Red Flag
Red Flag
My stomach grumbles, a deep growl that sends a trembling feeling down to my knees. Jace stops in his tracks and looks over his shoulder. His deep green eyes look me up and down before we press forwards. Jace scans the area around us, looking over faces for the security guard while I look for a shop to help our predicament. So far we've found nothing.
Before getting to the end of the street, we stop at a set of stairs that goes down to an underground section. The strong smell of food hits me hard. Jace is either teasing me or we're getting food.
"What are we doing here?" I question.
"You sound hungry, though you might want food." He causally shrugs his shoulders.
"You thought right, what are we getting?"
"Anything you want." Jace slows down his walking pace to allow me to overtake him. I walk around and look through the different options. I look at the Chinese, but find myself standing in front of maccas looking at the loose change menu.
"Are you going to get anything?" I ask.
With Jace's free hand, he pats down either side of his pocket and then shrugs his shoulders and frowns.
"Must have left my wallet in my other pants."
"Did you want something? I could shout you a burger," I offer.
"Cheeseburger would be great, thank you." We step up to the counter and I order our food. It's a bit of teamwork to count the money. Jace holds my purse and I count out the coins and pass them over to the lady. She frowns when I start counting up the five-cent pieces, but I get there eventually.
Within a few minutes, they pass the bag over to us. I grab it and walk with Jace to a free spot on a raised bench. We have to do two laps of the underground area until we find a space. People give us weird looks as they see the handcuffs, but Jace just smiles and winks back at them.
"How are we supposed to eat these?" I ask.
"In sync?" he offers, "just let the other know when to raise and lower their hand."
"This is ridiculous." I shake my head.
Jace grabs his burger and starts eating. I press my elbows against the table top as I take a bite into my food. Jace takes a second bite and he's almost finished it. The sleeve of his cotton black shirt brushes past my shoulder, which makes me ticklish. I yank my arm away from his, which pulls his body closer to mine.
"Careful-" His words are cut short, which makes me curious. I look in the same direction and notice the security guard from earlier. Without saying anything, Jace shoves the rest of his burger into his mouth before getting off the stool and bopping down to hide.
He raises his head up and peeks over the table to see where he's going. I just wait and look up at Jace to monitor the look on her face. The calm collective appearance makes me feel better about our current situation.
Jace leans into me and whispers, "We're going to walk out in the same exit, okay?" I nod my head in responses.
We both get up from our positions and make a quick run for the exit. We take the stairs by two and run into the overflowing traffic of people buzzing around us. I look over my shoulder and see the security officer walking up the steps.
"We need to go somewhere quickly."
Jace runs to the right, yanking me along with him. We disappear into a young teenage clothing shop and quickly walk through the store. I grab a long maxi dress from the rack and hold it up. I peek through the netting on the dress to see him walk past the store. I place the dress down and smile up at Jace.
"Good thinking, well done," he compliments.
"We're safe, where to next?" But as soon as I say those words, I find myself eating them back up. The security guard walks back past the shops so we walk in deeper and look for somewhere to hide. Jace tugs me down the change room section and we hide in the only available stall and lock the door. We both crouch down and look under to see if we were followed inside.
I suck in a deep breath and wait. Black combat boots press against the ground. We watch as he slowly steps down the space, perhaps searching for something. Before he walks past our stall, one of the ladies working in the shop chases him out, saying that the area is female only. I take a deep breath of relief.
We both stand up and smile. A sudden knock sound comes from the door. I jump towards Jace and look up at him. He shrugs he shoulders and tries to smile confidently.
"Do you need any new sizes, can I help you with anything?" a female voice calls out.
Jace pokes me, "No, I'm good, thank you."
"Okay," she replies.
"We need to sneak out before they find you in here."
"Let's count to three, then we'll make a run for it, okay?" I nod my head and bite my lip. They really can't complain, we're handcuffed together.
"One." Jace skips the numbers and unlocks the door. He starts running and I get dragged behind him like a rag doll. We weave between the racks until we're out of the shop. Jace and I continue running until we hit the end of the street and turn left towards the end section of the street that crosses from shops to apparent and office buildings.
"Do you think we're safe?" I ask.
"For now." He nods his head.
"How do we get out of these?" I raise my arm and point to the metal cuffs already leaving a bright red ring around my wrist.
"I'll figure something out, don't worry."
"You keep saying that," I point out.
"We could go shopping at K-Mart, they always have useless junk for this kind of stuff," he suggests.
"I guess." I shrug my shoulders, "At least we'd be off the main strip where we could get caught." I note.
"Then it's settled, we're going to K-Mart." Jace starts walking forwards, but then looks over his shoulder and gives me a guilty smile.
"What's wrong?" I ask, nerves building in my stomach.
"Do you remember the direction K-Mart is in?" he asks.
"Are you serious? We're literally the blind leading the blind. How about we try Target, I know where that is," I suggest.
"But." He pouts, "I guess Target can work too. But we're not picking any strays up, and no photographic the staff members, I'm not going to be a part of any weird cult groupie thing on Twitter."
"Are you jealous of Alex from Target?" I poke his stomach.
"No, but I just prefer K-Mart."
"You so are," I tease.
"Alex isn't even that good looking, he just looks, weird." Jace and I start walking towards Target which is located at the end of the street.
"I'd be a little worried if you thought Alex was attractive, unless, that's your preferred team, then I'm all for that," I slip in.
Jace screws his face up and frowns at me. As he looks forward, I catch his hand moving and before I can say anything, he slaps my butt and laughs loudly about it.
"I only want your fine ass, Macey, don't you worry." A deep red blush works its way onto my cheeks. I try to inconspicuously fan my face, but Jace's smile just gets wide.
"Shut up, Jace." I shove into his side which throws him off balance.
"Are you blushing?"
"Let's just get to Target, okay?" I storm off in front of Jace and drag him alongside with me.
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