Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Long Way

I walked out of the hall while they were still laughing.

Nobody stopped me.

The door banged shut behind me, and then it was just the parking lot, the fire station, and the long dark road.

Troy came out a minute later.

"Carly."

"Don't drive me."

He stopped.

"I mean it," I said. "Please. I need to not get driven somewhere."

"Where are you going?"

"The Gulfview."

He looked at me.

"That's nine miles."

"I know exactly how far it is."

He didn't argue.

He just said, "Stay off the highway after the gas station. There's a frontage road. Nobody drives it."

"I don't know where the frontage road is."

"Yes, you do," he said. "You've been on it."

Then he went back inside.

I started walking.

The first mile I was so angry I didn't see anything.

The second mile I started to.

I had walked this before, the other way, in the rain.

I didn't know the directions. I never do.

But I knew the things.

The rusted fences. The forklift with no wheels.

The warehouse with the punched-out windows, and one window that still had half a pane, shaped like a shark's tooth.

I'd passed that tooth on the way in.

So I kept it on my left instead of my right.

The concrete turned back into asphalt.

There was a gas station on the corner with a sign that said GA with the S burned out.

I remembered the GA. I'd almost gone in there Monday to ask for help, but I was too embarrassed.

Behind it, running beside the highway, was a narrow road with no lines.

The frontage road.

I had walked it Monday, crying. I just hadn't known it had a name.

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