Hide and Seek

Victoria sat in the uncomfortable, big waiting room. She didn’t want to be there, but Zacky had almost forced her to.
“Mrs. Ashley Knox to examining room number three.” A throaty voice called on the intercom and Victoria had to think twice before getting up and heading towards the two big white doors.
She was almost sure that everything was fine with the baby, but still her morning sickness and dizziness had been enough to make Zacky drive her down to the hospital. He was waiting outside, in the parking lot, while she was now being examined by the doctor.
After a few standard exams and questions, she prescribed her some vitamins, and an hour later she was leaving the hospital.

“How did it go? Is everything okay?” A somewhat worried Zacky asked once she closed the door. He was probably too worried to miss the way two police officers looked at them. They were standing by the Emergency room entrance, yet from Zacky’s point of view he couldn’t really see them, since the ambulance that had arrived just a few moments before them was still blocking his view.

“Are you sure it’s them?” The tall one asked the shorter. The other cop remained silent for a while.

“What would you do if you were running away?” The two cops stared at the black sedan, still parked almost at the end of the parking lot.

“I would change my name, my hair color and would try to cover any marks that would identify me.”

“Well, if you change the girl’s hair color and name, she would look a lot like the girl who was kidnapped.”

"Well, she sure doesn't look like a girl who has been kidnapped," the other cop shrugged and the shorter one nodded.

"That's because she has gone nuts, and is now helping her own kidnapper getting away with all the stuff he did."

"God, the world has gone crazy. I’m going to call for backup."

The wind against her face made her smile. The days weren’t that warm to make people roll out their car windows to enjoy the breeze, but still, it was a simple gesture that made her feel alive. They were still in the state of Arizona, now starting their trip to some place further from California, probably New Mexico.
Even though they were on the run, traveling across the country made her feel happy and excited. Before going to college, she had never left her home state, Oregon, and now she was discovering new places with the man she loved.

“What are you thinking about?” His question only made Victoria smile grow bigger.

“I was thinking about how life is perfect. Here we are, traveling the country, starting a family, living happily ever after,” she laid her hand on her shoulder and he kissed it.

That was what he loved the most about Victoria. She didn’t think about the chance of them being caught, or of how hard it was to spend the day moving from motel to motel, from state to state. No, she always saw the bright side of everything.

Victoria looked at the rearview mirror and narrowed her eyes. "Hum, Zacky? There's a police car behind us."

Zacky gave her a short nod. "I know, just stay calm. It's probably nothing, we just can't do anything that raises any suspicions.”

Victoria nodded back, but kept on staring at the mirror, her heart still beating faster by the presence of a police car following them.
Zacky drove until they reached an intersection, carefully stopped at the stop sign and then turned right. The police car followed them. Victoria's heart increased its frequency. Finally, after another ten minutes of being followed, the car turned left and disappeared from behind theirs. Victoria took a deep breath a smiled at Zacky.

"I told you there was no reason to worry," he returned the smile. "They were just patrolling the streets."
The car stopped at a red sign. There was no traffic on the streets, something that Zacky found hard to believe since it was a week day. People needed to go to their jobs or to their homes, but still, as the sign turned green, no car had crossed the intersection. It almost seemed like a ghost town.
He turned right and drove towards the city exit. Apart from a couple of cars parked on the street, there was no sign of traffic on the roads and no people on the streets. Something was wrong.

“Fuck,” Zacky suddenly stopped the car.

“What’s wrong?” Victoria looked at him and then at the road ahead of them. There was something blocking the road, just by the city limits. The flashing lights made her widen her eyes as the sudden realization hit her. “Are those… police cars?”

Zacky reversed the car into a narrower street on their right, and drove, hoping to find another way out of the city. Victoria remained silent, praying for their safety, knowing that if she started to freak out it would only anger Zacky.
Another minute of driving and another road block appeared in front of them. Zacky hit the driving wheel in frustration, knowing by now that this wouldn’t end well. The police had anticipated their arrival.
“Get out of the car,” he mumbled and Victoria took a couple of seconds to process his command.

“Get out now!” He yelled at her and she flinched, opening the door and jumping outside.

“What are we going to do?” Her knees shook and her voice trembled.

Zacky didn’t answer her. He got inside a small souvenir shop and found it empty. The police had evacuated the area, but they couldn’t have evacuated the whole city. They hadn’t had the time for it.
He looked behind the counter and found a car key. Obviously, in the rush of being pulled out of their stores, the owners had left their belongings behind. Stepping outside, he quickly found the car whose key belonged to and turned the engine on.
Sirens could be heard getting closer. If they wanted to have a shot at escaping, they had to act quickly, before the police realized they had changed cars.
Zacky drove through the same road he had entered the city, the tires screeching as he turned without slowing down. Next to him, Victoria tried her best not to lose control of herself, but she was starting to fail. Her nails dug on the door panel while the car gained speed and almost drove off the road a couple times. Despite their speed, she could hear the sirens getting closer. She didn’t open her mouth to say a word, the only thing that escaped it were muffled whimpers. She glanced at Zacky and then at the rearview mirror, seeing now the flashing blue and red lights behind them.
Suddenly, a car crossed the road. Zacky hit the brake. Victoria closed her eyes as the impact made the car drive off the road and capsize. She intense sun blinded her and then everything went dark.

The foul taste on Victoria’s mouth and the smell of smoke gave her consciousness back. She was still sitting on her seat, but the car was now upside down, the hood were the wheels should have been. Blood dripped from her mouth.
“Zacky?” She called the unconscious men next to her, coughing and struggling to catch her breath.
“Zacky, wake up!” The sound of the sirens was now very loud. They had to find a away to escape. Tears started to escape her eyes as she shook the lifeless body, not wanting to understand what had happened. “Please,” she cried harder now. “You can’t die. Please, wake up!”
Victoria heard cars stopping and people talking. She opened the glove compartment and grabbed the gun, crawling out of the car through the broken window.

“Stop right where you are!” Victoria jumped as she heard someone shouting at her, almost making her drop the gun. “Put your gun down and your hands up!”
She slowly turned around, only to see that the man who was talking to her was the men she had seen on the news. The men she had wanted to kill and hurt as bad as she had hurt the news reporter. Detective Sanders.
She smiled at herself. There was no turning back now, no making it all go away, no happy ending for her. Just death.
Victoria pointed the gun at herself.

“No!” She heard the detective yell as he got closer, his gun still pointed at her. “There’s no need for you to do that, Victoria. We can help you, all you have to do is put the gun down.”
For the first time she looked directly at him. How could he lie to her, after knowing what she had done? “Everything is going to be okay,” he took another step towards her, but she quickly pointed the gun at him.

“Don’t you take another step or I’ll shoot you! You know I’ll do it!” Her hands shook as she tried to aim at the detective’s head. She didn’t care if she killed him or anyone else, because in the end, she was going to die too.

“Okay, fine,” Matt lowered his gun on the graveled ground, his eyes never leaving the girl. He still couldn’t believe how someone could have turned a normal girl into a psychopath. “I just want to talk to you, I’m sure we can work things out.”

This time Victoria smiled at him. There was nothing to talk about.
She took a glimpse of the wrecked car only a few feet away from her. The only person she wanted to be alive was now dead. Things couldn’t be worked out anymore.
Her gun resumed its position against her temple. She was not going to live without Zacky and she was not going to go to prison. She didn’t want to be a college dropout, ex-convict, teenage mother.
She could hear people shouting at her as she closed her eyes and her index finger hugged the trigger. It is said that life flashes before someone’s eyes before they die, but all she saw was Zacky. He was in every single moment her mind recalled.
She exhaled deeply and pulled the trigger.
And her body became numb.

THE END

Notes

So, this is the end! I know some of you won't like the way this story ended, but I've got to confess that I'm a sucker for bad endings. :)
Thank you all for reading, subscribing, recommending and, most of all, commenting! Your support and appreciation made me keep on writing!
Love you all!