Imprisoned (34 page)

“Hi,” I said, trying to look pitiful. “I was wondering if I could use your phone? I lost my phone and I need to call my mom?”

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” Jane asked.

“That’s the problem?” I put the inflection of a question at the end of each sentence, hoping that would make her more willing to help. “You see, my friend was supposed to give me a ride, but she dropped me off outside and said she was skipping, but I don’t want to get in trouble?”

The woman sighed. “We don’t usually allow customers to use the phone here.”

Truly feeling desperate, it wasn’t hard to convey that in my tone. “Please? I really need to call my dad. I’m going to be in so much trouble if I miss school?”

A small smile turned up her lips. “Okay. Just this once.” She pushed a phone towards me. “Dial nine to get an outside line.”

“Thank you
so
much.” The woman went back to what she was doing, but she was well within hearing distance. I pulled the slip of paper with Fred’s number out of my pocket and set it on the counter, then picked up the phone and pressed the nine. When the dial tone sounded, I punched in Fred’s number. He answered on the second ring.

“Hi, this is Morgan.”

“Who?”

I dropped my voice. “Morgan Campbell? You gave me your phone number when you dropped me off a few weeks ago.”

He was silent for a moment, then, “Oh yeah. I remember. You was hitchin and I gave you a ride.”

“Yes.”

“You found your family okay, right?”

I glanced at Jane, who I could tell was listening to my conversation. “I can’t really explain everything right now, but I was wondering if you could pick me up and take me back north.”

“North? How far north?”

“Back to where we first met.”

“Where are you now?”

“Timber Hills.”

“I’m about fifty miles north of there now, on a job. Is there any way you can come to me by this evenin’?”

Thrilled he was willing to help us, I would agree to anything. “Yes. Where are you exactly?”

“I’m in Walland. Meet me at the corner of Main and Oak at five o’ clock and I’ll give you a ride.”

 “Really? Thank you so much.” I glanced at Jane, who was now openly staring at me, her eyes filled with disapproval.

“Happy to help, Morgan.”

I set the phone in its cradle and looked at Jane. “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t your mom, was it?”

“I’ve got to go.” I turned and she glared at me, but I ignored her and hurried out of the store and back to Billy. “Let’s get out of here.”

We jumped on our bikes and hurried away. When we’d traveled two blocks, I told him what had happened.

“That’s great, but I think we need to stay off of the main roads.”

We rode on for another hour, mostly riding along a lightly traveled two-lane highway, stopping occasionally to get a drink of water from the water bottles in my backpack. At one stop, Billy offered to carry the backpack for a while. My shoulders were sore, so I eagerly agreed.

After a while I began to feel the now-familiar symptoms of withdrawal, although they weren’t nearly as bad as they’d been the morning before, thanks to only eating two power bars at dinner the night before along with the regular meal. Billy was behind me and when I pulled to a stop next to a tree, Billy stopped too. I climbed off my bike and sat down, leaning against the tree trunk.

“Ready for a break?”  He pulled two water bottles out of the backpack and handed one to me.

I unscrewed the lid and gulped down the cool water.

“Whoa, there, Morgan. You might want to save a little for later.”

 I felt like crap and wasn’t in the mood to joke around. “Don’t you feel sick at all?”

“What do you mean?”

I held up my hand which shook slightly.

He squatted next to me. “What’s going on?”

“This is nothing. You should have seen me yesterday in Madsen’s office. I thought I was going to hurl.”

A light seemed to go on in his head. “Oh. The drugs in the power bars.”

“Yeah. I don’t get it, though. You seem fine.”

“Well, you had a lot more than I did in the last few days.”

“That’s for sure.” I rested my head on my knees, waiting out the sick feeling. The last two mornings when I’d felt so sick, eating a power bar had helped. But now I didn’t have any of the drug-laced bars so that wasn’t an option. Plus, I knew I just had to get the drugs completely out of my system.

Billy set his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get through this.”

I looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks.”

We stayed there for half an hour until I felt well enough to go on. As we pedaled down the road, I felt better and hoped my body would soon rid itself of all traces of the drug. After fifteen minutes I pulled up next to Billy. “Can we stop at a gas station or something so I can make a pit stop?”

“Sure. I think there’s a town up ahead.”

Two miles further on, some buildings came into view. We rode up to the first gas station we saw and leaned our bikes against the newspaper stand outside. We had no money, but hoped the clerk wouldn’t object to us using the bathrooms in the back. When we walked in we turned in the opposite direction of the clerk, who was helping a customer, and hurried to the bathrooms. Afterward, as we headed toward the exit, the television behind the counter caught my attention and I jabbed Billy in the arm, motioning with my head for him to check it out.

The sound was off, but there was no mistaking what the news anchor was talking about. Pictures of Billy and me filled the screen. It was the picture they’d taken when I’d first arrived at Camp Willowmoss—my lip was swollen and my face was bruised. I wasn’t smiling and I looked like a juvenile delinquent—a criminal—which was basically what the caption called me.

Morgan Campbell and Billy Foster

Wanted for the assault of an Enforcement Officer

Reward for information leading to their capture

My gaze locked on Billy’s and his eyes were as wide as mine. As one, we turned and looked at the clerk, who was staring right at us, then we ran.

“Hey!” the clerk called after us. “Wait a minute! Stop!”

Ignoring his command, we jumped on our bikes and raced away, pedaling furiously. We had no doubt that the clerk would be calling the authorities and that they’d be there any second.

“What should we do?” I screamed. “What should we do?”

“I don’t know.”

That was not the answer I wanted to hear.

Chapter Thirty Seven

When we came to a side street lined with houses, Billy swerved to turn and I followed his lead. Thirty seconds later we heard blaring sirens coming from the street we’d just left. Certain it was Enforcers who were after us, we pedaled onward, glancing over our shoulders to make sure they weren’t behind us.

We turned at the next street where, besides a woman pushing a stroller, no one was around. We flew past her and turned down another street, and after a moment I slowed down and turned to Billy. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

He shook his head. “No idea. I just wanted to get
away
.”

I nodded. “Well, we’d better figure out where we are or we might get way off track. We have to meet Fred at five o’clock.” I glanced at my watch. “That’s in less than eight hours, but we still have to go a long way.”

“I wonder how far we have left.”

I looked up ahead and saw where the street curved, which made a wide spot where we wouldn’t be in front of anyone’s house. “Let’s stop up there.” A moment later we were stopped, straddling our bikes. Billy pulled the backpack off of his shoulder and pulled out two water bottles, handing one to me. “Let me have that for a sec.” I pointed to the backpack and he handed it over.

I pulled out the GPS device and turned it on. The battery showed fifty percent left, which I hoped would be enough to get us to Fred—I could charge it in his car. After turning it on, I typed in Walland, the town where we were to meet Fred. A moment later it showed the way to go. “Looks like we have another thirty-five miles to go.”

“If all goes well,” he said, then gave me a look like
yeah, right
, “Then we should have no trouble getting there in time.”

“If all goes well,” I echoed.

“Can I see that?” He pointed to the GPS, which I handed to him, then he studied the map. “If we take these back roads we should be able to stay off everyone’s radar.” He handed the device back to me. “At least I hope so.”

Living on hope wasn’t my first choice, but since I had no other option, I went with it. After turning off the GPS, I put it back in the pack, then slung the pack over my shoulders. “Let’s go,” I said, as I placed one foot on the pedal.

We continued on, stopping occasionally to check the GPS to make sure we were going the right way. After two hours—stopping a few times to rest—we’d gone another fifteen miles. I’d never been so tired in my life. Even with the two hour workouts at Camp Willowmoss my legs had never felt so rubbery. I just wasn’t used to pedaling for so many hours at a time—not to mention the fact that we hadn’t slept.

At one long rest where we depleted our supply of power bars and water bottles to the point where I began to get worried that we wouldn’t have enough, we sat on the weed-covered ground in the shade of a tree. “Well, are you ready to go?” I asked, pushing myself to a standing position.

Billy didn’t move. “Where are we going, Morgan?”

I glanced down at him and feared what he was really asking. “To meet Fred.”

Billy stared out over the meadow across the road from us—there were no houses in sight—then looked up at me. “First of all, who is this guy? Second, where is it that you want him to take us?”

I sank to the ground next to him and looked back the way we had come. The road stretched on and on, with no cars in view. I turned to Billy. “I can’t really explain right now, but I can tell you that there’s a safe place there. In Fox Run.”

He sighed.

“You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to.” I fervently hoped he would stay with me though. “But that’s where I’m going. One way or another.”

He looked away and shook his head, then looked back at me. “I’ll stay with you. For now.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

He smiled in return and stood. “Well, we’d better get going.”

“Yes.”

He held out his hand and I grasped it, letting him pull me up. We climbed on our bikes and headed down the road, but ten minutes later Billy called out to me to stop. He was behind me and I rolled to a stop, then turned to see what was going on. He was leaning over his bike, his hand on the back tire. It was immediately obvious that he had a flat.

I laid my bike on its side and went over to him.

He looked at me, frowning. “This might slow us down.”

Standing with my hands on my hips, I glanced at his bike and then at mine. “Well, we could try riding double.”

“Good idea.” He walked away from his bike and toward mine, lifting it from the ground. “Maybe I could drive and you could sit on the handle bars?”

Regretting my suggestion, I looked at the bike. “Uh, I guess we could try that.”

“Or we can just walk.”

I grimaced. “We still have like twenty miles to go.”

“Just saying it’s an option.”

I took the backpack off of my shoulders and handed it to him. “It might be better if you’re wearing this.”

“Yeah.” He put it on, then straddled the bike. “Okay. Let’s give this a try.”

I had to admit, I was a little nervous. But the other option—walking twenty miles when my legs already felt like rubber—didn’t appeal to me either. He held the handlebars steady and I backed up over the front wheel, then using the handlebars as leverage, I lifted myself up enough to sit onto the handlebars. Though it was awkward, I kept my balance.

“Okay,” Billy said. “Here we go.”

Off we went. After a short time the seating arrangement became uncomfortable, but I didn’t complain and kept my mind on the tunnel that we were sure to reach soon.

“Too bad this isn’t a motorcycle,” Billy murmured right behind me.

“Do you have a motorcycle?”

“I used to. A dirt bike.”

“Oh. What happened to it?”

He was quiet for a moment. “We sold it.”

“Who sold it?”

He was silent for even longer. “My family.”

“Oh.” I was curious about his story, but reluctant to dig when he seemed so uncomfortable talking about his family. We rode in silence and I watched the scenery as we went by—orchards, fields growing some type of produce, an occasional house. Suddenly, there in front of us, was a dead animal. “Look out,” I shouted, but Billy hardly had time to react.

He swerved to avoid it, but that caused me to lose my balance and as I began falling, I gripped the handlebars, as if that would keep me from falling. The only problem was, that made the whole bike tilt sideways. Though Billy held on, the front wheel turned sharply to the right and we fell over in a heap.

When I hit the ground, I felt the skin on my arm scrape the pavement, then my shoulder hit the ground, jolting me. I let out a scream, then looked at the damage. My right arm was scratched and bleeding, but other than that and a sore shoulder, I was okay. I looked at Billy and he seemed all right too. The bike was a different story. The front rim was bent and some of the spokes had popped loose.

“Are you okay?” Billy asked as he crouched next to me on the ground and looked at my arm.

“I’ll live.”

He pulled off the backpack and found the first-aid kit we’d taken from my house, then cleaned up my arm. “That should help.”

My arm looked a lot better. “Thanks.”

“We should probably change the bandages on our arms while we’re at it.”

I looked at the place on my arm where we’d sliced out the chip and saw that the bandage was pretty dirty. Billy changed the bandage on my arm and then I changed the one on his, then we drank some water.

“Well, now I guess we have to walk.” He smiled half-heartedly as he stood.

I took the GPS out and turned it on. “Looks like we have fifteen miles left.”

“That’s not too bad. And it’s only noon. We should be able to make it.”