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2
EDEN
WHEN I FINALLY MADE IT to Las Vegas, it was almost ten in the morning. The early sun was blazing against the car and filling the small space with a suffocating heat. The broken air conditioner was honestly a safety hazard in the West, and my clothes stuck to my skin from the sweat.
Exhaustion pressed down on me while my empty stomach rumbled in rage. The few measly gas station snacks I had managed to grab during a fuel stop had long burned away in my stomach, leaving nothing but water behind.
Leaving the desert to enter the city had never felt so sweet. I had never been to Vegas, but seeing all the activity at just ten in the morning, I could only imagine how wild things got at night.
Vegas never slept, and as I passed people who were still going strong after a long night of debauchery, I understood how it had earned its name of Sin City.
I chewed on my bottom lip as I eyed the gas gauge. The needle was favoring the empty side of the scale, moving closer to the large red E with every mile.
My money was long gone. I didn’t even have any loose change to toss into the gas tank. I thought Allen had plenty of money in his wallet, but when I finally had a second to open the old leather wallet, I was saddened to only find forty bucks. It was enough for gas, a small bag of chips, and a soda. All of which were long gone.
Allen’s Oldsmobile was a gas guzzler, so even after almost filling the tank, I was still bound to run out before I made it to my destination. I prayed to the Vegas gods that what gas I had left would get me to the address I had ingrained in my memory for the past three years.
The address had been written on a faded postcard, taunting me to run away and leave it all behind, and now that I had, I was worried the fumes lingering in the gas tank of the stolen car I was driving would not be enough to get me there.
On top of that, I wasn’t even sure Aunt Kennedy would want me there. She was the only living relative I had, as far as I knew, and while we had once been close, that wasn’t the case anymore. She and my mom had a falling out five years ago, and I hadn’t seen her since.
I was only sixteen at the time, so I had no say-so over what happened to myself or the life I was living, but even though my mom and I were close, I still begged my aunt to take me with her. That wasn’t a possibility, though, since we both knew my mom would have told the authorities my aunt had kidnapped me.
I cried myself to sleep for days after Aunt Kennedy left.
My mom refused to let me talk to her after that, but she would send me postcards from time to time, and when I got to the mail before my mother did, I would read them and then hide them. I’d read this particular card repeatedly, folding and unfolding it until the picture of the Vegas sign had a deep crease down the middle of it.
I pushed aside the postcard and ran my fingers along the lines that made up Las Vegas on the map I had stolen from the gas station. As I calculated my distance and how much farther I had to drive, my dismay grew, choking me with worry.
I would not make it.
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, the car began to sputter as the exhaust spewed the last of the fumes I had been running on for the previous two miles. Quickly, I veered to the right, cutting off a brand new BMW and making the lady behind the wheel slam on her brakes. Her horn blared through the morning air, making me jump.
“Stupid bitch!” she yelled out her window as she drove past me.
I mouthed sorry to her and shrugged, letting her know I hadn’t meant to cut her off.
My car sputtered once more, rolling to a stop before I could make it to the parking spot I was aiming for in the small shopping center I had pulled into.
I gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath as I leaned over and pressed my forehead against the worn leather. The Vegas sun was baking the inside of the car, and the smell inside mixed with the stress of the past few hours was giving me a headache.
My head snapped up when yet another blaring horn tore through my pity party.
It seemed everyone I passed was pissed off at me.
A red Honda swerved around me, and the blonde behind the wheel flipped me the finger. I was blocking traffic right in front of a busy coffee shop, and I knew I couldn’t stay there.
The car door groaned and whined when I pushed it open and climbed out. The air outside the car was cooler than inside, so I took a second to find a tiny bit of relief in the nonexistent breeze around me. Another horn exploded around me, reminding me of where the car I was driving decided to die.
Putting the car in neutral, I attempted to push the rust bucket out of the way, but I was weak with hunger and exhausted from the drive. I couldn’t budge it more than a step or two, and even then, it seemed to roll back into its original spot. That didn’t stop me from trying several times, moving it only inches with each push.
Finally, I gave up, collapsing onto the ground between the open car door and the car and resting my head against my arm. Beads of sweat collected around my hairline and began to drip down the side of my face.
“Do you need help?” a deep voice sounded from above me, causing a small shudder to move along my spine.
Something about the stranger’s voice made me hesitant to lift my head, but when I did, I was met with lying eyes and blond hair that was greasy and matted.
His muscle shirt, which at one point had been white, was dirty and stained. His pants hung from his hips, his frayed belt the only thing keeping them from falling around his ankles.
