Snap by Ellie Rollins Read Free Book Online

Danya did. But instead of speeding up, she stopped running completely.
    The teenager on the bike circled back around. He zoomed past, and Pia’s eyes followed him like a cat tracking its prey. She pulled Danya’s bag over her shoulder and started to run. As soon as she caught up with the boy on the bicycle, she grabbed his arm and pulled herself onto his handlebars.
    â€œGo!” Pia shouted. The boy looked shocked, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He stood on his pedals and sped up until they were directly behind the truck.
    â€œGrab on!” Pia shouted. She tossed the backpack at Danya and it hit her square in the chest, knocking her back into Sancho, who whinnied and kicked at the corn with his hind legs. Pia held tight to the other strap. She and the boy on the bike were pulled forward quickly, causing the bike to swerve beneath them.
    â€œReel me in, Snap!” Pia yelled. Danya nodded and pulled the backpack to her chest. Even sitting, she was dragged forward by Pia’s weight, all the way to the edge of the truck bed. Sancho scooted up and chomped down on the seat of her pants to hold her steady.
    â€œThanks, buddy,” Danya said. She yanked the backpack, pulling Pia all the way up to the edge of the flatbed. The boy on the bike peddled furiously as Pia grabbed onto the gate at the back of the truck, which was flapping back and forth in the wind, and pulled herself inside. For a second she didn’t move, clearly exhausted.
    â€œYou okay?” Danya asked as Pia sat up. Pia answered with a wide smile that showed off the gap in her teeth.
    â€œNever been better!” She leaned back, easily popping the ear of corn from the door latch so she could pull the back gate shut. “Thanks!” she shouted after the teenager on the bike. Then she laughed and flopped back onto the corn, her eyes wide and glistening with excitement. “That was
awesome
!”
    Danya exhaled. Her arms shook from exhaustion and nerves, but she threw them around Pia’s neck anyway.
    â€œDon’t do that again,” she said, giving Pia a tight squeeze before punching her playfully on the arm. “You could have gotten hurt!”
    Pia grinned wickedly. “Got your stuff, didn’t I?”
    Danya shook her head. The distant glow of the Louisville lights looked like tiny stars pulled down to the horizon. Though she knew it was impossible, Danya imagined she could see her neighborhood. She even picked one of the tiny lights and pretended it was her house. She pictured her mother singing along with the radio in the kitchen and her dad putting away the extra cheese from the market. But as the truck rumbled down the highway, the lights grew dimmer, then disappeared altogether.
    They were on their way.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Heavy Metal Turtle and the Ghost Hunters
    T he next morning, sun crept up over the distant hills, casting dusty strips of gold over the pages of Danya’s open book. She’d been trying to write a letter to her mom and dad, explaining why she’d run away, but she couldn’t get her words down the way she wanted to. She’d picked up the book for a short break, but now she was to the part where Ferdinand and Dapple confronted the cow bandits. The scene was so tense she could hardly tear her eyes away.
    The truck was parked in front of an old motel. Turtle, the driver, had checked in the night before to get some sleep.
    Danya knew the truck driver’s name was Turtle because he talked to himself—a
lot
. The night before, he’d left the windows of his truck open while he drove, and he blasted heavy metal music and made drumming noises by blowing air through his lips. Most of the time his music was so loud it was impossible to hear anything else, but whenever there was a break, his voice drifted through the cracked back window right above Danya’s and Pia’s heads.
    â€œThe Turtle’s burning out,” he’d said. “Better find a