Midnight blues begin to paint the waking sky by the time I get to the shack. The tires screech to a halt leaving a cloud of dust in my path.

I roll my window glass down, and honk twice, flashing the headlights to alert him. Two minutes fly by so fast that I examine my wristwatch to make sure that it's working right.

Surely he must be around? I think to myself. We'd been here on walks before. It should have taken him half of my ten-minute drive to get here if he was walking and shorter if he was running away from his abusive father.

I honk twice again, keeping my eyes peeled for movement. Nothing happens for a second, then I hear a muffled moan or what sounds like a suppressed scream coming from inside the shack.

Shit.

I unstrap my seatbelt and rush out of the car, not caring to close the door behind me. The dirt road is overlooked by tall, dry, grass fields on both side which leave tiny paper-cut sized tears on my legs. I'd picked the wrong day to wear my favourite khaki shorts.

Still, it's not a long distance from the shock. I manoeuvre through the grass, forcing long leaps to avoid a multitude of scrape and cut marks that I would have to explain later, to my stylist and the chief of staff back home.

I am just about to reach the porch when my feet get tangled in the grass.

"Dorian! Look behind you!" Quin yells from inside the shack as he appears at the window, a gag loosely hanging from his mouth.

I lose my footing just in time to hear the loud banging sounds that echo into the air. The thick, tall grass cushions my skin where I land.

My heart throbs in my chest, at the sound of the gunshots. I pull myself together, unwinding the grass from my sneakers and checking myself for gunshot wounds.

I let out a breath of relief. That idiot's going to be sorry that he missed.

"Dad stop! You'll kill him!" Quin pleads, tears pouring down his face. I grit my teeth in frustration, seeing how much of a reach it's going to be to get to him.

The only way I can calculate my risk is by gauging how far he is away from him and judging from the fumbling sound of his slowness to reload; how quick he will be at firing his next round.

"And bury him in our backyard if that's what it's going to take to get you to make the right decisions in your godforsaken life," his father says in a bitter, hoarse, drunk voice.

Gauging the general direction of his position, I lift my head quickly and spot him a couple of meters away. He doesn't move when I do, too engrossed in getting his jammed gun to work to see me. But Quin does, letting out a sigh to relief.

"Distract him," I mouth to him as I begin to crawl towards the underside of the suspended shack where a big hole in the middle of the room opens into.

"I'll do whatever you want, dad. I'll go to law school. I'll marry that girl you paid for me to get paired to. We'll live close to home with our two kids. Both boys, just like mum wants," he rambles on as I dirty my clothes with the moss that covers the cold, moist ground.

"Just please don't hurt him. Let him live and I'll convince him not to call the cops or even tell anyone," he goes on, his head turning softly as he watches me slither into the room as quietly as possible.

"Are you fucking stupid? He's the king's faggot son, of course, he's going to tell on me and watch me get hanged before daybreak," his father answers, cocking his gun. He sprays a good number of bullets on the spot I'd landed on and then steadily approaches with his gun in hand.

"I counted eleven shots. He has one more bullet left," Quin whispers while I crouch behind him, cutting the rope restraints on his arms and legs with my pocket knife.

"The hell did he go?" his father yells a few moments later.

"Get away from the window," I warn, not knowing what this loose cannon will do, having uncovered my deception. I pull the ropes away, letting them fall to the ground and we embrace behind a metallic sheet of the degraded wall that faces the dirt road.

His mouth feels urgent against mine as he runs his trembling fingers through my hair. I pull away, scared to press too hard on the cut on his swollen lips, and instead, take a minute to examine the purple swelling on his black eye and bruised cheeks.

He smiles weakly, a crooked smile that's filled with pain. His teary eyes shine happily, as he threads his fingers through mine.

"God, I'm going to kill him. If I get my hands on him-"

"-No!" Quin whispers. "I just want to leave here...with you. It doesn't matter where as long as we're together. In one piece, alive," he says in a feverish way as he presses his forehead against mine.

"We can't die here... Not tonight."

"I won't let that happen," I say pulling away

"Where the fuck did he go Quintine?" His father yells approaching the shack, breaking our contact. I crouch, taking a quick look outside as his father hovers outside the shack.

"Invite him in," I whisper.

"What? No. He still has one shot to take as far as I'm concerned and I'm not going to take that risk," Quin whispers back as I look around for something to convert into a weapon. Something big enough to whack him with. Something like...

Aha! I unwind a metal pipe from the plumbing hidden within the open, exposed walls. I weigh it in my hands, shaking it to test its effectiveness. It's lightweight, but with a strong enough swing can be able to deliver the results I want to impress upon that evil man. I crawl over to the entry door and stand behind it, turning one more time to Quin.

"Invite him in. We have no time to waste."

Quin hesitates, taking a deep breath and sighs, waking up. He clears his throat and turns to the window.

"Dad? Just come in. Let's...let's talk this out. Just hear me out one last time, I beg you," he says in the most convincing voice ever as I raise the pipe above my head.

"He'll do what I say if I ask him. He'll back off, I promise," he adds.

A few seconds pass before I hear the creaking of the old floorboards as he climbs up to the porch. I fasten my grip tighter as beads of sweat pool over my brow.

I feel a rush of excitement, fear and anxiety, all combined, flow through my veins as I count his footsteps. Quin lets out a shaky, cold breath when the knob turns and the door swings open.

I dare not look at him when he steps into the dimly lit room. I swing hard, hearing the crunching sound of bone and the subsequent sound of a twenty-two-pound man crashing into the weak, wooden floor. His gun slides across the room, far away from reach. I don't have time to get to it and then out of the shack to escape the scene.

"Follow me, now!" I yell, pulling Quin with me, over his father's fallen body. We run through the grass field, the grass blades cutting at my skin with ease as we haphazardly make our way to the dirt road.

"Get in!" I order as I step into the car. Quin joins me in the adjacent seat as I reach out for the ignition. My hands slip and I look down, not finding it.

"The keys! The bastard took them!" I yell, retrieving my pocket knife from my back pocket.

"What do we do?" Quin yells back, panic written all over his face.

I open the glove box, pulling out some gum and hand it over to him. "Chew this now. We're going to hotwire this bitch."

I bend down, pulling out three bundles of wires from the steering column. I single out the blue wire that's connected to the ignition system and the red connected to the battery system.

"Dorian? He's waking up!" Quin warns.

"Just a second," I mutter, under my breath as I carefully cut the two wires, touching their live ends to confirm the starting mechanism. The car roars back to life and I cheer loudly, as I twist them around each other.

"Dorian, he's coming," Quin continues, his anxiety growing.

"Gum?"

He hands it over, watching as I secure the wires together with the gum.

"Dorian, stay down!" A bullet pierces through the windows, shattering the glass and narrowly misses us.

"He's reloading! Go!Go!"

I step on the gas, making sure to get to a considerable distance before I sit up and steer the car away from the grass. Quin does so as well, turning to face me with the palest look on his face. We hold our gaze, unsure of what to say for what feels like the longest time before he chuckles softly.

I mimic him, unable to control the chilling feeling in my stomach that turns to giddiness. Soon enough we're laughing loudly and booing at the fading figure o his father's stocky silhouette.

But our celebration is cut short when an exploding sound shakes the car. We flinch, ducking for cover from fear of getting shot.

"That doesn't sound quite right," I say, looking out through my side mirror. I spot the billowing clouds of smoke that emanate from my left rear wheels and groan, hitting my steering wheel in frustration.

"Torn wheel?' Quin mutters softly.

I nod, sulking as I face him.

"We'll just pull over. I don't know how to change a tire but I can help," he says in the most comforting voice. I take his hand in mine, kissing his bruised knuckle softly before placing it softly on my lap.

"I don't have a spare."

" Then we'll just...have to ride this one out until we can't anymore."

"And then what? Walk to the route 45 underpass by the five am?" I ask, frustrated at our dwindling options. My stomach drops at the quick passage of time. I know how the people at the missions control work with deadlines.

If we don't get there by five, we'll have to wait to get patched into another location and without a fully functioning car, I am not certain of the efficiency of our escape plan.

Not to mention, Quin's abusive dad who could by no means, be looking for an alibi that could lead to us brushing shoulders with questionable people.

"Why don't you...call for a cab? He asks, breaking the silence that fills the car.

"Can't," I tell him. "As long as our transfer window stays open, I can't leave a digital trace for the police to track down and follow. It's standard procedure."

"Oh," he says then remains quiet for the longest time as we listen o the screeching of the tires at the back.

"We'll hitchhike then," he suddenly says, turning to me. "It can't be that far away anyway, right?"

I study his battered face, rage still burning through my veins. If I had had the time I would've repaid his father in kind for the damge he'd done but I didn't. At least we're safe from harm, I think smiling, as I branch off into the highway route 45.

It's thirty minutes to five in the morning and if we make it, it could be the last half hour of our former lives and the beginning of a new dawn with the love of my life. The thought of it makes me smile.

Oh, what I would do to get that started. I would run with bare feet on a path filled with broken glass if that's what it took to keep him safe...

But for now, hitchhiking doesn't seem too bad and as long as I keep my hair hidden in the black, emergency beanie that I keep hidden in my glove box compartment, and no one identifies me, then we just might make it.

"Yeah," I say, staring at the changing skies above. The sky in the stratosphere is a royal blue now, against a background of permanently stationary grey clouds. It's almost sunrise and twenty-five minutes to the end of our transfer period when the car screeches to a halt, unable to move any further.

When the thick billowing clouds of smoke fade away, a white van immediately pulls over beside us on the side of the road.

We stare at it for a moment, unsure of who they are, or how to respond. Two of the most questionable teenagers; the king's son and his injured friend, driving away from the capital in a shot-down, unroadworthy car don't paint a lovely unquestionable picture.

I slide my only weapon; the pocket knife inside the sleeve of my sweater in anticipation for the worst, seconds before a girl's head pops out of the rear, looking back at us.

"Dad and mom want to know if you need a lift? We're headed to Winston, we can drop you off at the nearest gas station!" she yells, facing us.

I turn to Quin who grins at me. "It's fate," he whispers before sticking out his head.

"Thank you so much!" he yells at her. "Give us a minute!"

He turns to undo his seatbelt when I stop him.

"I have a bad feeling about this. We don't know who they are..."

"Well then, we'll get to know them on our way to freedom, seeing as to how time-pressed we are with little options to chose from," he says, undoing mine.

I hiss softly, as my lips curve into the slightest pout.

"Let's go with them. I mean, how dangerous can a normal family of three be?" he asks, smiling softly.

Plenty, I think. Takes the right kind of motive to get the worst out of people...

I force myself to ignore the gut feeling inside me and grab my beanie, tucking my family's distinct, long, wavy, auburn locks inside it to conceal my identity.

"Who said anything about them not being normal?" I mutter under my breath as I follow an eager Quin who's headed towards the white camper van...

A/N

Thanks for reading this chapter!

If you enjoyed it, don't forget to leave a comment or vote to show your support❤❤❤