Page 70 of Stranger Danger

There’s no way to know what’s going to happen. I can’t keep track of both of us. Not like this. He can be thoroughly pissed at me later on, when we’re in a motel with a bed.

Lifting myself to my tiptoes, my eyes swing from car to car, trying to find the new one.

Big truck. Green truck. White van. Tan sedan. Semi.

I memorized all the models earlier—when Ira refused to talk for four hours—but now they’re jumbled inside my head. In the end, it doesn’t matter if one’s a Ford or one’s a Dodge.

A car is a car.

The bright blue truck with the white flames is new. It’s way too flashy for what we need, but we can always get a different one later.

Later is real.

Tomorrow is real.

Forever is fucking real.

My shoes are soaked through by the time I make it over. I lean around the truck, one hand on the driver’s side handle, watching the rest stop.

Logically, I need to kill the owner. It’s the only way to ensure they don’t call the police to report the stolen vehicle.

Except, there’s a minor flaw with the plan.

The longer I stand out here, the worse I feel. My legs don’t want to support my weight anymore. There’s this strange lightheadedness when my heartbeat goes into my ears and throat. I see two street lamps until I blink, then it’s only one.

I think I need a hospital.

God.

If I’m going to kill this person, why did we wait all this time? We could’ve done this hours and hours ago.

What was the reason?

“Why the hell are you touching my ride?” someone snaps from beside me.

When I look over, my brain immediately snags on two very different things at once:

He’s so thin that I can snap his neck before he takes his next breath.

There’s a gun sticking out of his jeans.

He shoves me out of the way before I can decide which is the more important thought.

“Fucking hobos,” he mutters. “I don’t have any money. Damn.”

Close range, I’m faster. He won’t have time to pull the gun out and shoot me before I can disarm him.

But speed requires precision, and precision requires a body that’s not running on an hour and a half of sleep in almost two days and six cans of Red Bull.

I lunge anyway.

My shoulder catches him in the chest before his hand finds the grip of the gun. We hit the wet asphalt together—me on top, which is my only saving grace. The impact sends fresh stars through my vision, white and red pulsing where the streetlamp should be. I grind my forearm into his throat and feel him gag beneath me, fish-mouthed and desperate.

The gun is still wedged in his waistband. His fingers scrabble for it, but I’ve pinned his right arm under my knee. My other hand finds his jaw, thumb pressing into the soft spot below his ear, where I know the artery sits. It spasms against my skin, beating all the way down until I feel it inside my bones.

“Please,” he wheezes, his spit flying over my arm, wetter than the rain. “I have m-money.”

Money would be helpful.