Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Her expression falters. I see worry. And I find I can’t speak without crying.
She glances back at the door. “The guard is at the door, but he’s flirting with some of the nurses. Your car’s outside,” she whispers. “At the back of the lot.”
“My car?”
She nods, slips her hand in her pocket, and pulls out a familiar keychain.
I smile.
She puts it back in the pocket. “Can I use the bathroom real quick?”
I nod. “Over there.”
"BRB,” she says almost cheerily. She goes into the bathroom. I wonder what’s going on when a few minutes later, she returns and when she does, I notice instead of the bulky sweater and jeans she had on when she walked in here, she’s wearing a pair of black leggings and a Henley.
“I didn’t figure you’d want to leave in a hospital gown,” she says.
“You thought of everything.”
“It was Abel mostly. Shocking.”
“Is he outside?”
She shakes her head. “He dropped me off down the street just in case. You probably want to get going. Abel left an address to a safe house in the glove compartment. And there’s a cell phone in the car. Maybe you can call me when you get out of here?”
“A safe house?”
She nods. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you don’t look good, Ivy.”
“I’ll be okay,” I tell her. “The guard?”
“Go get changed. When you’re ready, I’ll cause some commotion. Pull a fire alarm maybe. I’ve always wanted to do that. When you get out, make a left out of the room. The stairs at the end of the hall are unlocked.” She studies me. “Do you think you can get there on your own?”
“I don’t look that bad, do I?”
“No, of course not,” she says, her voice a little too high. It’s a lie. I must look like hell. “But we should hurry probably.”
I get up, and while my sister stands guard, I enter the bathroom and change into the clothes she brought, thinking there’s no way this will work. And even if it does, Santiago will find me. Even if I get out of the hospital or manage to get to the safe house, he won’t just let me walk away. Especially not now. But maybe I have to trust my brother. Maybe he’ll come through, and finally, do the right thing for us. His family.
I think about Dad. Wonder where he is. How he is.
“Ivy?” My sister knocks.
“I’m ready,” I say, slipping my feet into the ballet slippers she brought.
“You look better already,” she says and hurries to the nightstand. “Don’t forget the Snickers.” I have to laugh when she shoves them into my pockets, then pulls me in for a hug. “Please call me as soon as you’re at the safe house, okay? Please don’t forget.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Give me a two-minute head start.”
“Okay.”
With that, she hurries out of my room and, on cue, not two minutes later, the fire alarm rings, and I hear the confusion in the hallway. I give it another minute before opening the door, and when I see the guard who was standing outside earlier with his back turned, I step out of my room. It takes all I have to walk, not run toward the exit sign marking the stairwell, and slip through the door and out of sight.
36
Ivy
I don’t breathe a sigh of relief until I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, the door locked, my shaking hands over my pounding heart.
I’m out. I made it.
And now I need to move. If they haven’t already noticed that I’m gone, they will soon enough, and Santiago will send an army after me. But before I reach over to open the glove box, I take a moment to look down at my stomach. It’s still flat, and I put my hands over it, not really believing that I’m pregnant just yet. Not quite processing the fact.
Which makes it so much more important that I hurry now.
It takes a little wiggling of the handle to open the glove compartment. It always did get stuck. And when I do, and the contents spill out onto the floor of the passenger side, I’m momentarily stunned. Because there along with a sheet of paper upon which I see Abel’s hurried scrawl, the three hundred-dollar bills, and the phone is a small, black pistol.
I look at it. I’ve never seen one in person before, only on TV. I’ve never touched one.
Reaching down now, I pick it up and feel the weight of it, the cool steel hard and deadly in my hands. Does he think I would use this? Would I?
No.
Even if Santiago found me, I wouldn’t. It makes no sense for Abel to have given it to me.
I quickly shove it back into the glove box and close it, then bend to pick up the rest of the things. I fold the bills and set them in the cup holder with the phone on top. I then read the address Abel wrote out. I’m surprised because I know the town. It’s about twenty minutes from my apartment at school.