AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Only a while longer.
When Ma returns, we can afford a motel room.
Maybe.
“Louie,” Nikki whines again. “I’m scared.”
“Nik, what did Ma tell you? You see the sun up? Close your eyes.”
“But you’ve got yours open.”
“So what?”
“So, no fair.”
“I’m bigger than you.”
Nikki pokes her bottom lip out and blinks several times. I see it coming a mile away and start shaking my head side to side.
“No you don’t, Nik. Don’t you dare try it. We’ve got to be quiet—”
“WAHHHHH!” she explodes in an earsplitting cry.
“Nikki, you trying to get us kicked out the lot?! Shut up!”
I try everything to get her to quiet down.
Pleading and begging. Scolding. Reaching in the back to cover her mouth.
She bites me. The feisty little pain in my butt.
I shake my hand as it throbs from her bite and then huff out a frustrated breath. “Fine, fine. You can stay up. But you’ve got to shut it. As soon as Ma comes back, you close your eyes and go back to sleep. Alright?”
“Who’s that?” She points out the driver side window diagonal from where she lays.
I turn to check and my stomach sinks.
Two truckers standing outside smoking a cigarette must’ve heard her screaming. They’re staring at our car.
Because we’re parked at a motel near the highway, almost everybody in the lot is either a traveler or a trucker.
My grip tightens on Ma’s taser.
Let these jerks try me. Let them come over and even attempt something.
I might be a kid, but I’m big for my age. I’m tough. I’ll fight anybody that tries to do us harm.
The guys put their cigarettes out, talking to each other, and head toward the motel rooms. My gaze tracks them as they make it to the second-floor walkway.
And then it hits me with a sinking feeling.
They stop outside Room 204 and knock.
The door opens and Cragen answers. I grit my teeth watching him take their cash and step aside to let them in. The door slams shut.
I look away.
“Nik, go to sleep. Close your eyes.”
