Lonely Hearts

Chapter seven: Lincoln

"I guess so." I paused, struggling to find conversation. I wasn't very good at this. "Where were you today? I didn't see you on the bus."

"I'm home-schooled. It's complicated." She replied, reaching to stroke a strand of hair away from her face as she studied a picture of my mum, carefully. "She's beautiful."

"I know." I said softly, before swiftly changing the subject, I didn't want to dwell on her. My throat was already beginning to tickle. "What do you want, Skye?"

She turned back to look at me, her eyes clear and twinkling in the sunlight.

"I want a favour." She said.

"Am I supposed to guess what it is?" 

"I need you to help me get out of here." She said, dead serious.

I laughed. "And you're asking me because?"

"You want to get out too. We can help each other."

I laughed again.

"You want to help me?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"And you don't care what you have to do to get out?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"No kid gets out of here." I said. "Only if you're going to prison or in a body bag."

She assessed me, trying to work out if I was serious.

"Are you going to help me or not?" She asked, blinking at me through the longest eyelashes I have ever seen.

I smiled. "Ah babygirl, I'll help you. But I'm not a miracle worker."

She raised an eyebrow at the nickname but didn't retaliate like I expected her too.

"I never said you were. But I don't need a miracle worker. I need a rulebreaker."

I chuckled.

"Well if it's trouble you want then you've come to the right place."

~*~

"So what's the plan?" She asked.

"What plan?" I replied, I knew what she meant, I just wanted her to be the one to come up with something. I was tired. I just wanted to sleep. I snuggled further into the covers, yawning.

She gave a dramatic sigh that made me smile. Obstructing my view of her so she didn't catch my grin.

"If you're breaking out, you need a plan. You need strategy, backup plans, an if-all-else-fails idea when it doesn't work."

"And why are you so sure it won't work?" I mumbled.

"You have lived here, right?" She asked, skeptically. "They patrol the corridors every night, there's rules, routine, structure. You can't just break every one and expect to get away unscathed."

"You sound like we're going to war." I muttered. "We're only going to sign out and not come back. It's not all sneaking around and hoping we don't get caught."

"Oh." She almost sounded disappointed and I laughed out loud.

"Did you think we'd be creeping out in the dead of night with rucksacks slung over our shoulders, avoiding all the security cameras and acting like James Bond?"

The slightest shift in her expression told me that was pretty much exactly what she had thought and I chuckled.

"Sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but we're not living in an action movie. Our great escape is simply walking down the corridor and signing out. And I know just the time and place as well, so there isn't even a chance of us bumping into any of the kids who might grass us out or tag along." I explained.

"And you're allowed to do this?" She wondered. "With your record?"

"How do you know about that?" I asked, suspiciously.

She giggled. "You're quite notorious around here, Lincoln. It doesn't take much to get the other kids talking about your adventures and mishaps."

I shrugged. "The girls like a bit of danger, it adds to my amazingly sexy profile."

She rolled her eyes and I grinned.

"I'm sure I could even tempt you one day." I added.

"In your dreams, love." She said. "I've got my hopes set higher than this."

"Ah but I am the best at crushing hopes and dreams. Just ask Charlie, I broke him years ago."

She gave me a peculiar look and I simply smiled, not expanding on it. Best she didn't look too deep into my soul, it might make her run away and I was enjoying her company.

No one had ever seen the real me and stayed. How could they? When they saw the things I had done? The things I had been? When they saw everything I was capable of?

I was a good person, I was. But I hadn't always made good decisions. I had been trapped. Lost. Scared.

Excuses. Always excuses. So many excuses. Ones I had used over and over. Convincing myself and plenty of others that I hadn't meant what happened. I hadn't known what I was capable of.

But there was no excuse for what I had done.

I knew that now.