Sasha Austin

Not Safe

Dammit. She was already running late and it would definitely be dark when she heads out to her car now. It took over four minutes to reset her password before she could clock out on the ancient computer in the back room of Pins and Plays. The only bowling alley in town so it was packed wall to wall on the weekends but dead on the weekdays until it was time for the league players. Tashi rushed out the door, across the parking lot, glancing around, no sign of the truck tonight. Thank God! She reached her beat-up, old-ass, blue Ford Focus as quickly as humanly possible and got inside as her cell started to vibrate. Her heart sank. Her stomach clenched. She didn't want to look at it. She mentally prepared herself and looked at the phone but it was Carmen. Her best friend since childhood and no threat at all. Tashi relaxed and they gossiped as usual, about the boys at school, and the plans for the summer, the ten-minute drive home passed by pretty quickly. Carmen was filling Tashi in on the plans her parents had to rent a beach house down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina when the text came through on Tashi's phone.