Twisted Mercy

The Honeymooners

November 13th, 2021

8:46am

Location: Burkburnett, TX

**********

I banged my fist against the bathroom door. "If you don't get out of there in the next five seconds, you're going to have to pay for some MAJOR property damage."

As if he was freaking counting, Samuel opened the door five seconds later and leaned against the frame with a lazy smile. I scowled at him in return, shoved my way past him, and pushed him out of the bathroom so I could close the door. His laughter emanated from the other side.

I looked at myself in the mirror and made note of how horrible I looked. My skin, a normal rosy ivory color, was sallow and it was a wonder how my jawline hasn't poked through what little skin covered it. Deep bags were underneath my dull, gray eyes. My eyes used to change colors. No one knew why. Lately, they've just been gray.

Months of being on the run finally caught up to me last night. Sleep, while my body begged for it, eluded me. At three in the morning, I chose to case the exterior of the hotel. I also found exit points on the interior and figured out all of the seventeen ways someone could break into our first floor room. All of this only took an hour and a half, so I busied myself with patrolling. Pete would stare when I'd pass the receptionist desk, but I never interacted with him beyond that.

Our getting here was too calm. There's no way Eddie stopped looking for us. Sure, he shot one of his own men for me, but that wasn't an act of mercy. It was a debt that I'd have to repay.

My dream of a bath hasn't come true yet as relaxation, like sleep, evades me. Instead of allowing myself one, I took a quick shower and towel dried my curly hair. After a quick brush of my teeth, I was out of the bathroom in all of fifteen minutes.

"Buenos días, mi princesa malhumorada," Samuel said from his seat on the bed. I glared at him and put my dirty clothes in my bag. "The silent treatment? You wound me, princesa."

I continued to ignore him and finished getting ready by putting a black headband in my hair and my glasses on my face. After pulling on my running shoes, I was good to go. Although, before I could make my way to the door, Samuel grabbed my forearm.

"Is everything okay," he asked.

I scoffed and wrenched my arm from his grasp. "I'm fine, cerdo de baño." The look on his face, while amused, held doubt at my statement. After a couple seconds under his unwavering stare, I relented with a sigh. "It's just...this was too easy."

He furrowed his brows and confusion took over his features. "What's too easy?"

"Our trip down here. Before you kidnapped us, which I haven't forgotten by the way," I reminded him as we headed out the door and towards the tiny breakfast area, "we were attacked in Nebraska. It's been quiet since then. Scarily quiet."

Our walk to the breakfast nook was silent the rest of the way. I could tell he was thinking; possibly formulating a plan. I grabbed a cold blueberry bagel and rock hard packet of cream cheese and sat next to Genna, who was in a heated discussion with Joshua. I guess her morning wasn't so great either.

"Look, I'm just saying that, if you did hack my software three years ago, I'll forgive you. So?"

I looked up from my unappetizing 'meal' to see Genna glaring at Joshua. A thought tugged at the back of my mind as I struggled to remember when exactly her software got hacked.

"I didn't hack your software," Joshua claimed with a clear of his throat. He took a sip of the new glass of orange juice Samuel plopped in front of him and tugged at his shirt collar. "Even if I did, it was rudimentary and you should've expected someone to hack it."