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It’s empty. Hopefully she went home, and hopefully, she keeps her ass there, because I can’t go back to the garage.

I grab a crate and throw it. “Fuck,” I whisper, the weight of my dilemma finally sinking in. Trent is right. I have nowhere to go. My old foster mom still lets me crash at her place since I aged out and quit school months ago as long as I pay rent.

But that’s the first place Hugo will look for me.

Resisting the urge to run, I put my head down and exit the alley, making my way down the deserted sidewalk. I quickly dive down a side street.

I cut through the park and turn onto Orange Hill, seeing a car parked in front of the house ahead, its engine running.

I glance up the hill, seeing movement through the sidelights on both sides of the front door, so I approach the car, seeing it’s empty, and just go with it. I’m already in enough trouble to make me disappear for a decade. What’s one more thing on my record?

Quickly, I open the door of the 2008 BMW, climb in, and slam the door, shifting into first gear.

I hit the gas, speeding off before anyone comes out the door. Pressing the clutch, I shift into second, and then third, racing through the neighborhood and ignoring stop signs. It’s late, no one’s around, and I need to get on the highway where I can go faster. There are no street cams in the residential areas, but with a posh little town like Shelburne Falls, everyone is on community watch. Someone will see the car, but I’m on borrowed time anyway. I need to see them once before…

I hang a left, maintaining the speed limit as I go, passing businesses and the elementary school, and more homes. More homes with people like Hawken Trent who think they know what real problems are.

With people like his cousin Dylan with her black leather Keds she wore the first time we met, because she wants to look like everyone else but be respected for being just different enough by rebelling against the standard Chucks or Vans that all the other kids are wearing.

With people like Kade Caruthers who show you everything they are in the first five minutes of knowing them and will never be anything more.

I glance out the windows, to the houses on both sides of me, and know I would never belong in any of these places.

But…

I’d love to see Matty and Bianca safely asleep in one before I go. I pause my gaze on a light blue Victorian with navy shutters and a wrap-around porch. Trees sprout out of the front yard, a swing swaying from a branch. Matty would love that one.

I pull out onto the dark country road, kicking up my speed to fifty-five and cruising the short distance to Weston. We may not be far from the Falls, but it’s a different world.

Instead of rounding the hill toward Chicago, I turn right, cross the bridge and the river, and continue down the wooded road, broken from years of disrepair. Houses mixed with trailers sit on both sides of the road, spaced sporadically by a gas station or an autobody shop.

But then the forest gives way, and the town opens up ahead, mills and factories and old warehouses-turned-apartments decorate the view ahead, and at this time of day, in the dark, it’s almost pretty. The old brick. The lights.

I don’t know what the hell possesses Tommy Dietrich to venture over here to brighten up her life, but just about the only thing we have going for us is a good football team and some well-preserved history. Being a river town, we were one of the first settled when the pioneers crossed the plains, and so many of the old structures have survived, if not worse for wear. We have character. Just no money to take care of it.

Still, though…come winter, those Falls kids find themselves here for the ice racing on Duck Pond when their track is no good in the snow.

I turn at the coffee shop, speed down the street to where I know there are no cameras, and park the stolen car in front of an abandoned house.

Pulling down the sleeve of my sweatshirt, I clean the steering wheel and stick shift, using the same hand to open the door and clean the outside handle.

Walking away from the car, I go south one block, turn left, and jog up the hill to my real mom’s house. Her car isn’t in the driveway, but the lights are on, and equal amounts of dread and relief hitting me. I don’t care who’s home. As long as it’s not him.

I need money, clothes, and some sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll come up with a plan. I’m not dead yet.