Lynell’s hands are cold with fear. She walks to the other side of the store, scanning the back wall. She finds what she’s looking for in the corner. With a steadying breath, Lynell heads to the slushie machine and places a cup under the center lever. She glances over her shoulder once before pulling the lever as hard as she can. It only takes a few tries before she has it jammed so the lever doesn’t go back and stop the pour.

“Oh crap!” she yells, stepping to the end of the aisle so she can see the cashier. “The slushie machine is broken! It’s getting everywhere!”

The cashier runs over instantly, a scowl on his face. He curses when he sees slushie still falling from the machine and covering the cabinet and floor below it.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened,” Lynell says, pitching her voice up a few octaves to cover any sounds Daniel might make. “I was just trying to get a cup and then I couldn’t get the lever back and it just kept pouring and I couldn’t reach the plug to unplug it and—”

The young man cuts her off. “It’s fine! I’ll fix it.”

Lynell mutters another apology before leaving the aisle. On her way out, she grabs two water bottles from the fridge and a handful of candy bars before slipping through the front door.

Rushing to the car, her heart still pounding wildly in her chest, she sees Daniel carrying the canister he’d taken from inside to their car.

“Nice diversion,” he says. Lynell grins, turning to keep watch while Daniel pours the gas he’d siphoned into the tank.

“That was nerve-wracking,” she says.

“You’d think you’d get used to tense situations at some point.” Daniel drops the empty canister before climbing back into the car.

Lynell follows suit, locking the door behind her and unloading the food she’s stolen into her lap. “I think the mundanity of that particular crime allowed me to feel the adrenaline.”

Daniel reaches over and pulls a protein bar out of her lap. “That sounds like backward logic.”

Lynell shrugs, ripping open a bag of Skittles. “I never claimed to think logically.”

Daniel laughs and starts reversing out of the parking lot. “That is very true.” He speeds up when they reach the highway and takes one of the bottles of water. “We make a good thieving team.”

“I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of.”

“We also make a good surviving team,” Daniel says.

Lynell lays her hand on his leg. Her voice is quiet as she says, “I think we make a good team. Period.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agrees. “We do.”

They drive for another half hour, listening to pop music on the radio that sounds so upbeat it calms their fear. Lynell stares out the window, bouncing her leg. After another half hour, she pulls out the phone and the note Mother Adella wrote. She unfolds it for what feels like the hundredth time, tracing Mother Adella’s flawless handwriting that spells her daughter’s last name: Raines.