass dancing in the invigorating cool air, providing a perfect disguise for the car among the pasture. It was now dark outside the vehicle, the night a black pit of shadows lurking in the corners. But the dome light was beaming bright inside the Ford, a bearer of hope and reassurance. It was a stupid idea, if you asked Maddy, like a huge LED sign indicating their exact location, but she didn't say anything to the others. They had travelled a long distance anyways, so why bother?

"Do you think we should keep moving?" asked Sia, passing the Hobnobs to Mia.

"We can't risk it. Let's stay on the move," said Mia in response.

"I don't wanna drive anymore. I need to get my beauty sleep," contemplated Logan, running a large hand through his insanely soft-looking blonde hair.

"Let's take shifts," proposed Carter, then volunteered by saying: "I'll drive for the next few hours."

Maddy tensed at his unexpected recommendation. She didn't like the idea of taking shifts, and she had an undisputably good reason for it.

"Ok, but I'll sleep in the back," negotiated Logan.

"As you wish, Your Highness," teased him Sia. "You're so spoiled, Logs."

"Will you massage me?" he asked, but quicky hasted to add: "Please?"

"Ugh, fine."

"I'm not sitting in the front. I can't stretch my legs in the front," stated Mia, her voice determined.

"But-" started Maddy, but Carter didn't let her finish her sentence.

"Come on, princess, I don't bite," he told her, but the look on his face was all but reassuring. "Unless you want me to, of course."

Maddy's eyebrows shot up, her mouth a round O, yet no words would come out.

I'd rather sleep in the truck, she thought, but said nothing.

Instead, she just kicked the panel door of the Ford open, allowing Logan to take her seat, and sat next to Carter in the front.

"Good night, guys." Carter turned the ignition key, the grumbling of the car engines instantly filling the silence of the night.

Maddy stretched out for the dome light switch on the panel door, and, as she turned it off, the car was swallowed by a scary, neverending blackness. It took a long minute for her pupils to fully adjust to the thick darkness around her, until Carter finally turned on the headlights, showing the way.

Carter drove fast, so fast that Maddy felt her stomach twisting.

She tried to close her eyes and sleep, hoping the smooth sound of the wind scratching the windows would lull her to dreamland somehow.

That was when her thoughts ambushed her: the moment she shut her eyelids.

What the hell was going on? She was riding in a car packed with strangers, she had jumped off a window and almost killed two cops by throwing a wrench on the windscreen of a freaking police car. She was wearing that idiot's hoodie, and she was on the run. She had chosen to drop out of school on the very last year of her studies, and leave her home, her own mother, all because of a stupid vaccine. The police were after her. And so was FROST.