On the Run

Chapter Second

Oh Scheiße, we are dead... DEAD! It took everything the red headed German girl had not to cry out in despair over their current predicament; hiding underneath a large sports utility vehicle with three muscled men dressed in the same black business garb standing around it. Her emerald eyes widened each time one of the men turned or a foot moved, her breath catching in her throat.

Ami was in the same dire situation as her friend, and Melanie noticed how the brunette was burying her face in her small hands and shaking her head. Their future was looking worse as each second passed and the red head felt her body tremble from the sheer terror racking her bones. The girls had gotten themselves into more trouble than ever imagined, and Melanie feared they weren't getting out of it alive. She closed her eyes briefly and said a silent prayer with desperation dripping from her heart.

"Dammit, find them now! It shouldn't be this hard to find two girls."

Melanie's eyes snapped open and she quickly looked at Ami, seeing the same expression of fear in her hazel eyes. Terrified, they listened anxiously as the conversation continued between the three thugs.

"I say we just forget about them. It's not like they can identify us-"

"Shut the hell up, Tony. We are going to find them and eliminate the problem once we do. Understand those simple orders?" That was the blond man who’d found them in the cathedral, Melanie realized. He was given a muffled answer in response. "Good. Now keep looking. Search under, inside and around the cars. They couldn't have gotten far."

"Du wau want me to go back inside and see if they hid in there?"

A shuffle of feet sounded to the girls' right and they looked over to see the blond man standing in front of another one of the thugs. "I saw them leave through the back exit, idiot!" The one being yelled at stumbled a few steps back, and mumbled an apology for doubting the blonde’s authority. "Look over there, and remember what I told you. If you find them, don't kill them just yet."

Melanie felt a ripple of fear travel up the length of her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand erect. Her eyes drifted to Ami and she saw glistening moisture in the younger girl's eyes. She cautiously reached over and grasped her friend's hand, offering what comfort she could.

"Tony, look in the cemetery. They might've decided to run over there."

Two pairs of feet wandered off in different directions, leaving the blond behind. He turned around a few times before setting off towards the right, allowing hope to rise a little in the girls' hearts. Melanie looked at Ami, raising her brows in question wondering what to do next. With a slender finger, the brunette pointed upward and Melanie furrowed her brows in stupefaction.

"We steal the car. It's our only way of getting out of here fast enough."

The red head's eyes widened in disbelief. "Are you crazy," she whispered hoarsely. "Not only do we have men after us, but we'll have the police on our ass for stealing a car." She shook her head sternly. "No, I will not go along with this plan of yours. Not again."

"Mel, trust me..." Ami searched around for danger before raising herself up with her hands and knees, and crawled out from under the SUV. "Besides, we'll ditch the car before anyone notices we were in it."

Melanie jumped to her feet, but still kept low for fear of being seen. She brushed the dirt off her jeans and shirt, while scowling at her friend. "It's still a stupid idea." There was a moment of silence before she sighed, defeated. "Fine, let's get this over with before I regret my decision to follow along with another one of your idiotic ideas."

"My ideas aren't stupid. They have always-"

"Always gotten us into trouble. Admit it." The red head jabbed a finger in her face, giving her a look that meant 'you-know-I-am-right'.

Ami shrugged, a small smile touching the left corner of her mouth. "I'm not going to bring up the time when you almost drove us into a ditch because-" She was abruptly silenced when the glowering red head placed a hand over her mouth.

"You said you wouldn't bring it up, so don't." Cautious emerald eyes looked over Ami's shoulder, widening slightly. "Oh no..."

Ami turned her head, her eyes widening as well when she saw one of the mobster men making his way over in their direction. Fortunately he hadn't noticed them, yet. Hazel eyes filled with fear when Ami looked back at Melanie. "Either we steal the car or find ourselves in deeper trouble."

"Fine." The red head stepped back with her hands held up in mock defense. "Work your magic, but please hurry up." She took off her sweater for her friend to use it in order to break a window.

"Don't rush an artist," the younger woman grumbled as she stalked to the back window of the black Escalade. She wrapped her fist in the sweater and was about to break through the glass when Melanie grabbed her arm suddenly, stopping her in mid punch.

"What the he-" Ami stuttered loudly, but was cut off by the red head's hand gripping her mouth as she was yanked down roughly to her knees. She pulled the hand from her mouth and was about to ask what was wrong, when she stopped suddenly, and listened.

Someone was staggering through the parking lot, slurring and cursing at his own feet. One step forward, three stumbles back, two to the side, and one forward again. Melanie gave her friend a warning look before she began to crawl around the side of the car to identify this intruder. She was just about to look around the front when a shout rang out.

"Ah! You drunken idiot! This is an Armani suit! Don't touch me!"

There was some kind of struggle and Melanie looked around to see the man in the suit that had been coming their way, struggling with a man who had just retched all over him.

"Oh, bugger me, I'm so sorry."

She noticed the young man reach out as if to wipe off the contents of his stomach from the expensive suit, but his hand was batted away. It was then that she recognized the drunk. She gasped and quickly hid again with her back pressed hard against the car door.

"What is it?" A sudden whisper at her shoulder made her jump. She glared at Ami, but the brunette could see the relief in her emerald eyes.

"It's your lover," she answered sardonically.

Ami raised an eyebrow and moved passed her friend to look. When she turned back she grinned dreamily. Melanie rolled her eyes and grabbed onto her arm.

"Come on, let's hurry and break into this car while he has the suit distracted."

The brunette threw one more glance over her shoulder as she let her friend pull her back to the ef thf the SUV. Melanie threw a cautious look back where the two men were, one slurring and laughing about idiotic things and the other sputtering obscene words about his suit being ruined. With a final push that made the drunk stumble viole, th, the thug stalked off in the other direction grumbling. Melanie gave a silent thanks to the dark-haired beauty for the distraction.

When she turned her attention to Ami, the younger woman was tightening the sweater around her fist. She drew in a deep breath before reeling her fist back to break in the rear window.

"What the hell are you doing to my car?"

The two women squealed and jumped at the demanding voice, and they turned suddenly to see the raven haired drunk staggering towards them. His face was screwed in anger, but his eyes were heavy lidded from intoxication.

"Great, just fucking great," Melanie mumbled under her breath, and rolled her eyes. “This is just our luck for this moron to own the car we are trying to steal.”

"Get the hell away from my car-" He took two steps forward and tripped on an invisible rock, which sent him flying toward the side of his SUV. Luckily he was able to land on the hood, with his arms sprawled out, instead of busting his chin on the gravel beneath him. "If you put so much as a scratch on it I swear to God-"

Melanie almost laughed when she realized he was the one who was damaging the detail job on the black exterior. He left large handprints all over the side of the SUV as he struggled to approach the two women.

"He's gonna give us away Mel," Ami whispered in alarm, as she backed away from the scene that was developing.

“Shhh!” Melanie held up her hands in a desperate plea to shut him up. He kept approaching, and now shouting at them in fluent French. “He's crazy!”

"What are we gonna do," Ami cried.

"I don't-wait! Hit him!"

The younger woman gasped, shaking her head. "I can't hit him! Mel, I shared spit with the guy!"

"Dammit…"

The feisty red head stalked up to the drunk, and before Ami could protest, Melanie punched the man straight in the jaw. His head snapped back from the ferocious blow, and he tumbled to the ground in a boneless heap. Ami had fortunately caught him before he busted his head open on the gravel-covered ground, and held him up with her arms under his armpits. His head lolled forward, chin touching chest signifying hd lod lost consciousness.

"Melanie!"

"I had to shut him up," she defended grudgingly, as she rummaged through the man's pockets, looking for the keys to his vehicle. When she found them she grinned victoriously as she dangled them in front of Ami's face. “Come on, let's go!”
Ami tried to drag the motionless body with her; the weight was pushing her farther and farther to the ground. “We can't just leave him here like this.”

"Yes we can,” she argued while frantically trying to unlock the doors with the keyless entry, but it was becoming a difficult task with her hands shaking terribly.

The brunette grunted and dragged the body a little closer to the SUV, but almost dropped him in the process when she tripped over his feet. “We can't leave him here. He might get robbed, or killed or-“

"Fine, fine," Melanie grumbled as she came back to help her friend with carrying the burden. She fumbled to open the dto tto the backseat with the heavy weight against her side, but was successful despite her nerves going into hyper drive with everything that happened in the last couple of hours. The red head knew for a fact that their little 'adventure' was nowhere near over, and not knowing of the outcome scared her more than anything.

Once the young man was carelessly situated in the backseat, Melanie looked at Ami with her eyebrows raised. "Are you happy now? Let's just get out of here before someone else decides to interrupt our mission to escape."

Ami nodded her agreement and climbed into the passenger seat without a word. Melanie followed suit and started the ignition before she was able to close the door fully. There was no time to waste, and she was already speeding out of the parking lot with a large cloud of dust billowing behind the SUV. She cared not to look out for the men hunting her and Ami down and kept driving as far away from that nightmare as possible.

"So, where to now," the brunette asked softly, her large hazel eyes gleaming with an assortment of emotions that included fear, relief, exhaustion, and inquiry.

Melanie sighed when she glanced at her friend. "Let's go back to the hotel. After that we can figure out what to do." She turned her gaze to the rear-view mirror briefly, although she wasn't able to see the unconscious form sprawled out on the seat.

Her friend followed her gaze to the backseat, and a faint smile touched the corners of Ami's mouth. The man was laying on his back, with one arm dangling over the seat and the other on his chest that steadily rose and fell to the rhythm of his breathing. "Despite the big bruise forming on his cheek, he looks... peaceful."

"Don't you dare get a crush on him. He won't be around for long. It will probably be best if we leave him at the hotel and disappear before he wakes up," Melanie said in her usual stern, motherly tone. "I want to get out of New Orleans as fast as possible and forget this ever happened."

Ami turned back around in her seat. "Me too." She sighed and looked at her friend. "Although I don't think I will ever be able to forget..."

Melanie silently agreed; her lips set in a firm line as she drove through the outskirts of the city, not knowing of the peril that lay ahead.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

“This is great, just great!”

“Hush, will ya? You'll wake him up. And would you please stop pacing like that. You're making me dizzy.”

“Ami, we can't stay here. Let's leave before he wakes up and- do you realize what we've done? We kidnapped a man and stole his car. For kidnapping alone we will spend the rest of our lives in prison! IN PRISON!”

“You were the one who decided to punch him-“

“He was making a scene. And YOU were the one who didn't want to leave him behind. So because of your kind heart we are stuck with an unconscious man who will probably press charges against us once he realizes what happened.” There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before the woman said softly, almost sadly, “We always seem to have the worst of luck, huh?”

“We'll think of something to get out of this mess.”

There was a derisive snort in response, and Orlando felt the fringed edges of his consciousness come back to him. His tired mind groaned a protest, as he willed his eyes to open only to be greeted by a wave of vertigo that washed over him, sending his stomach tumbling this way and that until he had to close his eyes again.

The two women arguing over him hadn't even noticed that he was waking, and continued their whispered bantering.

“We're screwed, I hope you know that. Our life is totally ruined…”

One of the girls sighed. “Mel...”

“As much as I hate this idea, but he may have to go with us wherever we go. He knows what we look like, especially you. We can't be sure he'll keep silent.”

"He was drunk. I don't think he will remember much of what happened last night, much less my face. I am probably just another unknown in the crowd amongst many women that took a liking to him."

Orlando decided it was time to wake fully, and he gritted his teeth as he cracked one eye open again experimentally. The world still spun crazily before him, but he was able to get a quick look at the two girls standing at the end of the bed he was laying on. When he lifted his head up to get a better look at his surroundings, the mattress creaked underneath his weight and the girls directed their attention to him.

“Damn,” the red head muttered, rolling her eyes. “Speak of the devil.”

The brunette, who looked vaguely familiar to him, silenced the other girl with a glare. She then turned her gaze toward Orlando and gave him a sweet smile.

“Wha-” He cringed from the foreign sound of his voice and how it felt as if a bucket of sand had been poured down his throat without water to ease the hoarseness. He swallowed thickly and felt rockets of pain explode behind his eyeballs from that simple movement, and his head collapsed back onto the pillow beneath him. A low groan escaped his chapped lips from the pulsating pain and he quickly closed his eyes to ease it.

“Great time to have a hangover too, depp.”

Orlando cracked an eye open at the foreign word, wondering what she had just said. It took too much effort to think about it and he just moaned deeply, his head lolling to the side.

“The least you could do, Melanie is find some pain killers.”

The red head grumbled something under her breath, but complied with the instruction and stalked off toward the bathroom. During her absence, the brunette sat on the edge of the bed and smiled down at Orlando. Although his vision was slightly blurry, he was able to get a good look at her face for the first time without much alcohol inhibiting his senses, although the hangover was very fresh.

She looked younger than the legal drinking age, but her eyes told of many years of hardship and amazing growth. When a smile reached her full lips, it was beautiful and sensuous; he was instantly attracted. He almost felt the urge to graze his hand across her cheek to relish the feeling of smooth skin and elegant cheekbones.

“Do you remember me from last night?”

Orlando feared if he shook his head the movement would make his head fall off, so he just whispered a dry 'no'. He wanted to ask questions, but he couldn't find his voice or the strength to think hard enough on the words to form in order to inquire of his current situation. From the bits of conversation he gathered while waking, it didn't sound like it was good either.

“I bet you're wondering what happened, huh?”

He slowly blinked when he noticed the southern accent in her soothing voice, and wondered how the woman sitting before him had found the loving patience to deal with the red head he was growing to despise with an undying passion. He almost laughed at the thought of it, but stopped before his brain exploded into tiny pieces of gray matter. It felt more like a bowl of Jell-o left out in the sun for far too long, melting the dessert into a messy glob. He vowed never to get drunk again, at least not as bad as the night before. Usually he was able to remember the previous night's events when drinking tequila, but there was nothing in his memory. He felt completely helpless.

“We're in a bit of trouble and somehow you've gotten yourself right in the middle of it,” Melanie added as she emerged from the bathroom. She had a small Styrofoam cup in one hand and in the other two tablets. She held them before his eyes, and he snatched them away with a deadly glare. He downed them with the water, and once he was finished the red head placed the cup on the table and sighed. “When you are able to speak coherently and think straight, we'll talk.”

Orlando suddenly furrowed his brow in defense. He hated admitting his weaknesses to others and at the moment he was a sterling example of how badly his vulnerability was showing through. “I can talk and listen just fine,” he slurred. His tongue felt as if it was numb and he almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, if the situation wasn't so serious.

The red head snorted a protest, but said, “If you say so.” Her eyes drifted to Ami, her crimson brows rising in question. “Do you want to start or shall I do the honors?”

Orlando slowly sat up straighter, and rested the back of his head against the rod iron headboard. His head pounded from those small movements and he breathed in and out deeply to regain some composure. He waited for the red head to unravel the mystery behind their current predicament and wondered just what the hell he had gotten himself into this time.

“Go ahead and tell him,” Ami answered softly, and crossed her arms over her chest.

The rude German girl sat down on the knee-high dresser behind her and looked at Orlando, her emerald eyes blazing with an emotion that he wasn't able to decipher. “To make a long and complicated story short, we are currently running from a band of thugs out to kill us because we witnessed a murder. We were running from them last night and hid for a while at the rave until they spotted us and we stole your car. Unfortunately you had to appear at the perfect time before we were able to successfully get away,” she paused and shrugged with a grim smile. “So now you are, in a sense, our stowaway.”

Orlando struggled to take everything in with the hangover still overpowering his senses. His brows furrowed as he tried to remember the events that led up to his car being stolen with him in it. Nothing came back to him, so he gave up for the time being.

“Isn’t it more like hostage? And what happens next? Are you going to continue to use my car, even if I disagree?”

The two women exchanged glances, their brows raised in unison.

“Well…” the brunette started. Her eyes lowered in shame and then she continued softly, “Technically we still need your car, only until we get out of New Orleans.”

“There is a 'but' to this,” Melanie added with a snide smirk. “You're coming with us.”

“Excuse me?” He blinked hard, not sure if he had heard the woman right.

“We can't risk the chance of you running to the police and identifying the people who stole your car.”

Orlando looked from one woman to the other, his face screwing in anger. He thought of the possibility of fighting his way out of this, but he wasn't so sure of his strength to overpower two women. The continuous ache behind his eyeballs would slow him down immensely along with the foreign feeling of his limbs as dead weights. He tried to reason with his survival instincts and resorted to negotiation before physical means of escape.

“Listen… I can find a way for both of you to disappear and you won't have to worry about me, or the police coming after you. If you let me go I will give you my word that I will say nothing to anyone of this.”

The red head's right brow rose in question, but her eyes revealed the temper that was beginning to flare. She leaned backward casually with her arms crossed over her chest. “You expect me to believe that you will simply give us money and keep silent?” She snorted, and the golden specks in her eyes ignited as if they were flames devouring bright green grass in an open field. “Don't take me as a fool. I know better than to believe something so idiotic as that.”

“Melanie…” The other woman whom Orlando realized was the gentler one of the two, tried to reason with her friend, “Can we not come up with something… more civilized?”

Orlando shook his head while he tried to scoot off the bed. The sudden motion sent his vision whirling sickeningly and he wasn't able to hold on fast enough before he tumbled off the mattress. He fell heavily, landing in a hard sprawl that nearly knocked the wind out of him. He heard deep laughter coming from the red head and he turned a scowl toward her, but it was a weak attempt with the pain radiating from all corners of his brain. She only laughed harder, but her friend was kind enough to lend him a hand in order for him to stand. As much as he hated accepting her offered help, he allowed her to pull him up off the floor.

“Are you all right?”

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly, while lowering himself back on the mattress. "You're making a big mistake."

The laughter died down and when Orlando opened his eyes he found the German in his face. She grinned viciously and if he wasn't mistaken the woman looked as if she was ready to kill him. She didn't seem to have much patience with people, much less men. "Please, elaborate to me why we are making such a huge mistake? Since you seem to know so much about us and our situation."

"You dragged me into the middle of this, I hope you know," he argued coldly, and he suddenly realized they probably didn't recognize him for the celebrity he was. He found it unnerving and a blessing at the same time, and he wasn't about to confess to the two women exactly who he was until it was revealed in the harshest way. A little payback for stealing his car, along with kidnapping him. "But once you realize what you have done, you will know exactly what I am talking about."

“You're actually trying to piss me off, right?”

Orlando stared at the red head while her face screwed into a feral glare. He had to admit that although he hated the woman, she was exceptionally beautiful when angered. He also realized that the rumor was very true about Germans and red heads; they were the cruelest people around and being a woman on top of that just made it worse.

“You're a right bitch, you know that.”

She gave him a sardonic, toothy grin. “Thanks, arschloch.”

“Melanie!”

Orlando turned his eyes to the other woman, raising a brow in question. “What the hell did she just call me?”

His question was completely ignored, and Melanie said, “There isway way we are taking him along with us, Ami. I am ready to punch him again so we can ditch the loser and forget we ever met him.”

“You hit me?”

Ami worried her lower lip as she looked from Orlando to her best friend. “How about we take him with us as far as Arkansas, but that's it. We can leave him there.”

Orlando blinked in surprise and he felt the anger beginning to simmer in his blood. “What? You're going to do what?” He shook his head, despite the relentless pounding behind his eyeballs. “You can't just do this to me. I have a life to get back to…. A girlfriend.”

Melanie shot him an icy glare, and if looks could kill he would've dropped dead right on the spot. “You're a hostage, idiot, remember? You don't have a say in what we do to you.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as she rose from her seat, and when she spoke again her light German accent was more evident than before, “And if I remember correctly, it didn't seem that you cared one bit that you had a girlfriend last night. Especially with your hands all over my friend!”

The small brunette jumped up before her friend was able to attack their hostage, placing herself between the two. “Mel, this isn't necessary. He was drunk.”

The red head rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. “Why are you trying to defend him, Ami? He's just another hormone driven moron looking for a good lay.”

Orlando growled at the insult and stood from the bed, ready to defend his pride. When he realized the two women were barely paying attention to him, the young actor decided to make his escape although he had to get passed the red head to reach the door. He was more than willing however to fight his way out of this mess, if the situation arose to such measures.

Without a second thought, he ran for the door and actually passed his captors and the two double beds before the red head lunged forward. She got a firm hold of the flapping of of his shirt and pulled him down hard onto the bed. He would've moaned as brilliant pain shot up his backside and exploded inside his skull, but the air was completely stolen from his lungs when he landed on his back even when the object that broke his fall was a mattress.

“Are you crazy?!”

He looked up into furious emerald eyes and blinked in surprise; she was straddling him with his arms pinned above his head. He hadn't realized she was so strong and fast to actually throw him off guard.

“Get off me, bloody bitch!”

He bucked his hips and tried to wriggle his way out of her grasp, and was successful enough to roll them over where he was on top of her. She still held his wrists, but now she was keeping his hands from reaching her throat to strangle her.

“AMI! Help me!”

The brunette was standing at the end of the bed, looking on frantically while her friend was trying to keep Orlando from injuring her. The look in his eyes was frightening as he was running on pure adrenaline, his strength - even in his hungover state - overpowering Melanie.

“Find… AHH! Find something to hit him with!”

Ami spun around, her hair flying about in wild disarray as she searched desperately for something, anything to use against the mad man trying to strangle her friend. She grabbed the first thing she saw; an empty ice bucket.

There was a sudden scuffle than a loud thud as something heavy landed on the floor. Ami whirled around to find her friend and Orlando on the floor, with Melanie still underneath. Her teeth were barred in an animalistic growl as she kneed the man above her in the groin, and he instantly backed away while he groaned in pain from the clumsy blow.

“Dammit, woman,” he cried as he clutched his middle and instinctively curled in on himself. “That hurt!”

“It's supposed to!”

Melanie heaved a breath of relief as she scramblway way from Orlando, and stood up on two wobbly feet. She turned her eyes to Ami and without a word she snatched the bucket from the brunette's hands and started toward their hostage. Before she was able to successfully hit him over the head with the metal object, the man's hand came out and grabbed her ankle. With one hard pull, her feet were swept out from under her and she landed hard on the floor, the bucket falling from her grasp.

When Melanie was able to regain her breath, she saw Orlando rising to his feet and making another attempt to escape. The red head snarled and started crawling towards him to stop him, but before she was able to grab a hold of his ankle, he fell lifelessly to the floor. Blinking in utter shock, Melanie lifted her gaze to Ami to see the brunette holding the metal bucket in her white-knuckled hands. The younger woman was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide as she stared at the unconscious body at her feet.

Crimson brows shot up, stunned. “Ami?”

The brunette turned her eyes to Melanie and she smiled innocently. “Never again…” She handed the bucket to the other woman. “This was your job.”

The German girl laughed breathlessly, shaking her head. “Let's tie him up before he decides to wake up and wreak havoc again.”

Ami could only nod in agreement.