“I think they’re probably just casing the place out, hoping to get lucky. Are you sure it was them?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s just sit still, not do anything rash. We can wait for them to leave,” Charlie speaks steadily.
“How can you be so calm?” I ask as his hand comes over mine and I can tell his is rock steady. “What if they search the cars? What if they find us?”
I watch in horror, seeing their car emerge in the distance from the rain as Charlie ducks down and pulls me down too so our heads are just touching.
“We’re screwed.” I panic, shaking worse than before.
What if the owner has called their missing car in? What if they know which car they’re looking for? What if everything we have done is for nothing and we’re about to get caught?
“Zoe, it’s going to be okay. I won’t let anything bad happen.” Charlie reaches out and finds my hand again. My breathing calms at his touch, however my heart is still trying to stamp its way out of my chest.
We remain in silence for a while and I keep waiting for a knock on the car window, or even something more dramatic like the glass being smashed to get into the car. Yet there is nothing.
We must have stayed like this for at least twenty minutes before Charlie risks sitting up and looking outside the window.
“I think they’re gone.”
“What if they saw us? What if they’ve called in backup? What do we do?”
“Let’s just get out of here.”
Charlie starts up the car and I sit up, feeling my neck click from the odd angle it had just been in.
“Stay down, just in case.” Charlie places his hand over my knee and squeezes it lightly before going back to revving the loud engine to kick it into life.
I wince at the loud noise, feeling as though it is just screaming “Here we are” to P.A.G.E. and Stan.
The car starts moving and I remain hidden until we have been travelling down Highway 12 for quite some time. We now have a map and a purpose to our chosen driving route.
“How do you think Rose and Will are doing?” I’m worried for their safety. We’ve been lucky to shake our guys. What if they haven’t? What if they’re back at The Windmill right now?
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
“I hope so.” I wish I could have a dream about them. If they don’t show up at the university how long do we wait? We had never set up a time.
“Stop worrying.” Charlie hasn’t even looked at me to know I’m still worrying, he merely seems to know that I am.
Instead of replying I look at the backseat to see nothing has changed with Joel. I watch his chest rise and fall a few times and then look away, feeling it’ll be too easy to sink into bad memories looking at him. I have enough on my plate for now; I don’t need the past creeping in, too. I take off my seatbelt and lean my head on Charlie’s shoulder. Once again the comforting feeling of being close to him envelopes me. It continues to make no sense to me to have this instant feeling with someone I don’t really know, but I’m beginning to just go with it. Obviously my dreams are playing into how I’m feeling and that can’t be all bad. It does make me wonder about how much of a role my dreams have played in other relationships through my life, though. Did I feel this close and safe to Dana when I first met her? I can’t remember. We did become fast friends. Did my dreams help that along, too?
“You’re not still worrying are you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
We both become quiet as I watch the windshield wipers moving across the window, and the repetitiveness of their noise helps lull me to sleep.