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My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard, hoping my famously bad lying wouldn’t expose me now. We had only just crossed the border into Oregon. If the cashier called for security, then the Seattle police would be able to get here in no time.

‘Can I see it?’ the girl asked, and I couldn’t find any reason to tell her no.

‘It’s my stepdad’s card,’ I said with a shrug, playing it cool.

The Creep wasn’t my stepdad, he was just my mom’s scummy boyfriend who liked to smack me around. Explaining all that took time, and was way too personal, so ‘stepdad’ was a useful shortcut, even though I hated giving him that title.

‘Huh. It’s coming up with a code I don’t know and saying to call your card provider. You wanna call him?’

‘He’s at work,’ I said apologetically. The lie was far preferable to the cold reality that I was avoiding thinking about. ‘He’ll get pissed if I call him now. I’ve got cash …’ I didn’t want to spend it, though, not when I’d picked up a bunch of junk I didn’t really want or need.

‘You want me to run it one more time?’

‘Sure. Thanks.’

She did, swiping it her side this time. ‘Try the PIN?’

I hit the numbers I’d memorized months ago, my fingers tingling with pins and needles. They were icy cold, and I wanted to rub them against my jeans to push the feeling back into them again, but I held off. No point in making my nerves even more blatantly obvious.

The till beeped.

‘All good,’ she said, passing me the card back. I felt like I was going to throw up, like the stress that had curdled in my stomach was desperate to be purged.

‘Great, thank you so much.’ I took the plastic bag from her with a forced smile.

‘Have a nice day.’

‘Thanks, you too.’ The words left my mouth by habit. My brain had stopped working.

Outside, it had started to drizzle, the cold biting my fingertips.

The ATM was next to the exit doors and no one was around now – no people, only cameras, to witness this.

I slid the card into the machine and punched in the PIN again, absolutely sure that the card would be swallowed and I’d fail. I was going to fail.

The next screen flashed up and I pressed the button for cash.

$250 was the maximum I could withdraw in one transaction.

Fine.

Receipt?

What was the point? I hit the button for No.

It took a second, then the machine whirred and spit out the cash and the card. I rolled the bills up and stuffed them into my bra, then slid the card back in again.

Cash.

$250.

No.

The next wad of bills went into the pocket of my hoodie.

Cash.

$250.

No.

Back pocket.

This was Brooke’s plan – break up the cash into smaller amounts instead of putting it all in one place in case we lost a bag or got robbed.

Cash.

$250.

No.

Other side of my bra.

Cash.

$250.

No.

And the ATM did nothing for a few long seconds, longer than it had taken the other four times. So a thousand dollars in cash was the limit for the card?

That wasn’t enough … That wasn’t going to get us all the way to Florida. I smacked my hand on the screen and waited, fingers still twitching, until it displayed a new message telling me to contact my card provider.

The machine hummed for a second, then went back to the holding screen. It had swallowed the card.

Shit.

I rubbed my hands together, trying to get blood flowing into them again, and turned to head to the Mustang.

I hadn’t noticed the man coming up behind me.

I hadn’t noticed anything that was going on when I’d been withdrawing the cash, too focused on what I was doing, and it took me until that moment to realize how epically stupid that had been.

He was probably in his mid-twenties, with a scruffy beard and dirty hair that hung around his ears. He was wearing a hoodie and jeans, like me. Nondescript. Blending in. And he was leaning against the wall a few feet to my right, out of sight of the security cameras.

Clever.

Unlike me.

‘Yeah, I’m gonna need you to give me the cash,’ he drawled.

The laugh burst out of me. Not humor, but incredulity, maybe. An I can’t believe this emotion making itself known. I’d finally gotten out of Seattle and now this asshole wanted all my money?

Seriously?

I should have been scared – I should have been fucking terrified – but instead my blood boiled with an unfamiliar fury.

His eyebrows drew together. ‘I’m not fucking joking.’

‘I didn’t think you were,’ I said slowly.

I was already full of adrenaline, and I’d normally give him the money and deal with the consequences later, but we needed this money.

My sickly nerves were overlaid with a new energy, an angry energy.

I was stalling for time, trying to figure out how to get away, and he knew it.

‘Look, just give me the money, sweetheart.’

It was the sweetheart that changed everything.

I wasn’t his sweetheart . I wasn’t anyone’s goddamn sweetheart. And I was sick of gross men calling me that.

‘I could scream,’ I said, forcing nonchalance I didn’t feel into my voice. Still, I was sure it shook a little.

His expression morphed from shock to amusement way too quickly. ‘I bet I can stab you faster than you can scream. You really want a knife in the gut instead of a couple hundred bucks?’

So he had a knife, and he didn’t know how much money was currently hidden on me, which meant he couldn’t have been watching me for long.

I glanced over my shoulder, and when I looked back, he was even closer.

I could smell the sharp, sour stench of his clothes, the sweat that was baked into the fabric.

‘I can also run faster than you, sweetheart. Give me the fucking money.’

Years ago, during a self-defense class that had been scheduled during our usual gym period, me and a group of other eighth-graders had been told, if we ever got mugged, to throw our wallet or phone as far as we could and run in the other direction.

Most of the time that was what the muggers wanted – something of value – and they didn’t care much about the person they stole it from.

A bundle of cash was harder to throw a distance than a wallet or phone, though.

But if I threw a handful of bills up in the air, he’d have to scrabble to pick them all up, and I could run …

He pulled a flip knife out of the waistband of his jeans.

‘Okay!’ I said quickly, really, really not prepared to find out what it felt like to get stabbed. I could handle pain, but that was … oh God , a pain I really didn’t want to experience. ‘Okay. Just let me –’

The Mustang screeched to a stop a few yards away, and Brooke leaned out of the driver’s side window, a handgun pointed in the man’s direction.

‘All right, asshole, leave her alone.’

While he was gaping at her, I dashed for the car, the plastic CVS bag knocking against my leg. The asshole yelled something, but there was too much blood rushing through my ears, blocking up my brain, and all I could think was thank God … thank God for Brooke being here to save me. Again.

‘ Go, go, go,’ I said, shoving the bag next to my feet and pulling the door closed at the same time.

I pressed the heel of my hand to my sternum, hoping to hold back the sick, terrified feeling and settle my rapid heartbeat. I still felt a little stunned, like I couldn’t really believe this was happening, that this was actually my life now.

The man was still yelling something as Brooke pulled away, revving the engine so hard I felt the vibrations through my entire body.