" i'm free of all prejudices, i hate everyone equally " w. h. fields

 one

 • • •

 HER RAGE WAS SPITTING out of her like a volcano in the middle of a burst, words exploding out of her like the million dusty pieces of ash, her hands moving wildly, trying to get her message across, trying to explain, get her opinion in for once in her life, like lava spewing over the rocky outside of the mountainous land structure. Hot tears flew down her pale cheeks, tangling with her eyelashes and blurring her eyesight.

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair at all.

There was no way in high heaven that she was going to give up her entire summer, the whole summer that she had been looking forward to all year, to go to summer school. Summer school, for fuck's sake. Just because she had given up on learning unnecessary algebraic problems and completely moronic historical wars didn't mean she was stupid, and certainly didn't mean she needed freaking summer school.

Hazel didn't need to know every detail about the War of 1812 to become a tattoo artist, and she didn't need to know trigonometry to become a hair-dyer or whatever the hell they're called.

And it wasn't just a summer school they wanted to send her to; her imbecilic parents were suggesting she go to a military school. A school to right the wrong actions. A school to correct the bad. Tweak the defiant, independent...reckless, even. Laurels School of Discipline. They were just going to send her away.

She had just graduated high school around two weeks ago. She was not going to another school again.

Running upstairs, she angrily punched a number into her phone. It went to voicemail. "Ugh, goddamnit, April, I need you."

Hazel grabbed a sleeping bag and stuffed necessities in her black, leathery bag, including her phone, some clothes, money, some food she had stashed under her bed, and her thin notebook.

Yelling, the yelling, and screaming, and insults flying and jaws clenching and tears falling and hearts stopping. The running. Whizzing out of the door, ignoring the screams of protests and hollers to 'get back here'. They didn't care.

They never had.

They didn't chase after her though. They knew better.

• • •

Hazel Aubrey Jackson ran away from home when she was twelve.

Technically she didn't run from home, as she hid in her yard, but she did run.

It wasn't anything, really. She had been pissed at something stupid, like her mom yelled at her for flunking a test, plus her newly-emotional hormones enraged her even more, making her fly out of the door one summer's evening. She ran right into the side yard and hid behind a piece of wooden fence that

was laying up against the house.

The moment she did it she felt horrible, a gnawing at her chest and a dryness in her throat. Yet she couldn't bring it to herself to go back.

Sniffing like crazy, tears silently streaming, she had texted her friend April, telling her what happened. Her best friend was yelling at her in text, telling her to go back inside, because Hazel's parents were searching the neighborhood for her. April would know, because she lived five houses down.

Eventually, her father found her, huddled in a ball next to the fence, puffy eyes and wet cheeks.

She ran away again when she was fifteen, shoving as much food and money and blankets as she could in her backpack and hitching a bus. She had been mad because her brother spilled soda on her laptop during a giant essay she was almost finished with typing.

Cops found her a day later, sleeping outside a house three towns down in a sleeping bag.

She could not deal with anger well. She was 'the runner', commonly known as that around her neighborhood when her parents needed people to track her down. Sometimes she'd run and nobody would go looking, because they knew she would come back. Her parents had given up now. They thought she was coming back.

Hazel Aubrey Jackson was eighteen. There was no way in hell they would get her to step into that house again.

• • •

It had been daytime when she started to run. It was nearly black by now.

Hazel's feet were sore. Her legs were on fire, and her jaw was aching from clenching it in anger the whole time. Military school. How dare they.

They should be grateful. Her parents should be grateful that their child wasn't a pot dealer, that their child didn't murder anyone (although she had been coming pretty close to it lately to be honest), that their child didn't rob banks or abuse kittens. Grateful.

Hazel would not cry. She would not cry.

Shit, she didn't say goodbye to her siblings. Damn, Skylar and Charlotte and Lucas... Or even April. Hazel blinked hard. With no plan, no company, and barely any money, she was going to have to go home at some point. At some point she'd have to go to stupid military school.

Not yet, though. She needed to blow off some steam.

Hazel squeezed her midnight-black hoodie closer to her body in the cold night. Her loose black sweatpants billowed in the slight wind. Shit, she basically blended in with the dark night.

Fiddling with her metal lip ring, she decided it was time to go to bed. Her surroundings were dimly lit, but it looked to be a quiet and suburban area. Ah, there was a light on across the street! It looked like some sort of motel. Hopefully she had enough money.

Hiking diagonally, she began to cross the street towards the motel. A blinded light interrupted her vision and Hazel turned, to see a freaking truck driving right for her.

 "FU-"

The truck came screeching to a stop, but not before slightly nudging her. Hazel stumbled back and tripped, falling flat on her ass.

A man walked out of the truck, his image dark in the night. Hazel brushed off her sweatpants, very annoyed, and took a deep breath. Who's this motherfucker that fucking hit her with his truck?

She was about ready to tear the bastard apart. She was already in a bad mood.

"Hey, what the fuck was that?" a gravelly voice cut through the dark, silent night like a knife. "The fuck is wrong with you?"

Hazel scrambled to get onto her two feet and adjusted the bag on her shoulders. "What the hell?"

Was this some kind of joke? He hit her with his truck, for God's sake!

"Are you fucking mad?" It was then that she realized he had the slightest tint of a British accent. It annoyed her to say, but his voice was actually pretty hot. It was deep and enticing, almost. "Don't you know not to run in front of fucking trucks?"

"Well, don't you know how to fucking drive without hitting someone?" Her voice raised an octave as she spoke.

Shaking herself off, Hazel slowly started walking to this absolute, imbecilic asshole. "Okay, first off, wh-"

Her voice broke when the man stepped into the light.

It was Sawyer Fawkin.

She knew him. Everyone knew him.

He had gone to her school and was a complete magnet. A magnet for trouble, a magnet for girls, a magnet.

The guy had the whitest, most pale-blonde hair she had ever seen in her life, besides watching the Harry Potter movies with her sisters with that Draco Malfoy dude. Tattoos snaked across his muscular, veiny arms and up his neck. Piercings were everywhere, in his eyebrow, his nose, on his bottom lip... Light freckles coated his pale skin, especially around his curved nose. His eyes swirled with a strange combination of orange-brown and moss green. His jawline stuck out on his face, the shape broad and bony, almost unhealthy looking. It was a shame that that body got paired with that horrid personality.

"Hazel Jackson," he grinned, his plump, rose-pink lips curved wickedly. His voice was pretty damn endearing. "What are you running from this time?"

"None of your business," she snapped, her pale cheeks tinging pink. Good thing there was barely any lighting. "What about you, Sawyer Fawkin? Why're you driving this late at night in the middle of nowhere?"

"None of your business," he smoothly put in. Sawyer was leaning up against the front door of his truck.

"You're an ass," she bluntly stated, and began walking towards the motel once more.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, chill, Firecracker," he chuckled, standing up from his leaning position and following after her. "Where are you headed?"

"A motel, stupid," Hazel said in her dulcet voice, sticking her thumb in the direction she was headed. "I'm gonna need a place to stay for the night."

After a long dose of silence, he spoke up.

"Y'know," he said with a grin, combing back his white, messy strands of hair. "You can always come aboard my truck. Free of charge."

Aw, shit. She really didn't want to go with him. He was an ass, an she didn't want to stay with him. But on the other hand, she wouldn't have to spend any money, and it'd only be one night...

Hazel had to swallow her pride. She could always beat him up for nearly running her over some other day. She was in a bad position right now, however, and she needed all the [free] help she could get.

"Fine."

• • •

Maybe she was destined to end up in the passenger seat of Sawyer Fawkin's beat up truck. Maybe it was destined because she was a runner. She ran from her anger. She ran from her problems. And she turned to the thing that would keep her the furthest from it in a time of desperation and because she was low on money, and if the option wasn't expensive, she had to take it.

Even if it meant being stuck in a truck with the boy of white hair, tattoos, and piercings for a night, with her hatred for the boy with the snarky comments growing by the second.

She was a runner. And runners run from their problems.

a/n

first chapter???? agh, it's been a long wait for this, but i hope it was worth it! please throw me a comment or a vote if you liked it!

i uploaded this bc im just very stressed and idk some comments might give me a breather. also bc i havent uploaded in a real long time

to be honest, i have no idea where this book is going, but... i tried. sorry... :0

GOALS:

300 reads

25 votes

30 comments?

*unedited*