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“We don’t want any chance of Alice or someone else thinking we’re connected and that they helped us. This will make it appear they aren’t with us. I think. Might show we don’t trust them enough to approach. If she’s even watching.”
Breaking into the office wasn’t difficult. He knew the window that was left just a little unlocked so that if he shook it enough, it’d actually slide right open. I kept a lookout at the front of the building while he rummaged for keys.
He returned shortly with three sets.
“What are we borrowing?” I asked.
He scratched at his cheek for a moment. “We’ve got to think of the plan in reverse. When we pick them up, how do we get them out together, that sort of thing. Work our way backward.” He pointed to the RV in the back.
“So we have to take that?”
He nodded. “Biggest thing here. Ever driven something that big?”
“Nope.”
“If we take it with us, we’ll have to stash it somewhere. It’s conspicuous, and Alice might want to take it from us.” He dangled another set of keys. “We’ll tow a truck, and I’ll take a bike too. We’ll park the RV, wait until it’s time. Then we’ll drive to the meeting point. You tail me. Wherever she takes me, you follow. Then go back and get the RV. Park it nearby. I’ll start working on a way to get them out from the inside.”
“What do I do after I park the RV? Should I try to get in and help?”
“If we’re not out within a few hours, you’ll have to call the police in. Warn them there’s hostages.”
Axel walked out to the RV, used the keys to start it and pulled it close to the closed garage doors.
From there, he parked, got out, and found a small truck. He pulled that one up behind the RV, super close and then got out, showing me how to hitch the two together.
When he was done, he had me go with him to open one of the garage bay doors.
“We’re not worried about the cameras at all, are we?”
“They aren’t going to stop us,” he said.
It was a compromise. Why risk stealing from any more actual people we’d have to repay? Not when we could get away with borrowing what we needed from Academy people.
Besides, the bikes belonged to Brandon, right?
Inside the garage were a few ready to go ones.
At first, Axel moved to the moped, the one the kid was working on a couple of days ago.
“Not that one,” I said.
Axel looked at me. “It’s lightweight. Easier to fit into the back of the truck.”
“Just pick the next best one. Besides, last I was here, the electrical wasn’t working on that one.” Also, I felt bad taking the kid’s bike.
Axel had to go back in for different keys, but he came back to a bike that I didn’t recognize but was put aside. He didn’t turn the bike on, just took it off the breaks and started rolling it toward the truck. “Grab that ramp.”
There was a lightweight plastic ramp that I brought around to the back of the truck. Within minutes, we had the bike secured to the bed of the truck. We couldn’t lift the tail of the truck, so we had to rely on the straps to keep it from rolling out.
When we were done, we loaded into the RV. I got into the passenger seat, looking behind us into the space. There was a couch near where we were, a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom and beyond that, a single bedroom in the back. It’d be enough to fit a load of people.
He was about to start the RV when I touched his elbow. “I still want to learn how to hotwire a car.”
“Sure,” he said. “We’ll practice on the truck.”
“Do you know where we need to meet yet?”
He was about to say something when a vehicle appeared on the road, a black Jeep. It slowed down for just a minute to roll down the passenger window and toss out a plastic bottle right at the start of the drive for Henshaw’s.
“Looks like it just got here,” he said, turning to watch the Jeep head further up the road, disappearing behind one of the other warehouses down the block.
He started the RV. When he got close to the plastic bottle, he had me go out and get it.
I scooped it up out of the grass it had rolled into. It was just a sports drink. I’d thought at first it’d be a message in a bottle sort of thing, but there was no paper inside.
On the outside of it was a sticker price tag. Bert’s Market. Folly Beach.
Smart. If anyone else picked it up, they wouldn’t know there was a message. Looked like trash. I kept it anyway and brought it along. I showed the sticker to Axel.
He nodded. “I know the place.”
??????
There was a 24-hour grocery store on John’s Island, the island just before getting to Folly Beach’s island. The parking lot was huge, and there were a lot of customers when we arrived.
“There’s still probably cameras pointed out here,” I said when he pulled into the lot.
What I hadn’t noticed was the number of other RVs parked nearby, in the furthest outside lot. He tucked ours cleanly between two other very long RVs that made ours look puny.
“They’ll give us cover,” he said.
I stretched my arms over my head, flexing my body. It had been hours of moving around, on the brink of getting caught, and still there was so much to do. “I’m going to be nervous pulling out in this big thing. I just hope this plan works,” I said.
“It’ll work.” He unbuckled the seatbelt and sat back, brushing his palms across his face. “Are you doing okay?”
I wanted to say I was fine, and technically, I was. “I’m fine compared to the others. I’m trying not to assume they’re dead, but when we aren’t hearing from them…”
“It’s not like they can just call,” he said. He reached over, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. “This way, we find Alice and make sure we catch her. If they are dead or alive, we’d want that at least. That’s why I’m here, making sure this ends and we don’t have to do this ever again.”
Not thinking about it was the only way I could move forward now. There was hope that what we were doing, trying to rescue them, would be successful. We’d no idea if she had anyone at all or if they’d been shot and killed and we were chasing ghosts. The only thing we could do was hope to figure this out quickly.
Axel checked under his seat and through pockets hidden around the RV interior. “Bert’s is open at all hours. Witnesses, but they’ll be minimal and limiting what Alice will be able to do. But I’m going willingly, so she shouldn’t cause too much trouble. Still, we’ll go after midnight. Less chance of anyone else getting hurt.”
The RV had basics already in place, including bottled water, some crackers, cans of tuna and soups. We managed to make tuna salad with crackers and heat up some soup and make a meal out of it. We split a box of cookies.
When we’d eaten and we still had hours to wait,
he showed me how to hotwire the truck, that the red wire was the battery and to twist it around the brown or yellow wire and how to unlock the steering wheel.
“Older vehicles are less likely to have security measures. Still, you might trigger an alarm,” he said.
“How do you turn it off?”
“Usually don’t bother. Just hurry up and finish and drive it out of there. On an older vehicle, people will wait to see. Is it their car? Is it someone else’s? Got about two minutes usually before someone will look. And when it silences after you’ve started driving it, they probably won’t bother to check.”
I looked at the parking lot beyond where we were, with people walking around. I missed being that oblivious. I’d been stealing to survive for a while, thinking people were ignorant of the world, and yet I was still so far from where I was now.
Suddenly, a figure appeared between the two large RVs we were parked between. I was sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck, and Axel was standing next to me with the door open. I didn’t think anything of the person, because the parking lot was busy, and I assumed people were in the RVs next to us. I didn’t recognize him, either. Not at that distance.
But he approached us with some confidence and seemed to recognize Axel.
Axel pulled away from the truck, going to him. “Can I help you?”
He got closer, and I realized it was Liam. He had a woven beanie hat on, making him look different with it was hiding his ginger hair. He wore a brown jacket, jeans. He had an intense look, concerned. He kept his hands in the jacket pockets as he approached.
“Thought I could help you,” he said.
“How’d you find us?” Axel asked.
“GPS in the RV. You didn’t think we’d have one in our vehicles?”
“I figured,” Axel said. “I just thought none of you would follow. You know what’s going on. We’re trying our best to keep our distance.”
Liam tried to smile, despite his worried expression. “We’re very bad about letting things go. Better me than anyone else, and believe me, they wanted to send as many people as possible. But Alice knows my face. I was on the ship, too. It’s possible she’d come after us eventually anyway.”
