The Jerk

The first person to reach Frankie and claim her prize was only greeted with a palm in her face.

“Sorry!”

The liar pushed past the very people that had been dashing to see her, making a decent barrier between her and the staff member while confusing everyone in the process.

“Uh- The Young Star’s got the best breakfast in Cinema!” She made well on her promise on the way out of the horde.

A boy in the back turned to see her running straight for the door. For some reason, he thought he recognized her as she passed close by him.

“Somebody get that scammer!” Freddie rallied the entire crowd, sending them out with Frankie. Lucky for her, this was exactly what she wanted.

Bozo had been perched on a rooftop waiting for the security team to hand him his prey on a silver platter. But when the cavalcade of teens burst through the door, he was too late in spotting her. He had no idea what was going on or which merchandise-clad youngster was the one responsible for his grievances. Frankie took only one look back as they rounded the corner.

Yes!

With them escaping Bozo’s immediate line of sight, she hoped she’d have a slight buffer before he wisened up to the situation. She’d been dangerously close to the angry mob before , doing her best to make it look like she wasn’t the one they were chasing, but now was her chance to make tracks. Outpacing the slower and less-determined of the kids was easy, but many of the faster, angrier ones were gaining on her as the pain of her gunshot wound lit up.

Come on… come on!

“Hey! Hillbilly girl!”

At the front of the pack, she saw him again. Evan, from back in the Wildland Expedition. His lackeys were close behind and his tall frame was giving him a major advantage in catching up to her. She began to worry that, as many bizarre and often death-defying circumstances she’d been placed in, life experience wasn’t going to beat out raw athletic skill for long.

Under lamplight in the early night, she led a parade of greedy teens all through Cinema City, searching for a way to lose them. Her destination was still the museum Katie had hunkered down in- but she couldn’t bring the soda-thirsty army in there with her. Somehow, she had to get them off her tail, and fast.

“Get back here, you stupid tourist!”

Evan was gaining on her. She only had a few seconds left. Her first instinct was to look around for a loose iron pipe or something, but in a nice park like this that wasn’t gonna be an option. She tried knocking over a trash can, but it was built into the ground.

She decided to go for a more cerebral angle.

“Hey Evan! Didn’t think some stupid tourist girl could outrun you!”

It didn’t take much to piss him off more than he already was.

“You dirty liar! Okay, that’s it!”

Evan gave up all self control as he flung himself towards the runner. Catching up in an all-or-nothing sprint, it was inevitable that he’d get her like this.

He didn’t expect her to fall flat on the ground.

In a domino effect, Evan tripped on Frankie, and his cronies tripped on him. With the people further back not being able to see what they were running into, a dog pile quickly formed of all the idiots who decided to chase after one tourist girl.

Crawling out from underneath with a bloody nose and a bruised body, the goth had just enough time to escape. By the time she dashed into an alley, she could still hear confused groans as people started to get up.

That should buy me some time!

Frankie ignored the pain of her agonizing run and made her way around to Ron’s Collection as fast as she could, not a pursuer in sight…