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Thank God, in a way, that my desperate ass had been looking back for one last glance at fucking Bellamy. Otherwise, I would have missed Adams. Until he was sneaking up on me in a dark alley or in my own damn bed, and punishing me for what I’d done to him.
At Bellamy’s name, my body just lost its ever-loving mind. There was a skittering in my pulse, a deep, slow thudding of my heart, a flip-flopping sensation in my stomach, and a tight clenching between my thighs.
“Ugh,” I cried, slamming my forehead against the steering wheel after pulling into a gas station to fill up a couple hours into my escape plan.
I hadn’t exactly had any destination in mind when I’d hit the road, just getting the hell out of Jersey until things blew over a bit. But, somehow, I’d driven myself right back into my past.
And it was different, yet almost painfully the same at once.
Baltimore was where I’d learned more than a few things about how the system worked, how it caught little fish for poverty-induced crimes and allowed big fish with deep enough pockets to skate away without a single mark on their record.
Baltimore was where I’d learned never to leave the house without a knife.
It was the place that had taken my soft-squishy little girl body and carved into sharp edges, points sharp enough that no one could get close enough without coming up bloodied.
I swear something in the air just set me on edge, immediately heightened my senses. So much so that I could make out the muffled conversation of five guys standing near the door of the convenience store several yards away. So much so that I could sense the junkie jonesing for a hit a second before one of the guys broke away from the group to “shake hands” with him. So much so that I could smell the slight scent of ammonia and acetone that I’d always associated with meth as the junkie hid behind the dumpsters to get high.
“Home sweet home,” I said under my breath as I got back into my car and drove out of the gas station.
But not to head back onto the highway.
No.
To find a hotel that wouldn’t give me bed bug bites.
See, it wasn’t that all of Baltimore was bad. Like any big city, there were the good and bad areas. But I’d been born and raised in one of the bad parts. And while I could have headed to the better areas, I oddly felt more comfortable staying where I was most familiar, even if I’d been away for long enough that I no longer knew all the pertinent dynamics—who was running things, who to avoid.
If there was ever a place I could disappear in, this was it.
No one would ever think to look for me there.
Which gave me a chance to stop, take a breath, think, and come up with some sort of plan that didn’t end up with me or my family horrifically murdered by that fuckhead Brandon Adams.
An hour later, I had a room reserved with the cash I’d taken out of my stash at my house. I spent a good twenty minutes stripping the bed and moving the mattress to check for bugs.
Finding nothing, I flipped the mattress, hoping it was the cleaner side, and put the sheets back on since they smelled like they’d been washed recently, but left the comforter on a filth-infested pile in the corner of the room.
“Okay,” I said, releasing a deep breath as I moved over to the windows, looking out at the city. It was late. I didn’t even know how late. Closer to morning than night, though. But the idea of sleep was laughable with so much going on in my head.
So I went into my bags, grabbed my extra knife and a taser I’d bought myself as a birthday present the year before, grabbed just enough cash for what I needed, and headed out to grab some coffee and something to eat since the gala food hadn’t been nearly enough.
“You sure you want to do that, honey?” the guy at the front desk asked as I made my way into the lobby. “It can be scary out there.”
“I’m pretty scary myself,” I told him, giving him a smirk that had him shaking his head.
With all my bravado, though, there was some anxiety skittering across my nerves as I made my way down the street, keeping my chin high, my shoulders back, my steps purposeful, and my “I will rip your balls off” look on my face.
Aside from a few calls from guys way too young to be hitting on me, I got down the street and to my old, childhood convenience store without an issue.
It was exactly as it had been years before. Nothing had been updated. Which was no surprise. Since it just barely managed to stay afloat, let alone update the dripping ceiling tiles that had circles of suspicious black mold, or the slushie machines that had literally never worked right.
