Run Away With Me

by J. L. Simmonds

Genres: YA Coming of Age; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

Two teenage runaways. One vintage Mustang. A life-changing race across America. So strap in, because this is going to be one hell of a ride.

Jessie 'Mouse' Swift needs to get out of Seattle and fast. A few days ago she admitted to wanting her abusive stepfather dead, only to come home and find his murdered body. So when a girl from school offers Jessie a ride in her vintage red Mustang, they embark on an unexpected road trip across America.

Brooke Summer is everything Jessie isn’t: popular, confident, wealthy and heart-stoppingly beautiful, and Jessie has been in love with her from afar for years. But Brooke is hiding her own secrets . . .

With the cops and other sinister figures on their tail, how long can Jessie and Brooke stay on the run before they’re caught? And as their friendship blossoms into something more, can they find a future worth running to together?

A coming-of-age thriller-romance, perfect for fans of Holly Jackson and Casey McQuiston.

Release date: October 14, 2025

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Print pages: 352

Sample

1Born to Run

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

My feet and shoulders were aching, and my breath kept catching in the back of my throat, like the panic was rising up and snatching the air before it could reach my lungs. To distract myself, I repeated the same mantra, over and over.

Get to the bus station. Get on a bus. Go.

It was a comfort as I walked, the words falling into the same rhythm as my footsteps. I needed a distraction, to keep my mind focused on something other than the absolute horror I was leaving behind me.

I glanced up from the sidewalk and wondered how late it was. The sun was starting to set, bathing the city in a peach glow. It couldn’t have been that long since I’d gotten off the bus, maybe an hour at most. But in that time, everything had changed.

Night fell slowly as we edged through spring, the city on tenterhooks with winter jackets packed away and bare ankles on display. Over the past few days the famous Seattle rain had fizzled out and the last of the chilly nights seemed to be behind us.

Get to the bus station.

Get on a bus.

Go.

I had to keep going, had to keep myself distracted, because hot bile kept pushing up from my stomach and the acidity was threatening to spill out of me at any second. I really didn’t want to spew on the city streets—partly because that would be so gross, and mostly because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. All this would be for nothing if someone saw me leaving.

My ear and jaw still throbbed from what had happened this morning. I’d gotten up and showered, then braided my hair so it fell to the middle of my back, keeping it out of my way for school.

Then he hit me.

After that, I unpicked the braid so I could let my hair hang loose around my face and hoped no one would notice the mark on my cheek.

Not that anyone ever looked that closely at me anyway.

All day I’d been pressing my tongue to my back tooth to see if it was still loose, and every time I’d tasted blood. Now, my feet hurt from pounding the sidewalk, my shoulders were sore from the combined weight of a backpack and duffel bag, and I had a headache blooming behind my eyes. Luckily, I was good at ignoring pain. I’d take a couple of Tylenol when I got to the bus station.

Get to the bus station. Get on a bus.

I forced down my self-pity, knowing it wouldn’t help me.

Go.

And then her car pulled up.

“Mouse?”

Brooke drove a red vintage convertible Mustang. The top was down, and she was leaning out of the window, her face etched with concern. I focused on the car for just a moment too long and my whole body violently contracted—blood red, dark and shiny, like the way blood pools on polished tile … I forced myself to look at Brooke instead.

“Hey,” I tried to say nonchalantly.

Brooke Summer was the most beautiful girl in our whole school. It wasn’t just me who thought it, either—it was a widely agreed-upon opinion. She had deep, dark-brown eyes with tiny gold flecks in the irises and defined cheekbones that made her look elegant and mature. She was still wearing our St. Catherine’s uniform, so her lush, dark hair fell in effortless waves over the crisp white shirt she’d unbuttoned at her throat.

In school, she always said hello to me, even though she was one of the popular girls and I was me. She didn’t have to be nice, but she was, offering me small smiles when we passed in the hallway or inviting me to sit next to her in Chemistry lab. We were in the school choir together, too, so every week for an hour I got to stand two rows behind her and look at the back of her head.

I liked to admire her from afar.

“Do you need a lift anywhere?” Brooke asked, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in a distracted pattern.

I hesitated for a moment, because my plan was a good one. But it was going to take me another hour to get to the bus station on foot, and time was against me. I needed to go, now.

“Could you take me to the—” I couldn’t say the bus station, that was too obvious. “To Chinatown?”

To her credit, she didn’t ask me why I was going there with a shoulder full of bags, but it was the closest place to the bus station I could think of under pressure.

“Sure. Get in.”

My duffel bag fit in between my feet and I placed my backpack on my lap, which now felt heavier than it had when I’d been walking. I put my seat belt on, and Brooke waited until it clicked in place before signaling to pull back out into traffic.

I carefully adjusted my plan, still needing the mantra to keep my head clear of flickering mental images that were trying to barge in.

A broken door.

A broken body.

No! I wouldn’t … I couldn’t …

Get in the Mustang. Get to the bus station. Go!

The gorgeous cream leather seat was cool against my arms as I settled in, turning away from Brooke so I didn’t have to look at her. It was rude of me, but I was on edge. I could apologize another time.

If there ever was another time.

I only started paying attention to my surroundings when Brooke pulled up outside the bus station twenty minutes later. I looked over at her, alarmed.

She shrugged and gave me a sad smile. “I know what someone running away looks like, Mouse.”

I stared at her for a second, taken aback and not knowing how to reply. I’d only ever looked at Brooke through the lens of my ridiculous, cringey crush, so it hadn’t occurred to me that maybe she was going through something, too. I glanced around, searching for the right words to say.

Brooke had a black leather bag on the back seat, next to her school backpack and a large duffel bag. I looked over at her, now even more unsure of what to say. Her dark eyelashes flickered as she blinked a few times.

“So,” she said, “do you want to come with me?”

My heart started to beat a little faster. “Where are you going?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. Does it matter?”

“No, not really. But … why?” I asked, suddenly desperate to know.

Brooke looked down and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Okay, here’s the deal. You don’t ask me why I’m leaving town, and I won’t ask you. How does that sound?”

She was prepared to take me with her and she wouldn’t ask for details? This was a much better plan. I hesitated for a second, wondering if dragging Brooke into the mess I was running away from was a good idea. Or, you know … ethical. But leaving with Brooke meant not being alone and, honestly, I wasn’t sure how long I would have lasted on my own anyway.

“Deal,” I said quickly. “Absolutely deal.”

Brooke looked up and grinned, flashing white teeth, a little shark-like.

“Let’s go.”

The Mustang growled when she revved the engine, and I couldn’t help but run my hand over the side of the seat, letting the buttery-soft leather caress my palm. I knew nothing about cars, but this one was seriously cool, and it was getting me the hell out of Seattle. I was growing fonder of it by the second.

“Do you like music?” Brooke asked as we merged onto the I-5 and headed out of the city.

“Sure.”

“There are cassettes in the glove box.”

“Cassettes?” I replied.

She laughed brightly. “Yeah, Mouse, cassette tapes. The car came with a cassette deck and it still works. The radio signal is shit once I leave the city.”

I opened the glove box and, sure enough, it was stuffed with a dozen or so shiny clear cases. The first one I picked up was Born to Run and that sounded appropriate. I knew Bruce Springsteen. I wasn’t a total idiot.

The case opened with a satisfying click and I took out the cassette, turning it around to study it.

“Side one needs to be facing up,” Brooke said, watching me from the corner of her eye. “It should be right at the start.”

I stuck the cassette into the stereo, and after a second the speakers whirred to life. The car might have been old, but the speakers were clearly new. Sound burst out of them, bright and clear, and Brooke turned the volume up.

“I love this album,” she murmured.

I had no idea where we were going, or how long it would take to get there, but those questions all blurred into irrelevance. I was out of Seattle, and in Brooke’s car, and everything else could wait.

The city started to fade behind us, and Brooke put her foot down on the gas.

* * *

Brooke drove fast, and I wasn’t used to that. She headed south toward the Oregon border, her fingers lightly tapping the steering wheel like it was a habit. I closed my eyes for a while, content to listen to the music and the sound of the cool night air whizzing past, the scents changing as we moved out of the city, through the suburbs, then into more wide-open space.

As the sky deepened into inky night and Brooke continued to put more distance between me and my house, each of my muscles started to relax, releasing the tension I’d been desperately clinging to. Sitting next to Brooke wasn’t awkward. The silence wasn’t awkward, either. It was almost … nice … to spend time with someone without being on edge, waiting for the next barbed comment or backhanded slap.

I smothered a yawn and rubbed my fingertips over my eyelids. The mental effort not to let my thoughts wander back to earlier this afternoon was exhausting. I couldn’t let myself go there. It had cost me so much to get out.

* * *

I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I woke up with a start. I glanced over at Brooke, who smiled back at me.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” she said softly.

“That’s okay.” I stretched my back and squinted out of the windshield. “Where are we?”

“About an hour outside of the city.”

“Where are we going tonight?” I’d been too afraid to ask, not sure if this counted in our deal not to ask each other why we were leaving Seattle. I also wasn’t sure if I’d like her answer.

“Where do you want to go?”

That made me laugh. “You’re the one driving.”

“We’ve got the entire continental US to explore,” Brooke replied, and it sounded like a joke and also really not like a joke at the same time. “Unless you brought your passport, in which case both Mexico and Canada are possibilities.”

“I don’t have a passport.”

She didn’t comment on that. I hadn’t spent my life going on fancy vacations in other countries like she had, and I was almost baiting her—waiting to see if she would turn out to be a Mean Girl after all.

“Have you ever been to Disney World?” she asked, and I grimaced.

“No. I’ve never—” I decided not to finish that sentence. Brooke didn’t need to know I’d only ever visited two other states, and both of them shared a border with Washington. “I haven’t,” I said instead, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

She smiled. “Awesome. That’s where we’re going, then.”

“Brooke. That’s, like, a two-week drive,” I said with a disbelieving laugh.

“Nah, I figure we can do it in ten days. Maybe less.”

“How fast do you drive?” I asked.

“I won’t break the speed limit,” she said simply. “But we’ll get there, don’t worry about that. Do you have cash on you?”

“Yeah. And a credit card,” I said. Not all the money was mine. The credit card definitely wasn’t. It wouldn’t take a lot for Brooke to figure that out, but she didn’t question it. That almost made it worse. She’d want answers eventually, and I had no idea how to explain what had happened.

“Great,” she said. “I’m gonna keep going for another hour, then we should probably stop and get a motel room.”

“Sure.”

I was so intimidated by Brooke that going along with her plan was easier than trying to suggest something of my own, something that would probably be stupid in comparison. I never got the impression that she tried to be intimidating, but some girls had this thing about them—an aura, maybe, or an attitude—that made me cower in front of them.

Brooke was tall, which helped with her attitude, and classically beautiful, which doubled it. I frequently got tongue-tied in front of pretty girls and usually ended up mumbling or running away … or both. Fortunately, I did that in front of girls who I didn’t think were pretty, as well as grown women, and especially men, so when I got flustered by a girl I liked, no one knew why. Over the years, I’d become good at hiding what I really thought. Or felt. Or wanted.

Brooke seemed lost in her own thoughts, too, or maybe she was just concentrating on driving. It was harder to see the street signs in the dark. Eventually she slowed down and pulled into the parking lot of a motel.

“You should find a space out front,” I said absently.

“Oh, no way. I like to park away from the road.”

I glanced over at her. “It’s easier to get out in the morning if you park at the front.”

When I was younger, I’d stayed in motels with my mom, and she’d always wanted an easy escape in case the landlord she hadn’t paid was chasing us out of town. We’d only had someone catch up with us once, but that was enough for her to change her habits.

Brooke shook her head. “In this car? Do you know how often people try to steal it? I need to keep it out of the way somewhere.”

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it again. “Okay.”

I couldn’t explain without telling her the whole messy story, and it was late, and it didn’t matter.

Brooke pulled into one of the short-stay spaces and killed the engine. “You want to wait here?”

“I can do that.”

“Great. Thanks,” she said, already pushing the car door open. She got out and walked toward the lobby, her back straight and chin up.

I waited in the dark as the automatic doors of the motel swished open and closed. We’d been on the road for a couple of hours, long enough to get us out of Seattle and past the suburbs, too. Far enough away from home, I hoped, that no one would think to look for us here.

I watched as two businessmen walked into the motel, practically dragging their feet with tiredness. Then I spotted a woman, who could only be here for one reason, following half a step behind a seedy-looking guy.

My brain felt sluggish as I processed all my failures from today.

Get to the bus station. Failed.

Get on a bus. Failed.

But …

Go. Done.



2Rumours

FLEETWOOD MAC

I woke up to the soft whoop whoop of a police car, and sat bolt upright in bed, my heart thundering in my chest. Had the cops caught up with me already?

After a split second I remembered we were in a motel off the interstate, and the police probably drove through here on a regular basis. There was really no reason for me to panic, especially so early in the morning. I pressed the heel of my hand against my breastbone and forced myself to take a deep breath. I glanced over at Brooke, who was sleeping soundly on the bed next to mine, curled up and facing away from the window.

The motel room had two narrow, lumpy beds and a threadbare carpet—far from modern, but it was clean, and I wasn’t going to argue about the quality when it had been so cheap.

Brooke had taken care of paying for the room and collecting the keys last night, and we’d driven around the back of the building to hide her car in a dark corner of the parking lot before taking all our bags into the room. Brooke had gone back to put the top up on the Mustang, while I tried not to worry about everything that had happened.

I didn’t want to go to sleep right away, but Brooke looked exhausted, so I didn’t shower before I got into bed like I usually did. She’d fallen asleep only minutes after crawling under the covers and I hadn’t. I’d laid on my back for a couple of hours, staring at the ceiling and listening to Brooke snore. Asleep, I had no control over what memories my subconscious flashed at me. It was easier to stay in control while I was awake.

Brooke’s exhaustion had made me even more curious about what she was running away from, but I wasn’t going to ask. Not when I knew she would only ask me the same question back.

While I’d been lying awake, I’d been able to hear the cars outside racing up and down the highway. That hadn’t bothered me, though. It was nowhere near as bad as some of the apartments I’d lived in with my mom, where I could hear babies crying and adults arguing through the paper-thin walls at all times of day. I guess the sound of the traffic must have eventually lulled me to sleep.

Now, looking over at the thick curtain covering the window, my curiosity got the better of me and I quietly slid out of bed to see what was going on outside. Two police cars were in the parking lot, their red and blue lights flashing, and I watched a female officer get out of the second car and go around the corner to the motel reception.

Oh no.

I’d been here before—well, not here, but I knew exactly how this scene played out—and the last thing I wanted was to be directed into the back of a police car to be returned to my mom. I guessed there were two cars because there were two of us, one car each for me and Brooke, and both would be carrying a stony-faced police officer accompanied by a fake-smiling child protection social worker. They always sent the female officers after teenage girl runaways.

I wasn’t going back. Not this time.

“Brooke,” I said, stumbling across the room to urgently shake her awake. “We have to go. Get up.”

“What the hell?” she grumbled.

“The police are outside.”

“Police?” She sounded more alert now.

“Yeah. We have to go. Right now.”

“Shit,” she groaned.

She sat up quickly then, and I pulled on a sweater and my sneakers while shoving everything else into my backpack. I was shaking and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. It took three attempts for me to tie my shoelaces. My fingers kept slipping.

“Where’s the room key?” I asked in a panic.

I turned around and noticed Brooke had put her jeans on over the top of her pajama shorts.

“Just leave it.”

“Leave it here?”

“Yeah, housekeeping will find it when they come by later,” she replied.

Not having to check out with the front desk would cut down on how long it would take to get out of here, which was fine by me. I swung my backpack onto my shoulder and took a few quick steps toward the door.

“You’re sure they’re here for us, Mouse?” she asked, and I nodded frantically.

“There are two cars, both with police officers and what look like child protection social workers. We have to leave now, unless you want a police escort home.” I forced myself to unclench my jaw. “But I might be wrong. Do you want to hang around and find out?”

She stared at me for a moment, then shook her head. “Let’s go.”

We left the room as quietly as possible and tried to act casual, like regular people who had decided, Hey, let’s get up super early and leave, rather than waiting for the free breakfast buffet.

“There’s a back staircase. I noticed it last night,” Brooke said. “It goes straight down to the parking lot.”

“Let’s do that,” I said, my words coming out more blunt than I intended. I just wanted to be out of here, away from the two police cars that were such a threat.

It would take a moment, I was sure, for the officers to get the information they needed from the front desk and then find our room. What I was more worried about was Brooke’s incredibly ostentatious car. If someone decided to go poking around the parking lot, it wouldn’t take them long to find it. At least Brooke had insisted on parking at the back of the motel, out of sight of the road. That would buy us a few more minutes.

We scrambled down the narrow staircase and then fell into step alongside each other as we crossed the lot to the car. I didn’t dare say anything as Brooke got into the driver’s side and turned the engine on. I slid into the seat next to her and fixed my eyes firmly on the windshield.

“Can you see anyone?” she asked.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to look around. “No. We’re good.”

“You better be fucking sure about this,” she muttered, and followed the signs for the exit.

There was a single officer left in one of the police cars—the others must have joined the first at the front desk—and she barely looked up as we pulled around the building and onto the highway.

I looked down at my hands, surprised to see that they were still shaking, then flicked my eyes to the rearview mirror, watching for when the police cars would surely appear. Meanwhile, Brooke put distance between us and the motel.

I was breathing too hard, but I couldn’t slow down my rapid-fire heartbeat. I wasn’t going to get away with this. Someone was going to catch me, and then I’d go on trial for murder, and, worst of all, I was dragging Brooke into all of this, too.

Brooke reached across me and fumbled for the glove box.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I need another cassette,” Brooke said. “I hate driving in silence. It stresses me out.”

“Jesus, it’s not the time, Brooke! Just drive!” I said, my voice rising with panic.

“I’ll drive better if we’re not sitting here in silence.”

“Fine! I’ll do it,” I said, slapping her hand away. “You just … watch the road.”

“I’m watching it,” she grumbled.

I picked a cassette at random, pushing the button to eject Born to Run and replacing it in its case. It was good to have a task to focus on. Something to distract me.

“This is Fleetwood Mac,” I said, sliding the cassette into the slot.

“A classic.”

“You have eclectic taste in music, Brooke Summer,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I like good music. You must, too, if you’re in the choir.”

“Eh. I’m only in the choir because—”

“Because?” she prompted.

“Never mind.”

I didn’t want to go into all the excuses I had for not coming home straight after school. I could sense she was curious, but I wasn’t going to tell her anything. Not at six in the morning, anyway. My ear was still throbbing from what had happened yesterday, the pain right there if I wanted to tune into it. I did my best to tune out again.

“Where do you even find cassette tapes?” I asked, changing the subject.

Brooke didn’t take her eyes off the road, but I could see her quick smile. “Thrift stores, mostly,” she said. “There’s rules, though.”

“Rules? Tell me.”

I was distracting both of us now, and Brooke seemed to realize that.

“They have to be original albums, not recordings,” she said. “You can find lots of mixtapes at Goodwill, but most of them totally suck, recorded off the radio or whatever. Or the start of the song is cut off because the person recording it didn’t know what they were doing.”

“Okay.”

“And you can’t pay more than five bucks per album.”

“How much do they cost?” I asked.

“It depends,” she said. “Some places you can pick them up really cheap, like a dollar or less. But there’s some music stores in Seattle where people are betting that cassette tapes will make a comeback like vinyl did, and then people will want the originals. So the Goodwill on Rainier Avenue is starting to hike up their prices. You have to be careful where you buy them from, otherwise you’ll get ripped off.”

“Does it matter who the artist is?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “I’m not playing terrible music in my car, Mouse.”

The way she said it made me laugh, but I wished she wouldn’t call me Mouse. I hadn’t figured out how to ask her not to. After all, it’s what everyone called me, whether I liked it or not.

“No eBay, either,” she said, and it took me a moment to catch up with her.

“Huh?”

“The tapes. You can’t get them on eBay. That’s cheating.”

This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with Brooke— a conversation that wasn’t about running away, at least—and I realized I was only just starting to scratch the surface of getting to know her.

“All right,” I said. “Do you have a list of albums you want? Or do you buy whatever you find and like?”

“Bit of both. I’m still trying to find Paul Simon’s Graceland.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror again, and this time Brooke caught me.

“Mouse?” she asked.

“I can’t see anyone,” I said quietly.

Yesterday I had been ready to leave Seattle, even if that meant being on my own, but now I was here with Brooke, I wasn’t going to jeopardize the company by telling her why the police were after me.

“Do you think we’ve been reported missing?” Brooke asked. “It’s not even been twenty-four hours since we left.”

“Yeah, but we’re seventeen. Did something happen to you?” I asked, deflecting hard.

“No! You?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to come up with the right words to convince her.

“And how the hell did they find us so quickly?”

I’d been thinking about that, too. “Did you use a credit card to check in last night?” I suggested, and Brooke groaned.

“Shit. You’re right.”

“Or our cell phones. Is yours still on?”

“It’s on airplane mode,” she said. “Do you think that’s enough?”

I’d turned mine off completely. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“I’m gonna turn it off now,” she said, fumbling in her pocket.

“I can do it,” I said quickly, wanting her to keep her focus on the road.

“Thanks,” she murmured, and handed it over. “I’m going to take a detour,” Brooke said after a few moments. “Get off the main drag. Just in case they’re following us.”

“Sure. Good idea.”

“I need coffee,” she added, her words stretched out by a yawn. “And I want to get dressed. I don’t have a bra on.”

I really didn’t want to think about what underwear Brooke Summer was or was not wearing. It was way too early for that kind of existential angst.

Thankfully, it took less than ten minutes for us to find a Starbucks, and Brooke pulled into a parking space rather than the drive-thru, which had a huge line anyway. There didn’t seem to be many people inside.

“I’ll order and you can go get dressed, then we can swap?” Brooke said, and I nodded. “What do you drink?”

“A caramel latte?” I asked it as a question, like this was something I could get wrong.

“Hot or iced?”

“Hot, please.”

She nodded and edged into the line, looking slightly more human in jeans and a sweater than I did in pajama pants. Then again, no one looked at me twice, and I got the impression I wasn’t the worst-dressed person the baristas had ever seen.

The restroom was impressively clean, and I double-checked the lock on the door before stripping out of my pajamas and putting on clean underwear and jeans. I was grateful I’d packed long pajama pants because they covered the ugly scar at the top of my thigh that I really didn’t want Brooke to see, and I didn’t like looking at, either.

Checking my body in the mirror for bruises was second nature and I twisted uncomfortably to see how the one on my back was fading. It had turned yellow-green, which was good news. It would be gone in a few more days.

I threw on an old but clean T-shirt and washed my face, smoothed down my eyebrows, and felt almost normal again. My hair was a mess. It had gone greasy around my hairline, turning the light brown darker, but I couldn’t do much about that, so I pulled it all into a messy bun on the top of my head and decided I would try to pretend that was my intention all along.

I stared at myself in the bleary mirror, pulling strands of my hair loose from the bun so I didn’t look like I’d tried too hard, then applied a tiny dot of foundation over the faint mark on my cheek. Brooke hadn’t mentioned the mark, and I wasn’t sure if she was being kind or discreet or if she just hadn’t noticed it. Either way, it was easier to hide it than to answer questions.

It had been a while since my last encounter with Child Protective Services, which put me on edge. When I was younger, I had been on their radar for a whole host of reasons, most of them related to my mom’s terrible taste in men, but as I’d edged through my teenage years, they seemed less and less interested in me. Knowing someone was looking for me put a different spin on the road trip. It was more important than ever that we put distance between us and Seattle … for my own freedom, and so I could protect Brooke from the mess I was leaving behind.

A knock on the restroom door startled me.

“Mouse?”

“Coming,” I said, quickly shoving everything back into my backpack.

Brooke was waiting outside when I opened the door. “Sorry, I need to use the restroom. I ordered and paid, but they haven’t made the drinks yet.”

“Thanks. I’ll give you some money,” I said, already feeling embarrassed that she’d paid for everything so far.

“It’s fine,” she said, waving my embarrassment away and dashing into the stall.

I went over to the end of the bar to wait for our order.

“Summer?”

It took me a moment to realize Brooke had given a fake name, which was smart. I should have thought of that. I muttered my thanks and took the two take-out cups the barista had set on the counter, then went to a table near the front so I could watch who was coming into the parking lot.

The sharp-sweet smell of coffee and the familiar, generic environment of Starbucks was the permission I needed to relax. Everything here was as it should be, from the menu to the noise of orders being tossed back and forth between customers and baristas, and the gentle background music that I didn’t need to listen to.

When Brooke came back out, I couldn’t even tell that she’d gotten ready in a Starbucks restroom. She looked as effortlessly perfect as she always did, and something in my belly fizzed with want. My crush on Brooke had been simmering for a while now, at least since the beginning of the school year, when we had started having classes together for the first time.

She slid into the seat opposite me and took the first sip of her coffee, clearly not noticing me staring at her.

“Do you really think they were child protection people?” Brooke asked, both hands wrapped around her cup.

I thought carefully about my answer, wanting to show her that I wasn’t just freaking out like some little kid.

“Honestly? Yeah.”

She nodded quietly and looked back out the window. “Okay.”

“I don’t know why else they would’ve sent two cars and all female officers. That’s what they do.”

“Do you—” she paused for a moment, still not looking at me, clearly trying to figure out a polite way to ask her question. “Have … firsthand experience? Of that?”

I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, Brooke. We’re old friends with CPS in our house.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not what you think.” Or maybe it was. I didn’t know her well enough to guess what she was thinking. “It’s better now. We just had a few issues with my dad when I was younger.”

“I see,” she said, her voice totally neutral.

“It’s okay, though.” I’d learned that lie by repeating it so many times it had become true. “We worked it out.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding, wincing a little in sympathy. “So, the cell phones have to go.”

“Fine by me.”

No one ever texted me. I mostly used my phone to keep up with K-pop news on Twitter and stalk celebrities on Instagram. Those were habits that I probably needed to break, anyway.

“Credit cards too?” she said, and it took me a moment to realize she was asking for my opinion.

“Well, I don’t have a huge amount of cash,” I said. “Maybe we should get some money out near here, then ditch them?”

“There’s cameras at ATMs, though.”

“Does it matter? Once we have the cash, it’s not traceable. All they’ll know is that we took it out.”

Brooke stared at me, and I wondered whether she had put mascara on. Her eyelashes were so dark, and so long, showing off her beautiful eyes. Then her lips stretched into a smirk.

“You’re outrageous.”

“I’m not,” I said quickly. No one had ever called me outrageous. I liked it, even though she was wrong.

“Audacious.”

“Definitely not that.”

Brooke laughed brightly. “Okay. We should drive somewhere, go to an ATM and draw out a shitload of cash, then double back and keep heading down to Disney World.”

“Why Disney World?”

“Why not? You’ve never been.”

“It’s a long way from Seattle,” I murmured.

“Exactly.” Brooke leaned back in her seat, like that settled it.

Maybe it did.

We got back in the Mustang and Brooke drove around until she found a strip mall with multiple ATMs in the parking lot. I got out of the car and walked in one direction, toward CVS because I’d left my toothbrush behind in the motel bathroom and I needed a new one, and Brooke went in the other direction, to the grocery store.

Just walking across a parking lot made me feel like a felon on the run, like every pair of eyes was on me, even though I was under no illusions. Actually, I was a nondescript teenage girl giving no one a reason to look at her. That didn’t stop my heart from beating up into my throat, like it had yesterday when I was walking to the bus station.

Only yesterday? Time moved fast.

The drugstore was relatively empty in the middle of the day, and I tried to act normal. What did normal girls do in CVS? Look at makeup? I only ever wore makeup to cover up bruises, scars, or zits, and I always felt conspicuous when I tried on my mom’s bright lipstick, so I never bothered with it. I browsed the aisles under the fake fluorescent glow of bright white lights, threw powder and concealer into my basket, then went looking for toothbrushes. At the checkout line I picked up two Snapples and a bag of chips and waited for the woman in front of me to be finished.

“Hey,” the cashier said as I walked up to her counter.

“Hi.”

I looked around as she scanned and packed my stuff, checking out where the CCTV cameras were. They’d already caught me, I was sure of that, so there was no point in trying to hide now.

“Forty-two twenty-six is your total.”

“Thanks.” I swiped the card and watched the screen on the card reader for it to clear.

The machine beeped.

My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard, hoping my famously bad lying wouldn’t expose me now. We had only just crossed the border into Oregon. If the cashier called for security, then the Seattle police would be able to get here in no time.

“Can I see it?” the girl asked, and I couldn’t find any reason to tell her no.

“It’s my stepdad’s card,” I said with a shrug, playing it cool.

The Creep wasn’t my stepdad—he was just my mom’s scummy boyfriend who liked to smack me around. Explaining all that took time, and was way too personal, so “stepdad” was a useful shortcut, even though I hated giving him that title.

“Huh. It’s coming up with a code I don’t know and saying to call your card provider. You wanna call him?”

“He’s at work,” I said apologetically. The lie was far preferable to the cold reality that I was avoiding thinking about. “He’ll get pissed if I call him now. I’ve got cash…” I didn’t want to spend it, though, not when I’d picked up a bunch of junk I didn’t really want or need.

“You want me to run it one more time?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She did, swiping it her side this time. “Try the PIN?”

I hit the numbers I’d memorized months ago, my fingers tingling with pins and needles. They were icy cold, and I wanted to rub them against my jeans to push the feeling back into them again, but I held off. No point in making my nerves even more blatantly obvious.

The cash register beeped.

“All good,” she said, passing me the card back. I felt like I was going to throw up, like the stress that had curdled in my stomach was desperate to be purged.

“Great, thank you so much.” I took the plastic bag from her with a forced smile.

“Have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too.” The words left my mouth by habit. My brain had stopped working.

Outside, it had started to drizzle, the cold biting my fingertips.

The ATM was next to the exit doors and no one was around now—no people, only cameras, to witness this.

I slid the card into the machine and punched in the PIN again, absolutely sure that the card would be swallowed and I’d fail. I was going to fail.

The next screen flashed up and I pressed the button for cash.

$250 was the maximum I could withdraw in one transaction.

Fine.

Receipt?

What was the point? I hit the button for No.

It took a second, then the machine whirred and spit out the cash and the card. I rolled the bills up and stuffed them into my bra, then slid the card back in again.

Cash.

$250.

No.

The next wad of bills went into the pocket of my hoodie.

Cash.

$250.

No.

Back pocket.

This was Brooke’s plan—break up the cash into smaller amounts instead of putting it all in one place in case we lost a bag or got robbed.

Cash.

$250.

No.

Other side of my bra.

Cash.

$250.

No.

And the ATM did nothing for a few long seconds, longer than it had taken the other four times. So a thousand dollars in cash was the limit for the card?

That wasn’t enough … That wasn’t going to get us all the way to Florida. I smacked my hand on the screen and waited, fingers still twitching, until it displayed a new message telling me to contact my card provider.

The machine hummed for a second, then went back to the holding screen. It had swallowed the card.

Shit.

I rubbed my hands together, trying to get blood flowing into them again, and turned to head to the Mustang.

I hadn’t noticed the man coming up behind me.

I hadn’t noticed anything that was going on when I’d been withdrawing the cash, too focused on what I was doing, and it took me until that moment to realize how epically stupid that had been.

He was probably in his mid-twenties, with a scruffy beard and dirty hair that hung around his ears. He was wearing a hoodie and jeans, like me. Nondescript. Blending in. And he was leaning against the wall a few feet to my right, out of sight of the security cameras.

Clever.

Unlike me.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to give me the cash,” he drawled.

The laugh burst out of me. Not humor, but incredulity, maybe. An I can’t believe this emotion making itself known. I’d finally gotten out of Seattle and now this asshole wanted all my money?

Seriously?

I should have been scared—I should have been fucking terrified—but instead my blood boiled with an unfamiliar fury.

His eyebrows drew together. “I’m not fucking joking.”

“I didn’t think you were,” I said slowly. I was already full of adrenaline, and I’d normally give him the money and deal with the consequences later, but we needed this money. My sickly nerves were overlaid with a new energy, an angry energy. I was stalling for time, trying to figure out how to get away, and he knew it.

“Look, just give me the money, sweetheart.”

It was the sweetheart that changed everything.

I wasn’t his sweetheart. I wasn’t anyone’s goddamn sweetheart. And I was sick of gross men calling me that.

“I could scream,” I said, forcing nonchalance I didn’t feel into my voice. Still, I was sure it shook a little.

His expression morphed from shock to amusement way too quickly. “I bet I can stab you faster than you can scream. You really want a knife in the gut instead of a couple hundred bucks?”

So he had a knife, and he didn’t know how much money was currently hidden on me, which meant he couldn’t have been watching me for long. I glanced over my shoulder, and when I looked back, he was even closer. I could smell the sharp, sour stench of his clothes, the sweat that was baked into the fabric.

“I can also run faster than you, sweetheart. Give me the fucking money.”

Years ago, during a self-defense class that had been scheduled during our usual gym period, me and a group of other eighth-graders had been told, if we ever got mugged, to throw our wallet or phone as far as we could and run in the other direction. Most of the time that was what the muggers wanted—something of value—and they didn’t care much about the person they stole it from. A bundle of cash was harder to throw a distance than a wallet or phone, though. But if I threw a handful of bills up in the air, he’d have to scrabble to pick them all up, and I could run …

He pulled a flip knife out of the waistband of his jeans.

“Okay!” I said quickly, really, really not prepared to find out what it felt like to get stabbed. I could handle pain, but that was … oh God, a pain I really didn’t want to experience. “Okay. Just let me—”

The Mustang screeched to a stop a few yards away, and Brooke leaned out of the driver’s side window, a handgun pointed in the man’s direction.

“All right, asshole, leave her alone.”

While he was gaping at her, I dashed for the car, the plastic CVS bag knocking against my leg. The asshole yelled something, but there was too much blood rushing through my ears, blocking up my brain, and all I could think was thank God … thank God for Brooke being here to save me. Again.

“Go, go, go,” I said, shoving the bag next to my feet and pulling the door closed at the same time.

I pressed the heel of my hand to my sternum, hoping to hold back the sick, terrified feeling and settle my rapid heartbeat. I still felt a little stunned, like I couldn’t really believe this was happening, that this was actually my life now.

The man was still yelling something as Brooke pulled away, revving the engine so hard I felt the vibrations through my entire body.


Text copyright © 2025 by J. L. Simmonds

Illustrations copyright © 2025 by Gavin Reece