Getaway

“W-We killed so many peo-ple…”

Macy stretched out the last syllable in a painful moo as she sobbed into the soaked motel pillow, repeating herself again. 

“Dude shut the fuck up, these walls are paper thin.” Her partner sat up in bed, at least happy not having to pretend to be asleep anymore. “Could you give it a rest? We’ve been over all that. I bought you your little dress, can’t you be happy?”

“I-I want to die. Charlotte I want to die. T-the ringing, the ringing is still in my ears and-“

“Is this like when you kept bringing up me pissing myself in middle school just so that I’d hit you?”

“Th-that’s not why I-“ Macy swallowed her embarrassment, only finding more guilt in it. She had no right to feel embarrassed. “N-no, it’s not like that, l-like I really want to die, I want- I want to atone for what we did-“

“Unless I die, that's only half an atonement. And I don’t plan on dying. You heard my stance. Don’t you wanna show them all? Don’t you wanna prove that our lives aren’t over?”

What she felt swallowing the mastermind’s words didn’t make her previous guilt go down any easier, but it let her spit up some of her own truth having to face so much reality.

“I-I never really believed you… I- I thought we would die, I wanted that…”

Charlotte gave something between a sigh and a groan, idly picking up the rifle she’d laid beside her bed in caution. Macy gasped.

“A—a-are you going to do it…?”

“Bitch no, I’m just seeing if it’s still loaded! Jesus Christ… you know we won’t get caught, so what are you scared of? After the gas station, I think we can pretty much get away with-

The bolt slipped from Charlotte’s grasp. Her unpracticed trigger finger landed right back in the one-sided warzone she’d fled earlier that morning, the deafening black cannon immediately getting her to jump right up as Macy froze in fear of what to do.

The teenager’s first sight was the new hole in the wall, but she was far more focused on the shuffling, the footsteps, the yelling, the screaming- at least by the sound of it all, suddenly everyone in the building was awake and they were coming for her. And Macy, but she didn't think to be concerned about that.

The two grabbed their bags and Charlotte made the bold decision of exiting with the gun drawn, yelling something to her companion to do the same that fell on deaf ears. Maybe a simple explanation and some diplomacy was a possibility, but for two wanted criminals in illegal possession of the weapon, the outcast didn’t even need to be as paranoid or as used to it as she was to immediately jump to baring her fangs at anyone around.

The blonde crouched behind her, tailing her every step and almost making her trip, Charlotte begrudgingly escorted her and took a shot off the balcony and into the Georgia night sky to clear a path. Some small piece of Macy- maybe a larger one, really, just buried under her attachment to the woman- was coward enough to know she ought to run away then and there, but the other coward in her was convinced she’d never make it without Charlotte, even if all she wanted to do was die. She settled for closing her eyes and holding onto her shirt like a kid, praying, praying that the actions of the killer she clung to would stay an empty threat, half fearing more guilt and half the sheer sound of the weapon- once a powerful, intoxicating rumble every time she showed it off in the woods, now a traumatic Skinner box she would never forget.

”BACK OFF THE FUCKING STAIRS!”

She thought too highly of Charlotte, who didn’t think much of it as she squeezed the dirty trigger again. A target wasn’t chosen, so the largest man closest to the front of the human barricade of staff got a 223 somewhere in his side and was probably the only one not to move as everyone else scattered. The kid pushed the stunned man down the stairs with as much reverence as you might give a bouncy ball and tightly seized the wrist of her cohort so that she wouldn’t slow her down so fucking much.

“THE CAR!”

Macy got the idea, thrown in front of her classmate to find her legs on fire as they dove towards their Honda and got her ass behind the wheel again. In a moment of uncharacteristic resolution, she seized the gear shift just as she had the cyan grip of her Hellcat on that fateful morning, possessed by her determined submission to her only friend in the world.

The impish demons made their escape. Macy could barely steer on a good day, but she was the only one in the car to have ever passed her exam, so since day one she’d been the driver. Charlotte had her rifle ready in anticipation following their last experience making an escape, but to her surprise, they weren’t followed right away. And despite her conviction, her arms were tired, and she wasn’t smart enough to be a perfect killer. She let herself rest just as her partner in crime was on the breaking point of stress.

“C-Charlotte say something nice.”

“What?”

“Charlotte say something nice I need to keep moving...” Macy leaned in with every breath as her eyes bugged out of her head.

“Uhhhh… your scars look cool..?“

Both girls shook as the familiar primary-colored lights shone onto the scene. Ms. Revolution got her rifle trained on the first of the cop cars and for once actually had to think whether or not to shoot given they hadn’t started firing themselves yet. She was just now learning that kind of on-road behavior was generally limited to her and whoever she shot first.

“CHARLOTTE!”

The decision was made for her when one came barreling in from the left like in GTA. She lit the sucker up- almost smacking Macy in the face with her barrel in the process, but if she had hit anything it hadn’t mattered until after their hood was already slammed between a passenger door and a Denny’s. This was good for them and just about no one else, because Macy stepped over a dead old guy on the way out as she tugged a half-conscious Charlotte in one hand and held her gun at a hostage with the other.

In lieu of any real aggression, she tried the first words her head could come up with- “H-HEY FUCKER! DON’T EVEN MOVE OR I’LL BLOW YOUR… BRAINS OUT!” …Disingenuous maybe, a bit cliché definitely, but she hadn’t needed to say much of anything once she’d already worked up the survival instinct to point her (still quite lethal) weapon at another living being in such a manner she’d spent all day swearing she would never do again.

The men entering from the front screamed at her and barked orders and paid little mind to the people evacuating as they raised guns to her from every side, but by the time Charlotte’s dead eyes opened again and the random adult woman locked in her elbow had submitted to the will of a scrawny teenager, she almost started to believe whatever Charlotte had been getting at before her negligence landed in this trouble.

How would they ever get caught?

They made it this far, survived one shootout. Cops were brainless half the time and bound to the rules the other half. Maybe they were both wanted for murder, maybe she didn’t have the same privilege Charlotte had of looking pretty enough not to get shot- but hey, they weren’t dead or behind bars yet. So the girl steeled herself and pushed that gun as far up against the innocent customer’s  forehead as it would go, showing it off to the boys in blue like a new tattoo.

Charlotte gave her a hand at sneaking out the back, keeping that scared lady hostage right up until the second the pigs didn’t have visual anymore, and took off like frightened vermin into the night.

Panting, down a rifle and a car, Macy found her protector’s head in her own lap. The bridge they’d hidden under would’ve left them in complete serene silence if it weren’t for their shared tinnitus, and the softly running water just a bit from their tired feet.

“W-we made it.”

“S-somehow…” No part of the day had felt real to Charlotte. The feeling wasn’t anything new, so it hadn’t occurred to her until just now how much she had been dissociating. Her thoughts were finally catching up to her. How could Macy of all people manage to…

“Are you… are you okay?” The teacher’s pet asked her. She was a heathen now, but she still had that look to her.

“Think so…”

“That’s good…”

“…Macy?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh… how’d you… do all that? Like… that was all you, the whole escape.”

Macy watched the stream sentimentally, letting it fill the silence as it did the rocks it ran through. An absent smile gathered below her tired eyes.

“I… I think I just get it now. Everything you used to say.”

“Uh… you do?”

“Yeah.” The smaller girl chuckled with a slight gurgle, adrenaline still scrambling her systems and producing more phlegm than she knew what to do with. “I… just wanna show them all whatever it is you wanna show them. You know?”

Out of all the horror, all the bodies she’d created out of people, all the unforgivable acts she’d committed- the scariest thing Charlotte saw that day was the innocent girl she once knew smiling down on her with a devoted glee in her eyes more violent and determined than anything she’d done herself.

“I don’t wanna die anymore, Charlotte. I wanna see how far this road goes.”

The boss nervously laughed a little, kissed the zealot’s cheek, and stood up before things could get hairy.

I can make this work, she thought with a smile.