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They were both distracted. How could I not take this chance?
Sucking in a breath, I dashed for the first of the two cars, keeping low to the ground and softening my footsteps as much as I could. I froze there, listening.
The idiot was still muttering curse words while the current song blared on. I’d made it.
The distance to the second car was a little longer. I didn’t let myself second-guess my choices but just ran for it.
I dropped down behind the car just as the song changed.
“There!” the guy said with a sharp laugh. “Fucking piece of junk.”
They fell back into their mumbled conversation. I peeked around the car and saw them vaguely eyeing the lot around them again.
Shit.
Well, I’d come this far. It was only maybe ten feet to the truck now, and this side of the lot was particularly dark.
I waited several thumps of my heart until the guards’ attention appeared to be pointed away from my area, and then I threw myself into one last sprint.
As I hurtled around the side of the truck, the toe of my sneaker caught in a dip I hadn’t seen in the asphalt. With a lurch of my gut, I careened forward.
Wincing preemptively, I twisted into a roll rather than catching myself on my hands and knees like I wanted to. The pavement jarred my shoulder and ribs, but continuing the momentum of the fall dulled the sound of the impact.
I pushed myself out of the roll into a crouch, every muscle tensed.
“Did you hear something rustling around?” one guard asked the other, and my body went even more rigid.
The second guy let out a huff. “Probably another fucking raccoon. Gimme the light.”
The beam of a flashlight streaked across the parking lot, rippling over the truck I was hiding behind without revealing me. The guards didn’t bother leaving their post.
“No one there. Like anyone would try to mess with us when we’re right here.”
They guffawed, and my grin came back. That’s what they thought.
I went through the steps of my trick one last time, moving even more carefully than before. This time, I sprinkled the entire last bottle of motor oil across the truck’s innards before setting up the steel wool and the battery.
No one was going to drive this baby very far for a good long time. Ha.
I slunk away from the truck into the scruffy stretch of woodland between this parking lot and the warehouse farther north. When I’d put enough distance between me and the guards that my nerves started to settle and the trees completely hid me from view, I headed back into town the long way around.
As I loped through the streets, my good mood faded. My first two tricks hadn’t scared the assholes off. What were the chances this one would, even if I had upped the ante?
It doesn’t matter, I told myself.As long as I keep at it, eventually I’ll make their lives here so miserable they’ll leave.
As long as I did itmyway, not my mom’s, I could see this through.
When the bungalow came into view up ahead, I slowed my pace, watching for any sign that Rafael was up and patrolling after noticing my disappearance. The house looked perfectly still.
I circled around back and stashed my bag with the empty motor oil bottles in the dusty tool shed it looked like no one had used in years. Then I squirmed in my shirt to turn it right-side out again, so the faded neon graphic on the chest showed.
Just a perfectly normal set of lounge clothes. Definitely not stealth gear.
I edged open the door inch by inch and crept inside. No Rafael waited for me in the living room.
I exhaled with a rush of relief. Maybe I was going to pull this whole thing off without him having the slightest clue.
Then, as I turned toward my bedroom, the same traitorous toe that’d tripped me in the parking lot bumped into a beer bottle Rafael must have set down near the door to go out for recycling.
