The Runaways

Chapter 6

Walking away now meant walking straight back into the palm of my dad’s hand. Leaving someone to die meant turning a blind eye and knowing I could've been the difference. Criminal or not, I didn’t need anyone’s blood on my hands.

I took off the tattered t-shirt he’d given me, wrapped it around my hands, and dropped to my knees to move towards the driver's side. Sweat tumbled off the edges of my bangs the closer I got but I blinked away the sting.

The heat of the rusted door handle seeped through the thin layer of cotton covering my fingers. I let go, terrified of allowing the burn to blaze my skin. But choking wasn’t an option. Not when mistakes made the difference between living through the day.

The smoke sucked all the spit in my mouth dry. I dug my feet into the dirt, yanked the handle back, and the old metal screamed as it split in two. The door burst open, and the heat from inside the cabin rushed out faster than liquid flames.

Caleb was stiller than the dead. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t move, just hung suspended in the air like a ragdoll wrapped up in his seatbelt.

I pushed back against the rising fear in my chest, ravaged through wreckage to find where he was strapped in. The heat beat against my skin and singed my fingers when I pressed against the seat belt button to set him free.

Click.

He crashed down from his seat so hard the sound made me sicker than the smoke. I wrenched my arms underneath Caleb’s and spattered out what little oxygen I had left trying to pull him into the clear.

The ash stained his skin black and stuck to the blood spilling from his face. Criminal or not, if he died, I was as good as dead. I pressed my head against his t-shirt and listened for the steady beat of his pulse beneath burnt fabric.

His heart whispered into my ears, but I didn’t know what to do to keep it beating. I didn’t know how to fix a broken boy, but I could try to keep him breathing.

I pressed my mouth against his. His lips were still warm—warm enough to give me some hope to hold onto.

Still not breathing.

Maybe I’d screwed up, done things wrong, maybe he’d—

Caleb’s eyes fluttered open out of the blue and he burst into a coughing fit.

I did it.

Maybe I shouldn’t have.

The half-hearted thrill of seeing him breathing again dissolved into a quiet fear of his reaction. I waited for the razor-blade gaze I’d seen back at the train station, for him to turn on me at a moment’s notice, but he stared at me, panicked, his eyes wider than the cornfields.

He mouthed something to me, but his voice stayed mute from the smoke.

       “Li—am.”

Every sound in the field went quiet. Even the air stopped breathing. Nothing moved except for the cornhusks beneath the feet of a predator. Liam appeared blacker than ashes out of the smoke, his beady blues ablaze with the thrill of the hunt, and a grin sinister enough to tear his lips at the seams.

Liam snatched me by the hair, and grated his nails against my scalp until I screamed. I shut my eyes and waited to feel the cold promise of his knife against my skin, but he let me go.

The sickening thud of bones against dirt rattled the ground next to me. Caleb had Liam pinned. Both knees around his torso and two hands around his throat, he looked angry enough to kill. But he was a shadow, too small and too frail to keep up with Liam in a fight.