Vroom…. I could hear the cars turning on. It’s dark. This blindfold is kind of tight. The nervousness of where Lily and I are going to be dropped off is overwhelming me. The car is starting to move, I can feel it. The music is blasting. The driver and the person in the passenger seat are cracking up. What are they laughing about?
The car stops. We turned so many times I lost count. They open the door and grab my arm to get me out of the car. Pressing so hard into my skin, their nails were clenched to my forearm. They untied the blindfold and quickly sped off. I looked around and we were in a cul de sac. There were cars zooming by at the main street that the cul de sac was attached to. Lily and I looked at each other and started sprinting to the road to see what road we were on. Byron Center. “There’s Marathon, let’s go inside and call Austin and Kai to come pick us up so we can win!” I said to Lily.  We ran across the street and went inside of the gas station. Kai was being a little difficult with the directions so we made her give the phone to Austin so we could actually direct him to where we were.
Lily and I decided to go outside and wait for them. We didn’t want to waste time, and make them have to wait for us to get out of the gas station.
It was around 11 o’clock at night, and it was pretty cold outside. I had a thin jacket on so I had goosebumps all over my body. That’s when it happened. A guy around 19 years old drove up to the stop light that Marathon was next to. He rolled down his window, music blasting out of his car, and made eye contact with me. “Hey babe,” he said with a wink to put the whole greeting together. He smiled and started backing up so he could turn into the Marathon to come pick me up or something. I looked over at Lily and I could tell by her face that she was freaked out. “Lily…”
“Run.” Lily demanded.
We both ran back into the gas station because we knew it would be safer. Right away, we took out our phones and called Austin and Kai. “They’re not answering me. Could you get a hold of Kai?” I asked Lily.
“No, she’s not answering her phone. I think her phone died.” Lily replied with dread in her eyes.
I could feel the tears in my eyes start to build up. No Katie, you can’t. Lily is already crying, and not being able to get ahold of Kai or Austin is making it worse. There’s no other choice but to suck it up. You may be younger, but you have to be stronger. For Lily, you have to be strong for Lily.
We were hiding behind all the big bag of chips that were up against the window. Lily was crouched down sniffling and wiping away every tear the falls down her cheeks. I stand up to look out the window and the guy was right outside the gas station filling up his car. He turned his head, and we made eye contact. My heart stopped. I quickly dropped to the ground so he couldn’t see me any more. Maybe he didn’t actually see me. It was just a glance, his brain probably wasn’t able to comprehend what he saw in that one second. Hopefully.
5 minutes pass. Kai and Austin still haven’t answered their phones. I’m afraid to look up again and see the guy right at the window just waiting for me to get up so he can take me away. Even though Lily and I are both freaked out, we know we can’t call our parents because we believe that Kai and Austin will pull through. Also, if our parents find out what we were really doing they might not let us hang out this late anymore, and we don’t want that.
I finally decided to get up and look out the window, and the guy was gone. Thank God. That’s when I spotted Austin’s car driving up.
Once Lily and I were in the car our words fell out, scrambling all over each other as we were trying to explain what had just happened to us. Lily could barely annunciate a whole sentence without drowning in a stream of tears. I was the one who had to tell the whole story.
Kai and Austin felt bad for taking so long, because they had accidentally gone to a different Marathon, even though we told them it was the one on Byron Center. They felt even worse about what happened to us while they were at the wrong Marathon.
We got back to my house and Sammy, my brother, and Mary were already back with the rest of their team, Emma and Ally. We had lost, but that’s okay. Lily and I were just happy to be back home where we knew we were safe.