Chapter Twenty Five
Benji
Benji couldn’t actually believe that he was out of that fucking basement and in a car, driving as far as he possibly could on whatever Cole left in the gas tank.
It almost seemed too easy. But, then again, they did have a dead man in the back seat of the car.
He was going to have to take care of that before it started to smell.
But hopefully it would give them enough time to get to the safehouse. That would make things way easier.
The entire time he drove, he would look in the rearview mirror, watching for any cars that were suddenly speeding towards them but it just never happened.
The fire had really done its job. While he didn’t really know Cole at all, he seemed like a good dude.
Good enough to put his ass on the line to get them out of there.
Good enough to get killed in the process.
It was a real shame, honestly. Benji could see how torn up about it Sawyer was and he couldn’t blame him.
From what he had heard, Cole was the only person who actually liked him and cared about him there.
Seeing them die right before your eyes had to be a pain he could never really understand.
But, they had something good to look forward to, right?
They just had to get to a rest stop where he felt comfortable to stop at, buy a burner phone, and they’d be on their way to forgetting about everything that had happened.
Honestly, Benji wasn’t sure he ever could forget about it.
It was hard not to think about it. It was even harder when his tongue kept sticking itself in the hole where his molar once was.
How fucking unfortunate was that? Benji liked his teeth.
They were nice and straight. Now he was missing one.
Luckily, it wasn’t that noticeable but he sure would notice it.
Every now and then, when he wasn’t looking in the rearview window, he would look over to Sawyer who was sleeping soundly beside him in the passenger seat, with his head against the window.
They were still holding hands and, honestly, it was nice.
Benji needed it just as badly as he did, he imagined.
They were all they had at the moment. He was going to take the comfort where and when he could.
The only time he had removed his hand from Sawyer’s was when he went flipping through the radio stations and that seemed to immediately wake him up. “Hey, sorry…” Benji said regretfully.
The man stretched out as much as he could in the seat and shook his head. “It’s fine. Sorry I uh…fell asleep.”
“No big. People usually sleep on road trips with me. I guess I’m boring,” he joked.
“Or just trustworthy.”
Benji smiled. “Maybe that.”
Sawyer ran his fingers through his shaggy, dark locks and released a breath before he spoke, “Do you know where we are?”
“No, not really. Just on the turnpike somewhere. I’m trying to get as far as we can before stopping for gas,” he paused then said, “Which will be soon. Got a little less than a quarter of a tank.” The last thing he wanted was to run out of gas. That would be terrible.
He nodded. “Yeah, makes sense.”
“You have cash, right?” Benji asked, glancing towards Sawyer for a moment.
Sawyer unzipped the backpack that Cole had packed him and began to dig through it. There were some changes of clothes, granola bars and at the very bottom, an envelope. He pulled it out and opened it up. A small stack of green bills were inside. “Yeah… We’re good.”
“Good. I don’t want to spend all your money but–”
“It’s fine, Benji. I don’t have a lot anyway. Less than a grand, probably. But that should get us to where we have to go.”
“And then some.”
Sawyer huffed. “Good.”
Benji’s gaze shifted towards the side of the road, glancing at the road sign.
“Looks like there’s a rest stop in thirty five miles.
We’ll stop there.” He looked back to Sawyer for a moment.
“You…might want to change. I don’t think they’d want to provide service to someone in your state… ” Meaning the blood.
Not that Benji was much better. His shirt was coated in it and when they were getting into the car, he was hit in the leg by one of the stray bullets. It wasn’t deep though, mostly a graze. But it still bled a decent amount before it finally calmed down.
“Oh, yeah. True.” Sawyer turned around to the backseat, as if he was going to crawl back there to change but he quickly turned back and frowned deeply. “Is it okay if I change up here?”
Benji’s brow raised before he shrugged. “Yeah, it’s cool. I think we’re past the point of modesty, honestly,” he chuckled, “You helped me piss. Several times.”
Sawyer wobbled his head back and forth. “Fair enough.”
“I’ll uh…keep my eyes on the road though.”
“Shouldn’t you be doing that anyway?” His brow raised as he unbuttoned his bloody jeans and unzipped them.
“Touché.”
Benji did what he said, though. He did keep his eyes on the road and only on the road.
He couldn’t really do much about his peripheral vision, however.
That just happened naturally. He saw him pull his shirt from his torso and tossed it into the backseat before he pulled his jeans off.
When Sawyer leaned over to look in his bag for a shirt, Benji noticed the bandages across his shoulders.
He felt the frown tugging at his lips. “How do those feel?” He asked.
“Fine, I guess,” Sawyer said, “I mean, they’re sore but that’s part of healing. Cole had done a good cleaning on them the other day so that's good.”
He just nodded his head. He didn’t really know what else to say about it. He just wanted to make sure he was okay. “And your hand?”
Sawyer released a breath. “I’m sure it’s fucked for the rest of my life. I can’t move a few of my fingers but I can’t complain. I’m lucky to be able to move any of them. But I really do need to get to a doctor to…I don’t know. Sew it back together? Skin graft? I don’t actually know how it’ll work.”
“Right,” he sighed. “I know the safehouse guy has medics on standby so I can ask him if he can get one for us.”
Sawyer pulled his shirt over his head and slipped the jeans on awkwardly. “That would be nice,” he answered sincerely, buttoning his now clean jeans. “How are you feeling?”
That was a good question. How did Benji feel?
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment before he dragged his tongue across it and shrugged.
“Uh…I don’t know. Physically? Alright, I guess.
Now that the adrenaline has died down, I feel like I'm getting over the flu. The hole in my mouth is annoying and the bullet wound–”
“What?!” Sawyer suddenly exclaimed, turning his entire body towards Benji.
He looked at him, “It’s nothing.”
“You got shot?!”
“Really, it’s nothing. It’s just a graze. It stopped bleeding eventually.”
Sawyer sighed while he rubbed his eyes with his wrist. “I’m sure you’ll need stitches.”
“Probably, but that’s a later Benji problem,” he smiled. “But besides those issues, I’m okay, I guess. I just…feel odd. In general.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I kinda get that.”
Benji figured he would. The whole situation was just weird. Not that most situations in his life weren’t weird, but that one had to take the cake. “I know it’s not over. It’s really just the beginning. But it just felt…really easy.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought the same thing. But that fire was massive… I’m sure Milo is busy taking care of that.
Plus, he probably has to talk to the cops about everything.
Our operation wasn’t exactly legal, I don’t think.
So, honestly, Cole setting that fire probably bought us more time than our original plan did. ”
That was the biggest difference between what Milo and his thugs did versus what his family did.
They were a legitimate business. They were trusted by the military to do these things.
They had their backs and would do what they could to keep them protected, he was sure of it.
“I guess so,” he mumbled. “It still just…felt easy.”
Sawyer reached his hand out and rubbed it along Benji’s upper arm. “Maybe we deserve easy.”
He turned his gaze towards the man beside him and nodded. “Yeah, maybe we do.”
Pulling up to a gas pump, Benji turned the car off and released a breath.
They had made it. No one had stopped them.
No one had noticed them. The rest was really up to him to get them to where they needed to go so they could actually fucking relax.
Sawyer was gazing out the window towards the rest stop.
Sawyer said it himself that he didn’t leave the bunker much.
He could only imagine how he was feeling. “You good?”
Sawyer nodded. “Yeah, I’m good,” he answered quickly and looked at Benji, “So we need a phone, right?”
“Yeah. One of those cheap burner ones where you can buy minutes. Grab one of those and maybe…100 minutes? To be safe? And if there’s a map, maybe snag that too.
” Benji knew they were still in New Jersey, on the way to somewhere called East Brunswick, but having a map would help tremendously.
His contact had safehouses everywhere. He was sure they’d have one in their area.
“Yep, okay. I can do that. I’ll get us some water too and something to eat.” Sawyer pulled out some cash.
“Make sure you have enough for the gas too. Probably forty bucks should be good.”
“Right, okay.”
“Just say you want forty on five, they’ll take care of the rest.”
“Forty on five,” Sawyer repeated and smiled, “Got it. Never done that before.”
Benji chuckled. “It’s so exciting, isn’t it?”
“Kinda is,” he smiled and shrugged. “I’ll be back soon.” Sawyer hopped out of the car and walked towards the building.