Previously - Zack and Sydney navigate through the back roads to find an alternate route to the highway. Sydney tells Zack she wants to split up before also sharing that a much larger opportunity is ripe for the picking…
Zack squinted until the oncoming car’s high beams were switched to low and they rounded the corner on the highway. Hoodoos loomed over the Subaru as they zipped along and the evening sky had darkened, threatening the encompassing darkness of night. They had been driving in silence for the past hour, ever since another BOLO with Sydney’s car and description had come on the radio and Sydney had melted down again.
Zack had been running his options through his head as they drove. What would he do if he was alone? Would they split the money? What would Sydney do? It didn’t really make sense, but Zack understood. Sydney didn’t ask to be a criminal.
A small ding rang out from the car’s dashboard.
Sydney looked over from the passenger seat, “Oh, shit. That’s the gas light. Are we close to a gas station?”
A green highway sign let them know they were ten kilometres outside of Invermere. Zack let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, we will need to stop anyway. Listen, there might be people there looking for our car, so we will need to be quick. We should go to the bank and grab as much cash as we can to help us until we get to Calgary.”
Sydney sat up, her eyes wide and white as another car’s lights flooded the interior of the car. “Won’t that put them onto us? I thought we were trying to avoid trouble.”
Zack licked his lips. “Yeah, they will probably get an alert telling them where we are. That’s why we need to be smart about it and be quick. Let’s find a quiet gas station. I might know one near the Bakery my grandma used to own.”
Sydney groaned and shook her head, “Fuck.”
Zack turned at the light and took the road into the town. As he cruised down past the lake, he pulled into a small gas station that looked pretty abandoned.
“You have any cash?” He asked.
Sydney dug through her purse, “I have…thirty bucks?”
Zack had ten dollars. Forty dollars might be enough to get them to Calgary. He took Sydney’s money and went into the gas station. Zack tried to hide his face as he approached the counter.
“Forty of regular on pump number one, please.”
The man at the till was watching something on a small TV. Without responding, he took the money and ran it through the till, hardly looking at Zack. Zack peered over the counter at the TV. Bhangra dancers. Some Bollywood romance, probably. He scurried out of there as quick as he could.
With the Subaru filled with just over half a tank, Zack navigated into town to the bakery. He pulled into the alleyway adjacent and turned off the car.
“Do you think they have internet? I’d like to see if my family is okay,” Sydney said.
Zack closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Wifi and connecting to family was a bad idea if they were going to stay under the radar and ahead of the police. Zack opened his eyes and looked at Sydney. She had her hands clasped under her chin and was blinking her long eyelashes at him. “Please?”
Zack chuckled. “Okay. The bank is just across the street. Let’s try and take as much cash out as possible, use the wifi at the bakery, then get out of town. Deal?”
Sydney flashed a smile at Zack that made his heart flip, then she jumped out of the car. Zack watched her hurry across the street and then walk up to the illuminated ATM outside of the bank. Green and blue lights turned Sydney into a silhouette, and Zack saw the small ATM screen change.
She hadn’t stood there for very long until she ran back to the Subaru.
“What’s up?” Zack asked, as Sydney plopped back down into the passenger seat.
“So…I tried all of my cards, Zack.”
“And?”
“Umm. None of them work. I think they froze my assets? Fucking assholes.”
“Shit. Uh…Okay. Why don’t you get us some bread or something at the bakery and take a minute.”
Sydney nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Zack.”
Zack smiled. “No problem.”
Zack jogged across the road to the ATM. He did his best to obscure his face and slid his card into the reader. He tapped on the pad, inputting his PIN, and looked around as his account information loaded. Nobody was on the street. The local thrift store turned off its lights and someone flipped the open sign to closed. Zack was thankful they chose to stop in a small town.
His account information popped up.
Current balance: -$224.43
Available to Withdraw: $775.57
Choosing to withdraw money while your account balance is in overdraft will incur $5.00 in fees.
Zack typed in $775.57 into the ATM and hit the button. A loading wheel, what his dad called the ’spinning wheel of death,’ popped up and Zack rubbed his hands together. “Come on…” he urged.
Insufficient funds.
“Shit!” Zack exclaimed. He looked over his shoulder back at the empty street, and then tried his credit card.
He hammered his PIN and selected cash advance. The spinning wheel of death came back and Zack tapped his foot impatiently. The ATM said that he had $500 available to take out. Zack took a deep breath and hit the CONFIRM button.
“Please, please, please,” Zack prayed.
Suddenly, the ATM whirred and the sound of cash popping into the cash dispenser broke the silence of the dark evening. “Holy shit,” Zack breathed, “Thank the Lord.”
Zack took the money and stuffed it into his pocket and jogged back to the car. Sydney had already gone into the bakery, so Zack decided to check for a different licence plate he could steal. That’s what they’d do in the movies.
He scrounged in the Subaru until he found a few different loose coins, a quarter and a dime, that might work for his plan. He dug his phone out of his backpack and turned on the flashlight. He exited the car and scanned the other cars that were parked near the bakery.
He stopped at a mid-2000’s sedan with a white and red Alberta licence plate. It was parked in the dark, away from the streetlight, and it featured exactly what Zack was looking for: slotted screws holding the licence plate to the bumper. Zack chuckled when he saw the licence plate holder: PROUD PARENT OF A ROYAL CANADIAN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE.
The same shitty University that he had been expelled from. Zack stifled his laughter in his sleeve.
He ducked behind the car and turned off the flashlight. He quickly used the coin to find the right fit and grunted until he had loosened the screws holding the licence plate. He pulled the plate off of the car and turned to go, then paused. He grabbed the licence plate holder that he’d let fall to the ground as well and ran in a crouch back to the Subaru, avoiding the light.
He had the BC plates off of the Subaru and was tightening the Alberta plate onto the rear bumper when Sydney got back.
“Proud parent of a Royal Canadian University Graduate? Isn’t that…?” she asked.
Zack smiled. “Yep. Ironic, eh? And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sure. I grabbed some bread, but I couldn’t figure out how to get on the internet. I didn’t want to ask anyone…you know…if they recognized me from TV or something,” Sydney said, toeing some gravel with her shoe.
Zack hopped up and dusted himself off. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Zack led Sydney into the bakery, where she found a table. There were a few people still in the bakery, but it was pretty empty. A few TVs showing news or sports highlights blared colourful lights over the empty tables. Not a huge surprise for the time of day. Zack stood in line and waited.
“Just so you all know, we are closing in thirty minutes,” an employee said.
Zack stepped up to the counter. “Hi, could I please have a tea? Also, what is the wifi password?”
Suddenly, a news flash popped up on the TV. Zack stared as his photo was shown beside Sydney’s. He froze as a photo of the Subaru followed their faces. The TV was muted, but the closed captioning stated that Sydney and Zack were fugitives, wanted in connection to a possible bank robbery. A photo of their branch popped up, and then they were interviewing Morgan.
Fuck.
“You okay?” the clerk asked. She held out a piece of paper to Zack.
It took everything Zack had to smile and tear his eyes away from the TV.
“Yeah. Thanks,” he said, taking his tea with a shaking hand.
He hurried back to the table and handed the wifi password to Sydney. “Did you see anything on the TV just now?”
Sydney was busy typing the wifi password into her phone, “No. Why?”
Zack gulped and hunched down, hoping to remain as anonymous as possible. “Nothing. Heard anything from your family?”
Sydney tapped on her phone, and then her face went white. She shook her head and then leaned in closer, as if she couldn’t believe what she was reading.
“What is it?” Zack asked, sipping his tea.
Tears started to run down Sydney’s cheeks again. “When they froze my assets, they must have put a stop payment on all of my bills and everything. My dad emailed and he can’t get any more medication because I was paying for it. Zack, that is the only thing that I want to do. I have to get him his meds, or he is in trouble. I think I told you he doesn’t have insurance, right?”
Zack nodded. “Yeah. You did.”
“I need to get some money together to send to him,” she leaned back and sighed, “this is such bullshit.”
Zack thought back to the thrift store. “You know, I have an idea to get some more money. Some real money. Like, fuck you money. If you are interested, I mean.”
Sydney wiped away her tears and looked up at Zack with bloodshot eyes. “I’m listening,” she said.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Zack said, his chair squealing as he stood, “the cops might know we’ve been here, now that we used the ATM.”