The streetlight overhead catches the sharp lines in her face. “Katelyn, get in the car. We don’t have time for this.”
I know Mom is the way she is because she loves me and wants something for me that she never had as a kid: safety. That’s why I’ve never refused to follow her rules; I’ve just bent them. And, yeah, I still have to deal with her paranoia, but I can tell she tries really hard to keep that from me as much as possible. So I’ve gone along with her social media ban and her need to vet every new friend I make.
All in all, I think I’m pretty easygoing, but stealing our neighbor’s car? It’s so just plain wrong that it overrides the numb confusion that was keeping me silent.
“We can’t just take Mr. Guillory’s car. Why can’t we take our car? Or better yet, why do we have to leave at all?”
“We’ll make sure he gets it back, but—”
An alarm blares behind me. From our house.
Mom’s eyes bulge as she stares over my shoulder, and for the first time in my entire life, I hear my mother swear. Then she says, “We’re too late.”
We’re too late.
I have no idea what that means.
All I know is that Mom looks like we’re in the direct path of a tornado. I glance back toward our house and see someone moving past the bedroom windows upstairs.
I get in the car.
“Please,” I say in a voice that has gone suddenly hoarse. “What is going on?”
Mom peels out of the driveway instead of answering, looking more at the mirrors than the windshield in front of her. I crane my neck around and see a shadowed figure leap out from Mr. Guillory’s backyard. It starts running after us.
We sideswipe a parked car and then careen onto the sidewalk as Mom makes a sharp turn, wrestling with the older car’s lack of power steering. “Put your seat belt on.”
My hands are shaking so badly that it takes two tries before I can fasten it. I don’t see the other car before it slams into us, sending my head smacking into the window hard enough to cause spots behind my eyes. I blink at the shocking pain and the shower of glass that rains down on me. The other car separates from ours—Mr. Guillory’s—and the scene comes back into focus with a crunch of metal.
“You all right? Katelyn, answer me!” The car spins as she brakes suddenly and shifts into drive.
“I’m okay.” But of course I’m not. I’ve never been less okay in my life. Even once she loses the other car after several terrifying minutes, Mom continues to check all her mirrors in a pattern of rapid glances that make my head throb viciously trying to follow. I don’t say anything else, even some twenty minutes later when she pulls into a Walgreens parking lot.
“I’ll be back in eight minutes. Do not move.”
And she leaves me there. I watch her walk past half a dozen cars before she stumbles, catches herself on the hood of a white minivan, and throws up. Then she straightens and walks into the store.
Dazed, and bleeding from dozens of tiny cuts along my arms, I feel something warm and wet trickling down the side of my head. I touch it, then look at my fingers and barely have enough time to fling my door open before I’m sick.
I give up trying to get the crumpled door shut afterward, instead staring into space, in total disbelief. I’ve only just resolved to try again when I see Mom emerging from the store, laden with bulging plastic bags. She walks not to her door but to mine, opening it fully without difficulty. She slides a hand around my back and helps me out, carefully avoiding my vomit. My head spins, but at least I’m not sick again.
She holds up a set of keys with the hand that’s not supporting me, and the double beep of a car unarming sounds. Mom leads me to the passenger seat of this new vehicle—something silver—and buckles me in. She hesitates for a second before shutting my door, clearly looking at the blood that has dripped onto my shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” she says, jerking her chin firmly, but I can hear the bags shaking as she loads them into the backseat.
I feel so far from fine, especially when I see the massive supply of protein bars and water bottles, and enough first-aid supplies to open a hospital. Mom slides into the driver’s seat.
“We’re stealing another car,” I say. I must be in shock. No way I could have spoken so calmly otherwise. “Some customer we don’t even know.”
“No.” She adjusts the mirrors and pulls out of the parking lot. “Not a customer, an employee.” Before I can ask what difference that makes, she goes on. “A customer would finish shopping a lot sooner than an employee would finish their shift. Hopefully. I need at least two hours before this vehicle is reported stolen.”
My hands feel like ice. “I don’t…” My teeth begin to chatter. Mom turns on the heater and aims the vents at me.
“Katelyn, I’m so sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “I don’t even know where to start….”
The events run through my head as she speaks: Someone broke into our house. We stole a car.
“But I’m going to keep you safe.”
Someone tried to run us off the road. We stole another car.
“I need you to do exactly what I say, and I promise everything will be okay.”
“Mom, who were those people, and why were they”—the thought of the car slamming into us sends ice water trickling down my spine—“after us?” Talking makes my head pound, but I knew not asking the questions would hurt worse.
Everything I say makes her wince. “I will explain what I can, but I can’t do that while I’m driving. Right now, I need to get us somewhere safe and I need to think.” She glances at me. “Please, Katelyn.”
I want to give her that, but I can’t. “Should I be this scared?”
She’s supposed to say no. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” She pauses for what feels like an eternity. “And I’m the person who loves you more than anyone else alive.”
My head hurts badly enough to make it difficult to think clearly. “Are we in some kind of witness relocation program?” She knew to run. She knows how to steal a car without getting caught. She’s not shaking at all anymore. “Mom? Why do you know how to do all this?”
She breaks her pattern of checking the mirrors to look at me. “No, we’re not in witness protection. I made a mistake when I was younger, and I had to learn.”
I make the mistake of turning in my seat to check the road behind us, and my head makes it feel like the car is spinning around me. It takes a full minute of focused breathing before I can speak again. “A mistake? What kind of mistake?”