-runaway Love - Alexis Love- Veronique Vega- Lindsey Meadows- Kis- -

Kis was last. She turned her head, just enough for Meadows to see the hard set of her jaw. Then she dropped a single, folded piece of paper onto the wet pavement. It was a list of every violation, every skimmed dollar, every “accidental” lock-in of the basement. A copy was already in an envelope addressed to the state licensing board, sitting in a mailbox two blocks away.

Alexis shook her head, a tight, sharp motion. “There’s nothing to go back to.”

The bus hissed to a stop. The three of them moved as one, a small, ragged army. They weren't friends, not in the beginning. They were just three girls who shared a bathroom with a moldy curtain and a terror of the dark hallway. But fear had forged them into something harder. Sisters of the road. Kis was last

Alexis felt a flutter of something that felt dangerously like hope. She’d learned not to trust hope. Hope was a shiny thing that Meadows would snatch away and sell for a bottle of cheap wine.

The "Runaway Love" wasn't a romance. It wasn't a boy with a fast car or a promise of forever. It was the fierce, desperate, unspoken love of survival. It was the way Veronique saved the last apple for Kis. It was the way Alexis taught Veronique how to hot-wire a hairpin lock. It was the way Kis threw herself in front of a swinging fist meant for Alexis. It was a list of every violation, every

“Last chance to back out,” Veronique murmured, her breath a ghost in the air.

Alexis dug into her duffel bag and pulled out a crumpled photograph. It was of a woman who looked like her, but older, sadder. Her mother, before the drugs, before the disappearances. Alexis kissed the photo and tucked it back. “There’s nothing to go back to

Veronique knew. She’d been there a year longer than Alexis. That’s why she had the plan.