Chapter 11
Day 101-102
When I awoke in the hospital I looked around. I saw Jeremy being held by someone I’d never seen and was left to assume was Karen. She was hugging him close and looked so much more motherly than I’d imagined, but other than that was spot on. Jenny was rocking Kelly and Bob was sitting there looking bored. When they realized I was awake they all smiled, well not Bob he just glanced over.
Jeremy launched himself at me, “You’re okay!” He yelled his voice a little high.
I mentally cringed when his weight hit me, but managed not to cringe physically. “Yeah.” My voice came out slightly strangled and Karen pulled him off of me mouthing the word sorry.
“You okay?” Jenny asked. “Your ankle has a few tears, as well as your whole body being covered in bumps and bruises and cuts.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said trying to sit up to find that my mid section was also is a cast. “What else happened to me?”
“When you hit the ground you partially damaged parts of your spine, so they don’t want you to move your back. It’s nothing major, but they haven’t really finished testing everything yet,” Karen said.
I glared at Bob, “So what exactly did you do?”
He smirked, “I didn’t do anything. I just overheard them saying the elevator was broken. I was trying to do a good thing.”
“But your about as trustworthy as a thief,” I said.
He shrugged, “Your loss.”
I rolled my eyes, “Fine. I don’t even care anymore. Do they have crutches in this room?” Jeremy nodded and brought them to be. I went to the bathroom and changed into my clothes. I was thankful they didn’t have me hooked up to any machinery except the IV. I came out and opened the window that was behind my bed. I pulled the screen in and began unscrewing the bars that were across it with a tiny screwdriver I had found in the room.
“What are you doing?” Jenny asked.
“Breaking out,” I said shortly. “I’m not going back, so I’m just gonna run.”
“You can’t go alone,” Karen said. “You have a broken leg and if there is something wrong with your back and it gets worse you’ll be screwed.”
I shrugged, “Well I’m out.” The bars popped off and I smiled, thankful we were on the first floor.
“We’re all coming,” She said. Everyone was nodding. Jeremy went out first with my crutches, and then I went. Karen, Kelly, Jenny, and Bob each followed. I screwed the windows on partially and we set off. We stopped at a CVS first, where with the money I had stolen I bought hair dye. I bought it in red and black along with a pair of scissors and some food. I also made sure to keep my hood up so I could never be seen on camera. Then we went to a camp ground that offered free showers. All the girls went one way and Bob went with Jeremy in the other direction. We each helped each other put the dye in our hair and carefully apply it to Kelly’s.
“Momma, where are we going?” She asked.
Jenny shrugged, “Somewhere really fun.” The little girl nodded and we all sat down to wait. When the time ended and we rinsed the dye out we all looked in the mirror.
Adding the red to my hair had made it turn a light auburn. Jenny’s hair was a much darker auburn, and so was Kelly’s. Karen’s hair being black made her look completely different, but still gorgeous. We met up with the boys as well. Jeremy’s hair looked like mine and Bob’s was red, but not very bright. I grabbed the scissors I’d bought and sat everyone down. I’d always cut my own hair, so this was nothing new.
Jeremy I did first. As little as I wanted to, I cut his hair a lot shorter and you could hardly recognize him. Then I did the same with Bob who was also unrecognizable. Jenny’s hair I cut to about shoulder length and added layers, and I just trimmed Kelly’s. For Karen I added lots of layers, but I knew taking off length would make it uncontrollable. I cut my own hair extremely short and we headed to Walmart. I stole a hoodie from a guy to hide my face during the first trip into the store where I just bought us all new clothes. We changed and headed in together.
I had been lucky that the guy whose wallet I stole at the hospital had a hundred fifty dollars in his wallet, and even luckier that the jacket I stole had another fifty dollars in the pocket. We bought a flashlight, batteries, and a massive tent before running out of cash. We headed back to the camp site and set up the tent. We wrapped Kelly in the stolen jacket and everyone else just slept close together.
The next morning I made sure I was up early, before the sun even came up. We were broke again, and we had to eat and get started on our trip. I figured once we got to Vegas we’d be safe, plus work there is easy to come by. After our recent transformations we were hardly recognizable, which would help if our story was on the news. Then the older ones of us could try and get jobs. There were places we could get hired that wouldn’t ask too many questions, and that was what we’d have to do.
I noticed a family that had left their cooler outside their tent so I popped it open. They had a million water bottles in it, but no food. I shoved a bunch of the water bottles into Jeremy’s backpack and thanked God he never went anywhere without it. I found another tent that smelled horribly of alcohol. I stole into it to find the residents passed out. I quickly stashed their chips and granola bars along with some cash from all the wallets I found. Finally I stole one more wallet and grabbed the cash before heading back to our tent. I dumped everything I’d gotten to look through it all. We had twenty water bottles, twelve granola bars, three massive bags of chips, and about seventy dollars cash. I woke up the others and told them to change into the second set of clothes I’d bought. We went to the places they had to shower again and washed our clothes there. We hung them over trees to dry and each took a granola bar and shared three water bottles. We spent the morning around the campsite getting ready. When the bottles were empty I refilled them from the water fountains. Finally when our things dried off it was the afternoon. I decided to get some food honestly, well not honestly really. It wasn’t going to be stolen though, which had to count for something.
“Excuse me,” I asked a family. The mom looked up at me and smiled. “My parents asked me to cook our last hot dogs for lunch and I realized they were taken last night. I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’ll be in so much trouble. I was supposed to bring the food in my tent and just totally forgot, I don’t know what to do and-”
“Aw, honey it’s okay,” She said handing me a pack of hot dogs. “Here take these. It’ll be our little secret.” She winked and I felt guilty for conning the poor woman. Not guilty enough though.
I wiped at my eyes, “Thank you ma’am.” I ran off to start us an actual fire and cook the pack of hot dogs. Once they were all cooked we ate them before packing up and heading off.
We found a train station and I bought tickets to Vegas. It cost most of our money, and I knew I’d have to steal more as we went. Strangely enough I didn’t feel bad about it. I just knew I had to keep the others safe, because it was my fault they were in this mess.
Everyone loaded into the back compartment of the train and I was glad it was a nice train. It had a special dining area and every ticket came with one free meal. Free meals meant some passengers, and generally the less bright ones, would leave their wallets behind. I’d never take more than twenty or thirty dollars, but by the time I was done I’d gathered up a good few hundred dollars in cash.
We made our way to another camp ground and I was again thankful for the industry. It made what we were doing so much easier. Although that’s not really what it was intended to do, I appreciated it. Everyone else was asleep and I was sitting looking at the stars.
“Sydney,” A small voice called. I turned to see Kelly rubbing her eyes. She was certainly a sight. She was wearing a pair of children’s jeans with a purple shirt. Of course you couldn’t see either, because she had the stolen hoodie over it to keep her warm. It was adorable seeing her in the massive grey hoodie.
“What’s wrong baby girl?” I asked quietly as she sa
t down in my lap.
“Where are we going?” She asked.
I sighed, “Well, we’re probably gonna be here for a few days. Then we’ll find a nice place to live kiddo.”
“Why are we here?”
“Cause we’re gonna try something new,” I said. “Like an adventure.”
She smiled, “I like adventures!”
“Good, cause this is bound to be a grand adventure.” I said kissing her head.
She giggled, “We should make dinner. We never had dinner.” I sighed. We didn’t really have any food, but she was right. We hadn’t eaten since lunch on the train.
“I’ll go find food. You stay here,” I said.
I walked around stealing, mainly from the more drunken residents. When I got back Kelly was gone. I ran around and finally saw her with a young woman.
“Kelly!” I said, running over. “I told you to stay put.”
“Syd, I’m hungry and they have food,” She said simply.
I breathed out loudly and turned to the woman, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” She said. “Where are your parents?”
“Well,” I said. “We’re going to meet them, but we got a bit delayed.”
“What happened?” She asked.
I sat down and pulled Kelly closer to me. “Well, see I was babysitting her and our brother while Mom and Dad started their trip. I came home from college just for this. Then I was supposed to take a train out there. It’s this little place one stop past Vegas.” She nodded.
“Well first we missed our train, because we got stuck in traffic. The next train to Vegas wasn’t full so we hopped on. Jeremy didn’t feel well so we got off the train here. Of course Mom and Dad didn’t give me enough money to pay for a hotel room and a doctor visit, so we didn’t really have a lot of money. I bought a small tent and the necessities, but we didn’t have much of a dinner. Mom and Dad are picking us up in the morning, and we’ll probably get a huge breakfast.”
She smiled, “That’s so sweet of you to take care of your younger siblings like that. Hang on.” She reached into a cooler and pulled out a few sandwiches. “My husband packed way too many of these, it’d be helpful if you could get rid of a bunch of them.”
“We couldn’t,” I said shaking my head.
She handed them to be anyway, “Please. Consider it a favor.”
“Thank you,” I said, blushing. I honestly wasn’t trying to get food from her at all. I pulled Kelly away and back to our tent. I woke the others and passed out the food. They were small enough we could normally eat two, and it was lucky she’d assumed we each would, so we each got one. After eating everyone except Karen went back to sleep.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Kind of,” I said. “I know a guy who can get us IDs. Then I figure jobs and an apartment.”
“So it’s a bad plan? How much cash do we have,” She asked.
I sighed, “Five hundred.”
“You stole five hundred dollars?” She asked astounded. I nodded. “That’s not a lot to start us off, but it is a lot of money.”
“It’s enough for food and IDs. Then we’ll get our first check and we’ll find a cheap place.” I said.
She sighed, “I guess that’s all we can hope for, isn’t it?” I nodded. “Night Sydney. Sleep well.”
As I tried to go asleep I realized something. I was free, and once I was back to normal I’d go home.