Hide and Seek

After an eleven hour drive and a few stops, Zacky and Victoria had finally arrived at the airport in Las Vegas. He had wanted to avoid heavily traveled routes like interstates, which had turned an already long trip into an almost unbearable one.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Victoria asked as Zacky parked the car.

“You are going to do it, I’ll stay here,” he faced her and saw her confused look. “Relax, this is going to be easy. All you have to do is put your sunglasses, walk inside and buy us two tickets to Croatia.”

“Croatia?”

“It’s the perfect place for us, Victoria. It’s in Europe, but it doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. It’s a quiet place and safe enough to raise a family,” he smiled and kissed her.

“Okay,” she bit her lower lip, glanced toward the airport departure’s entrance and then back at him. “What if a cop sees me? What if someone recognizes me?”

“They won’t, don’t you remember you changed your hair color? Everything is going to be okay, just act calm and do try to blend in. There will be a lot of people inside, no one will notice you.”

She nodded and got out of the car. Once the automatic doors closed behind her, she took a deep breath and examined her surroundings. The airport was really crowded.
On her way to the escalator a big family passed by her and almost ran her over. People around her seemed annoyed and the lines to the check in gates were exceedingly big. She also noticed that several flights were delayed.
She started to look for the ticket counters, but her feet suddenly stopped. There were cops everywhere. At the check in lines, at the boarding gates, questioning passengers, showing them what looked to be like a couple of photos. Her eyes widened and her breath shortened as two of them walked by right next to her. She could recognize the people from the photos. It was them.
Victoria spun around and walked as quickly as a seemingly calm person would, toward the exit.

“I couldn’t do it,” her terrified expression was obvious once she got inside the car.

“What? Why?”

Victoria shook her head. “It’s impossible! There are dozens of cops inside!” She shifted in her seat to face him. “They had photos of us and they were questioning people!”

Zacky faced the steering wheel and she could see that he was trying hard to maintain composure. “I’ll come up with a new plan,” he started the car. “Now we need to find a place to stay for the night.”

After an almost one hour drive, they reached a small, old motel in the middle of nowhere. Zacky waited in the car, while she checked in and got the keys.
By the time they got to the room, he had already made sure that there were no security cameras that could identify them.
Victoria looked around once he closed the door. It was small, but decent, enough for the one night they were staying. She sat on the bed and her eyes darted to the tv and then back to Zacky.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he informed her and headed to the bathroom. Once the door closed, her instinct was to grab the remote and turn the tv on. She started to watch the news and, a few minutes later, something piqued her interest.

“21-year-old college student, Emily Hunter, died last Tuesday, on what it was another hideous kill perpetrated by Zackary Baker. She was found dead just outside her dorm building, on Stanford Campus.”

Victoria narrowed her eyes at the tv. She had left fingerprints on her body, then why the hell did they think Zacky had been the one to kill her?

“Victoria Jacobs has been missing for over two months, last seen also on Stanford Campus, where Baker hatched a chilling plot to kidnap her. Police revealed this morning that fingerprints and blood from the 18-year-old girl were found on Emily’s body. It is believed that it was due to an attempt on preventing her murder.”

A smile crossed her face. Did they really think she had tried to prevent her murder? She suddenly wished she could tell them the truth, show them the person she had become.

“Forensic investigations revealed that Victoria is pregnant of his kidnapper and probably injured. The police started a statewide search in hospitals, airports and country borders. Zacky Baker is now accountable for several killings, kidnapping, rape and suspect on the murder of Brian Haner Jr., who’s still missing.”

“What?” she mumbled to herself, as she stared with her mouth open at the tv screen.

“You shouldn’t have turned the tv on.” Zacky’s voice made her realize he had already left the bathroom.

Her eyes slowly moved to meet his. He wore nothing but a towel around his waist. “Do you believe that? They think I didn’t kill her.”

“What are you talking about?” Zacky was genuinely surprised. He thought she would be terrified once she found all the things he had done, by she didn’t even seem to have noticed that.

“Emily’s death. They think you killed her.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” He started to dry his hair with a towel. “One more doesn’t make that much of a difference.”

“But I was the one who killed her,” Victoria got up and walked toward him. “I killed her and they think you raped me,” she seemed really upset with what she’d heard about her “but I love you. I did it willingly. They got it all wrong!”

“It doesn’t matter Victoria,” he hugged and tried to calm her down. “It’s better this way.”

“No, it does matter!” She released herself from his hug.

Zacky looked at her, not knowing if to be pleased or mad about the way she talked. He had never seen her acting like that. “Why?”

Victoria sighed and sat on the bed again. “Because I’m not a child,” her voice was low and she couldn’t stare him in the eye. “They talked about me like I was this poor, innocent girl and I’m not.”

“Hey,” he kneeled in front of her so that his eyes could meet her, “it doesn’t matter what they think.”

“Yes, it does,” this time her voice was firm. “Zacky, I want to kill that bitch.”

“What?!” He was shocked by her attitude, not to mention that it had been the first time he had heard her curse.

“You’re going to tell me that it is stupid, but I deserve it. I deserve to show people that I’m not the victim anymore.”

Zacky thought for a while. “No,” he got up and went to grab something from his duffel bag.

“No?” Her tone was almost daring.

“That’s insane Victoria, you’re not going to kill her just because you didn’t like what she said on the news.”

“It’s called payback. I didn’t use to understand why you had killed that many people, but now I do.” Zacky looked back at her, her pleading eyes making his heart almost melt. “They should fear me like they fear you.”

Notes

Bet you didn't see that coming!
I'm sorry for taking so long to update, writing three stories while studying for exams is not always easy.
Anyway, hope you've liked it!