Free The Legend of Kareem by Jim Heskett Page B

gone.
    “Oh, no, shit, no. Where the hell did he go?” I yelled his name. No answer.
    I blindly ran into the darkness beyond the motel. With my phone out, I turned on the flashlight app, which barely lit fifteen feet in front of me. Nothing but gravel parking lot and then dirt and weeds trampled under my feet.
    But I kept running and shouting Omar’s name every few seconds. He couldn’t have gone anywhere, could he? More likely, he’d been snatched. I’d left him alone, and they’d come back and taken him.
    Snatched, and now gone forever.
    Then I heard a grunt, like an animal, to my right. I flicked the flashlight in that direction and saw a figure huddled against a barbed wire fence, with one hand grasping the wire. Saw his chest heaving.
    “Omar?”
    He raised his head, panting. “What happened?”
    “I think you had a seizure.”
    He fell forward and crawled toward me. I ran to him, took him by the hand, and helped him to his feet.
    “Yes,” he said, “I remember now. I felt it when it began.”
    “Tell me what to do. Do we need to go to the hospital?”
    He shook his head. “No. Just some water, please. I have some medication in my bag. Can you get it for me?”
    I helped him to the motel and sat him down on the bed. I made sure he was comfortable, then went to the car, retrieved his suitcase, and dug out a collection of pill bottles. Got him a glass of water from the bathroom sink.
    He downed his pills and laid back on the bed. “Thank you.”
    “Do you get those seizures often?”
    “From time to time. It is worse when I am under a lot of stress. I try to stay calm as much as possible.”
    Well, maybe I shouldn't have kidnapped him from his quiet life in Austin and made him go on a suicidal and poorly-planned road trip with me to Mexico. But it was a little late for that.
    “Who did they send from the company?”
    “The CEO, a guy named Edgar.”
    Omar mused on this for a few seconds. “I do not know that name. Are you sure he was with IntelliCraft?”
    “He had a guy with him that I know for sure is one of them.”
    “This is bad,” he said.
    “Yeah, that’s an understatement. What are we supposed to do? They can somehow track our every move. I don’t know how we’re going to keep you safe out here if we can’t go around unnoticed.”
    Omar finished the rest of his water and coughed for a few seconds. “I have an idea, but it may be a poor one.”
    I laughed, a little nervous titter. “One poor idea is better than the zero brilliant ideas I have right now.”
    “Can you trust me?”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Then I know a place we can go, to the south of here. I know some people, and they are not what you might deem good people, but they may be willing to help us. It will not be easy, and there could be some danger. But if this is all we have, then this is what we must do.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
     
    I couldn’t sleep. The motel bed was too soft, and my body kept bending at weird angles. With Omar snoring softly in the other bed, I slipped out and went into the motel courtyard. A covered pool sat in the middle, so I went into the fenced-in area and sat on a lawn chair.
    A long time ago, my mom and my dad and I had taken a trip to Myrtle Beach, and for some reason, I’d preferred the hotel pool to the beach. The beach was only a few blocks away, but I just wanted to swim in the chlorine and hang out on the pool chairs. I couldn’t have been more than twelve.
    That was the last year I’d spend with Heath Candle. The last time I saw him was only a few months after that, at my sixth-grade science fair. He’d come to see my project at school that day, my poster board presentation about how volcano eruptions affect the atmosphere. I didn’t see him until the end, after I’d accepted my third-place ribbon, when I noticed him at the back of the room. He claimed he didn’t want to interrupt me, but I knew that was bullshit, even at that age. He’d