Page 67 of Rue

POP

POP

The sound rang in her ears as she dropped the gun, then realized she was screaming and crying. Turning, she made herself open her eyes as she launched herself at the door. She tried not to see his feet on the ground, the rest of him hidden by the counter.

She ran. She ran down the hall to her office and snatched up her bag, then out the back door and through the backyard to the gate in the fence and through it. Sprinting all out, she ranthrough the neighbor's backyard to the street and kept running.

She was barefoot and in sleep pants and a hoodie, far too hot for the weather outside, but kept running. Adrenaline kept her going.

He was dead, right? He wouldn’t come after her? She’d shot him three times, no one could survive that? And he was down, she’d seen him. On his back on the floor, his feet still.

He couldn’t come after her.

Mig might, though, and anyone else Geo was close to. They would know it was her.

She was free though, for now. She would get away! Get away from all of them!

She just had to get her thumb drives with all her real information on them, not just a graphic she could use to fool Geo. She could funnel all of that money into her own accounts. Then she could get her mom and gramma and they could fly somewhere. Anywhere.

Making it to a bus stop, she pulled out her bus pass and adjusted her pants so no one could tell she didn’t have shoes on as she waited. Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched for anyone who might be coming for her.

Her mind tried to play tricks on her as she waited…

Tried to make her imagine she was upset that Geo was dead. Even if he was just severely injured, her heart still tried to act like it wanted to break. Her mind and heart tried to make her imagine she actually liked the man. The nightmare. The monster.

She didn’t, of course. That would be insane. It was just that syndrome. Stockholm or whatever.

Getting on the bus, she kept her head down, pulling up her hoodie despite it being over 90 degrees outside.

When she reached her apartment building, she watched it for a few minutes before going in, hurrying up to her apartment, and running straight to her room. Locking the door, she let out a breath, then went to her room and the closet. She found her thumb drives immediately and tucked them into thefront pocket of her bag.

She needed to decide what to do now. Get her bearings and just lay low. Her gramma’s house might be a better place to do that, but he had people there. They would all notice her, they always saw her after what had happened. No, here would be better. Only Davon knew where this place was, and she didn’t think he would tell them, not after being fired. He wouldn’t even know what was happening.

Going out front, she sat down and picked up her mom's phone. It was dead, but she plugged it in, then went to the single window to look out. Every black SUV made her stomach drop, but they all kept going. After half an hour, she got inordinately angry at the number of black SUVs in the world.

Turning, she checked her mom's phone, then connected to the neighbor's internet and looked up the number to the facility her mom and gramma were in.

After several minutes of redirects, she finally got routed to her mom's room, only to find out that she had to talk to processing to check them out. Calling back, she found out she couldn’t do it until Monday, the person who did all the in and out processing was on bereavement leave.

Of course.

She could make it four days, she told herself. She could hide herself here and lay low that long.

Maybe she should call Davon? Tell him she was here and ask if she could use his laptop?

No… he would just try to claim her himself, he’d been waiting for that. If he knew she had escaped, he would come for her and try to take her to Austin.

Wouldn’t that be okay?

No, Davon might have been her friend once, in a small way, but he was also a man-child. A manchild who’d been shown that he could abuse women and treat them however he wanted. She would be no better off with Davon than Geo. One single second of losing his temper would see her in the ground.

No, she didn’t need anyone, she could do this herself.

She just had to wait until Monday.

And if she felt like she needed to move sooner? She could just get her mom and walk out with her, her gramma too now that they were both doing so much better.

Hopefully.

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