The Runaways – Chapter 7

By MyNameIsCAL

---Nudge's POV---

My parents were wanted. No wonder I didn't see them often. Apparently they were part of some drug ring. The police had been after them for years and years. They were looking for more people who were involved and had caught a few, but it was their biggest break yet. And how did I know all of this? I was standing in the mall, watching the news out of some TV store. The fact that there was a TV store in the mall still amazed me.

But I wondered if I should be disgusted. The money I had used today wasn't obtained legally. If the dirty world of drug dealing had been Hollywood, my parents would be something like movie stars. I wanted to cry, but I wouldn't, not here in public. The news hadn't even mentioned me, but I knew that the cops were still looking for me. Maybe my parents were trying to protect me. As much as that seemed like child neglect, letting me run around by myself, I could not ever dream of being put into foster care or something. I'd seen some pretty creepy Law and Order episodes about those places when the TV actually worked.

Since I couldn't warm my food in a microwave, I ended up eating fast food from the food court. I stared at my hand, where that guy's number was scrawled. By now, I had it memorized. What was his name? Some name that sounded like it should belong to a rock star and not some blindo. Oh, Iggy it was.

Maybe you need help, a voice inside my head said. It's not safe to be alone.

But I've always been alone.

---Angel's POV---

Iggy wasn't going to be around today. Instead, our parents were home for once.

"How was your day?" Mom asked.

Gazzy replied. "Good I guess."

"Spring Break starts next week. We're thinking of taking a trip to California. What do you two think?" Dad peeked over his newspaper.

"That sounds awesome!" Gazzy exclaimed.

I tried to agree enthusiastically.

Dad smiled. "Well, get your homework done. Mom's cooking dinner tonight."

Gazzy and I went up the stairs to his room and spread out on the floor with our books. We could hear our parents talking. I put down my book and started to listen to them.

"Hey, Gazzy, listen to them," I whispered.

He rolled his eyes but put down his book too.

"How much did they offer you?" Dad questioned.

"Half a million," Mom answered.

"And how are we doing the exchange?"

"They'll leave us a car, we'll drive with the kids over to the warehouse, drop the car, take the money, and they'll fly us out to the border."

"We should have had more kids," Dad laughed. "We'd have enough money to take over the business."

"But we don't need to run the business," Mom responded. "And we weren't even supposed to have kids, Jeff."

"That's why we're selling them," he replied. "And you and I, we can run off somewhere in Mexico and work things from that side. You know, we never had that honeymoon I promised."

Mom was laughing now.

Gazzy's eyes widened. "They are selling us!"

"Shh!" I hushed.

"We have to do something," he said, panicking.

I took a moment to think. "We'll tell Iggy."

"Iggy?" he sounded incredulous. "He's blind! What's he gonna do for us?"

I shrugged. "He'll figure out something. We can always count on him."

---Iggy's POV---

Max lived in the nicer part of town. It was this part of town where the people with money came from. The "popular" people lived over here too, the cheerleaders and snobby jocks that beat up the less fortunate in the hall, or at least the people who couldn't fend for themselves. Yet Max was different from them. She kept a conversation going as we made our way to her house, making sure I was ok keeping up every now and then.

It made sense to me why Fang liked her so much now.

"Be careful of the steps," she warned as we reached her porch.

Her house seemed big, at least to me, bigger than mine. She led me down the hall and into a room where Fang was.

"Well, long time no see." He sounded exhausted. I wondered how bad his father had beaten him. Sometimes I wished I could see.

Max pulled up a chair next to the side of the bed and left us to talk.

"How're you doing?" I asked.

"I'm alright," he muttered. "Hopefully I'll get to school once before break starts."

"I got all your work you missed," I told him, digging through my bag.

"Thanks, Ig." He coughed a few times. There was a long silence before he spoke again. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Well, there's not much you can do if you can't walk," I reminded him.

He sighed. "Well you get along just fine being blind."

"I still have mobility."

"That's not what I'm getting at," he half growled at me. Then, almost softly, "I'm worried about what he's doing to my mom."

Fang would never admit it, but he had a soft side. It was the reason he hadn't run away any sooner. His father showing up and hurting him had just pushed him to it.

"Exactly how long are they letting you stay here?" I asked after a while.

"Max and her mom told me as long as I need a safe place to stay." He sounded distracted suddenly.

"You like her, don't you," I said quietly.

He denied it.

"Fang, I haven't heard you talk about anyone that way before like you did on the phone last night," I smirked. "C'mon, just admit to it already."

"Why does it matter to you?" he mumbled.

I grinned. "It doesn't. I just thought I'd kick you while you're down."

He punched me in the shoulder, but it was half-hearted as he grunted in pain.

Before I could make a comeback, my cell phone rang in my pocket.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Iggy? It's Nudge. I ran into you earlier…"

Thanks for reading! We'll loop back to Fang and Max in the next chapter before we see what happens to Gazzy, Angel and Nudge.

And if you've got the chance, check out my latest stories: "Silence", "Lie Tonight", and "Cheating Death".