Texas Princess and the Car Thief

Looking out the window, Valerie felt alone. She shouldn’t, it was foolish to feel alone in a house full of people. If you can consider her three younger brothers “people”. She never really fit in with her family, and doubt she ever would.

Her eyes met with the stars above, wishing so desperately to be anywhere but here. She felt trapped here. She wasn’t allowed to be herself. Even her thoughts and wishes now, if her mother could only hear them, she would be getting an earful. Good girls don’t cry, don’t complain. They do as they are told.

Valerie sighed, closing the window. It didn’t matter how much she wished, how much she pleaded. Things would never change. At nineteen, she should be well within her rights to leave the house, start her own life.

Only, things aren’t that simple. From the moment Valerie was born, the oldest descendant to one of the richest families in the Texas area. None other than the oil tycoons themselves. The Warren family from Warren oil’s. If you haven’t heard of them, you can’t be from Texas. Everyone here knows who Valerie is.

You would think being the oldest descendant of the oil tycoon would mean the world is open to her, sadly, the opposite is true. Her family, since Valerie could remember, have raised her for one purpose only, to marry Gregory Maddox.

The Maddox family came from newer money, they created some valuable parts of cyber security software and made a huge fortune practically overnight. However, the inner circle of snobs, as Valerie referred to them as, didn’t recognize them as part of the group. Simply because their great, great, great ancestors didn’t go to prep school together.

Alex, her father, noticed the important direction the Maddox family was bringing to the world, so as a way to help both of them improve their standing. Valerie was offered as a sacrifice to Gregory on her twentieth birthday, which was two weeks from now.

Maybe sacrifice was too strong of a word. It didn’t change the fact that neither she, nor Gregory, were thrilled with this arrangement. Not that there was anything wrong with Gregory, a lot of women would find him attractive. He was tall, dark and handsome. Just not Valerie’s dream guy. Every girl dreams of her wedding day. In her dreams, Gregory wasn’t in them.

Valerie knew she wasn’t part of his either, because he was already dating an up and coming model named Hannah. Valerie was cute and all; but she knew she was nowhere in the league of an upcoming model. She didn’t feel like competing with that, or forcing Gregory to choose and end up hating Valerie.

If she didn’t want to marry him, why didn’t she just run? You may ask. The option has occurred to Valerie, ever since she was sixteen. Being the richest girl in Texas after all, you would think she could go anywhere, or do anything; like her brother Teddy.

Teddy was the youngest and the goofball of the family. He had been traveling the world since he was a little kid and going to school in Europe, just because he thought it was cool. Seriously? Forget Marcus. He was just becoming a teenager and couldn’t communicate with anyone lately about anything. The only sane brother she had was Vincent, but he spent most of the day working in the garage. Not the ideal son of a famous billionaire, but machines were his passion and had been for a long time.

Valerie wished she could have a passion. But…Nope, she was stuck at home, being groomed to be the perfect wife for Gregory. All the money she had was tied up in a trust account that could only be unlocked the day of the wedding. Valerie talked to a few attorneys. They all told her the same thing. Not only did she have to marry to get the trust fund, she had to stay married to Gregory. Should she get a divorce, regardless if she was the one who filed for it or not, the trust fund would be taken away from her.

Valerie never worked, was never allowed to have a job. She wasn’t even allowed to go to school. Valerie was home schooled with private tutors. She technically graduated from high school and received a diploma, but never got to attend a graduation. When the family would go out to eat, she was here with the staff. She wasn’t allowed to leave this house, this prison. Every attempt was made to make sure she was going to be ‘the perfect wife’.

Valerie wouldn’t mind as much if she had a say in who she was going to marry. Gregory was attractive, but she could not look at him as anything but the annoying kid that always showed up at her birthdays and ate all the cake. They may eventually be friends, but never in love.

On her eighteenth birthday she tried to tell her mother this. Her mother responded by telling her love wasn’t needed for marriage, only respect. It was hard for Valerie to respect someone who didn’t speak to her much. She didn’t see that changing after they married.

A week after her eighteenth birthday, Valerie did try to run. She ran far and fast, and back two days later. It was after she ran, she realized how little she knew of the world outside the bubble.

Decatur, Texas wasn’t large after all, it wasn’t hard for her to find her way around. But the issue she ran into, she had no money, no food, little job skills. Forget asking her to do trivial things like her laundry.

She ended up tucking her tail back between her legs and went home, pride stinging, but still wiser. Since that night, she had been saving. Not much, a few dollars here and there. Along with doing research on the outside world. Soon, it would be time to leave this place.

Soon, Valerie thought one final time, looking out the window picturing the stars still alive above her in the night sky, as she drifted off to sleep, in her sleep she dreamt of freedom, of driving far…far away from this place…

–

“Luke, hey Luke,” A voice called out snapping him out of his revere. Luke was looking up at the stars wishing he could be anywhere but here right now. Looking back to Earth, he found the source of the voice to be his cousin Peter. “Where are you right now? You’re supposed to be the lookout.”

Now when you hear lookout, you may be thinking Luke is in the military or something cool like that, nope. He and his family are car thieves. Well, his cousins steal the cars, he is usually the lookout.

Before you get all judgmental on Luke and his family, look at it this way. Stealing cars keeps them from starving to death. Plus, they have a set of rules for stealing, rules they will never waver from.

Rule number one. They never steal from their own neighborhood. Or any of the poor areas in Fort Worth, Texas. Only from the rich mother fuckers, who have six others like it in their garage at home. The kind of people who have insurance and their insurance agent will have a new one delivered the next day like nothing happened.

Rule number two. Do your research and know the target. Rich people have more money than they know what to do with. The ones with multiple cars at home tend to have favorites. They were easy to spot, once you did, you left it alone. The richies were more willing to part with the rarely driven car, than the one they cherished and drove everywhere.

Rule number three. No luggage comes with it, all personal belongings are ditched away from the car. This includes any money, phones, cards and other personal belongings. These things can be tracked easily, much easier than a car broken down to a million pieces.

Rule number four, everyone sticks together and watches everyone’s back. They may not all like one another, in fact, most of them can’t stand the other. But they had to trust one another. If one got caught and locked up in jail, it only caused more work for the rest.

Once the cars are taken to the stripping facility, they are stripped and sold for parts that go back into repair shops to fix the other five cars in the rich peoples garage. So one might say, Luke and his family are helping the economy and in turn those people. They get use out of their insurance they pay an arm and a leg for, and they don’t have to search for parts when one of their precious pieces falls off.

At least that is what his cousins try to tell him. Luke personally wanted out of this place, out of this situation. He couldn’t wait to escape this place. This hell, it was a prison, but it was how people where he lived made money. It was either steal cars or deal drugs to get money and he wasn’t about to deal drugs.

His family may be a bunch of assholes, Hell, he knows they are. The rules they set up, yes it means they are there for one another. But mostly it is to try to alleviate the guilt. Luke knew this, he wasn’t dumb like his cousins. They had the whole “they’re billionaires and not going to miss a quarter of a million dollar car” mentality drilled into their brains so hard they could shit out the motto by now. Not Luke, he knew better.

Why hasn’t Luke run yet? Simple, he has no means to escape. It didn’t mean he hadn’t tried. He had, several times, several different ways. Some legal, some not so legal. In the end he always had to suck in his pride and return home to his asshole family.

He was stuck, it was that simple. As much as people preach that things can be different, he knew better by now. His dad tried to warn him. People in this world didn’t give two shits about people like them. Luke was stuck here with a life he hated, nothing and nobody was going to make that any different.

Valerie looked around, making sure she was alone in the house. Never knew when one of her brothers was going to come around. She had a hiding spot where she was keeping everything she needed.

Her personal yoga instructor had agreed to speak to a friend about letting her stay at their place in Fort Worth, she just needed to get past all her brothers and the help. Most of the hired hands at the house hated her father. Only the butler, security detail and his driver were completely loyal to him. That was enough. If any of the security detail saw her trying to sneak out of the house a week before the wedding, the night after the rehearsal dinner. Her father would be made aware and squash any plans she was currently making.

Security was added after her last running attempt, despite her assurances she wouldn’t try again, they were all over the house, it took her over a year and many sleepless nights, but she finally figured out their pattern. They always shift around this time to get coffee or a snack.

Tiptoeing down the hall, as she rehearsed a million times, she seemed to magically find every creek in the floor beneath her bare feet. It also could be how much in tune she was to all the noises around her.

Her nerves and adrenaline were hitting an all time high. If she was caught it would spell disaster. Any time she was practicing before she could easily say she was going to go get a drink or snack from the kitchen. She’d have to listen to her mother scold her about her figure for an hour. Valerie didn’t have that luxury now. She had a bag full of money she stashed for a year, a prepaid phone, a preloaded Visa card, and all her identification.

She brought three changes of clothes and all her girl essentials from the bathroom. The bag was heavy, but necessary. She wasn’t going to be able to come back for anything else. She also has to spend the money she has wisely until she gets a job.

Valerie stopped in the hall, waiting for the guards to go into the study so she could get around them and out to the kitchen. There was a garage out there with a car her brother was working on. It ran but wasn’t registered yet. This meant if she took it, there were no plates to run. It also meant if she got stopped, all she had to do was show her ID to the police. No one would give the oldest daughter of Warren Oil a ticket. They would never call her dad either, not at first at least, as they wouldn’t want to get fired for pulling his daughter over.

As she paused in the hall, she wondered if Fort Worth was far enough to run. It wasn’t like her father’s hold over Texas stopped at Decatur’s city limits. He likely could find her no matter where in Texas she went to. This meant her stop in Fort Worth would likely be temporary. She may have to go further, even Oklahoma or heck, all the way to Wisconsin. Who would think to look for her there? She had only seen snow a handful of times in her life. It may be interesting to see it where it sticks around more than a day or two.

The door of the study clicked closed, Valerie didn’t wait to bolt out the door. She was out of the kitchen and into the warm evening air. Even at night, it never seemed to cool down. Except in the middle of winter. Being September, winter was a long way off.

Getting out to the garage, she took the keys out of her bag for her brother’s car. She saw him out here today. Valerie sent a silent prayer to the Karma Gods that he hadn’t disconnected the starter to this thing.

This was her last chance to get out. This was the last night she was going to have any freedom before the wedding. If she didn’t get out tonight, she wouldn’t at all. She put the car in neutral, popped the brake off and got out to push.

Valerie wasn’t the strongest person in the world, still she considered herself in decent shape. Many would say she was too skinny, but that was her mom’s fault, not hers. She weighed all of 135 pounds. Being five feet, six inches tall, she looked short and skinny.

If it was up to her, she’d have about fifteen pounds more of muscle. Her mom said that women didn’t need muscles. Good girls focused more on exercises like treadmill and elliptical to keep their figure trim, not build muscle.

‘Good girls didn’t argue with their mother or try to run away either,’ a devilish voice in Valerie’s head chimed in. She smirked in response to the mischievous voice. She only recently discovered this wild inhabited side of herself. She may let it out more.

At the end of the impossibly long driveway, seriously who needs a 200 foot driveway? Valerie put the car in park and opened the gate. The gate was the easiest part of everything. It was automated by a simple button press on the inside, on the outside it required a code to open. Only incorrect entry attempts were alerted to the security team.

Squealing in delight at things working out as they should, Valerie climbs in the car, and turns the key to start the engine. It seems, fate has a way of playing tricks on you, as the car did not start.

“What? No, no…no…no…no,” Valerie began to repeat to herself over and over. She kept turning the key and the engine turned over a little more each time.

“Come on, please,” Valerie begged the car, she had stooped low enough to beg to an inanimate machine. “You stupid…” Valerie stopped herself there. Good girls don’t curse, they are creative and give thought to their actions. Her mom’s voice came to memory.

Grunting, Valerie slams her hand on the steering wheel. “Get out of my head!” Valerie shouted at her mom’s voice. She was leaving her mom. She was gone, who cared if she swore or not?

Still, Valerie couldn’t bring herself to actually get the words out. Then, the gate started closing. She was concerned, she never tried to open it more than once. It is possible they would get alerted if the gate opened more than once?

Valerie tried to start the car again, she swore she heard footsteps coming up behind her. She thought it could be her imagination, but as she looked in the rearview mirror, sure enough, flashlights were leaving the house looking down the driveway.

They must have noticed she wasn’t in her bedroom and went out to look for her. This meant she was spending too much time to try to get this started. Valerie considered ditching the car and taking off on foot. There was no way she would outrun the security guards though.

Her hopes started and ended with this….car. Great, she couldn’t even swear in her thoughts. If they caught her, the first thing she was doing was swearing to her mom’s face. A knock on the window caused her to panic slightly.

She noticed her oldest brother, the only one she had ever confided in, standing there. He was flashing a light in the window, blinding her. Though she didn’t imagine he would be the one to catch her, it just proved, Valerie could trust no one in her family.

Still, Vincent didn’t open the door or make demands that she return to her room. He simply made a gesture. It took her a moment to realize he was asking her to pop the hood. Out of options, she pressed the button to pop the hood.

Within moments, the hood was slammed closed and he gestured for her to try the car again. This time, it started with no issues. Valerie breathed out a sigh of relief, it was brief, as the flashlights that were once by the house, were getting closer by the minute. Still, Valerie couldn’t leave without wishing her brother goodbye. He had just come to her rescue.

Rolling down the window Valerie reached over and took Vincent’s hand. He smiled, he understood, she knew he understood why she was leaving. He was the only one in the family who tried to talk mom out of the insane plan of marrying her off to Gregory. Insisting he had enough ideas to save the family without having to sacrifice one of their own. Surprise, surprise, no one listened to him.

“Thank you,” Valerie said to her brother.

“Don’t come back, mom may kill you this time,” Vincent warned.

“I’m not coming back,” Valerie assured him. “I’m going to miss you. I can let you know when I’m safe.”

“It’s better you don’t. I will miss you, but I don’t want mom and dad to have anything to track you down with,” Vincent replied. It was obvious the response was hard for him to make. He wanted to know what happened, just as much as Valerie did.

These were the final words exchanged between them, Valerie wondered briefly if she should hug him, but the gate started to close again, limiting her chances. “Goodbye,” Valerie said one final time as she had to put the car in drive and hit the gas as it was to get out just before the gate clicked shut, affecting ending her life as a prisoner. Now there was only an open road ahead of her… She was never going to be a prisoner again.

–

Luke wandered down the street, thumbs in his jeans. At twenty-two, he thought his life would turn out differently. Well, check that, somewhere…deep down, he knew he was going to be destined to end up on the streets. No matter what bullshit the counselors at school tried to spout out.

If you didn’t make it in sports, you weren’t noticed where he grew up. Too many mouths, too many people, not enough jobs. The life expectancy in his neighborhood was only forty. By that time you were either so doped out of your mind you died, killed yourself because you were a broke ass mother fucker, or were killed by someone because you had shoes and they needed them.

Gangs were safer, or so it seemed. His family wasn’t part of a gang, in a traditional sense. They were a gang. Noone messes with them. Simply because they had the numbers. Parkers were about as white trash as you can get. Growing up in a shithole of a house handed down from their father’s, father.

Rats were common in the house, food was not as common. Even if they had a huge score with cars and car parts. Everything went to the entire family. Luke barely saw any of it. It seemed fucked up that he was out here working his fingers to the bone, risking his ass. Yet he got none of the profit in return.

Kicking a rock into the distance, he climbed the fence in a no trespassing district. Typically the no trespassing signs did dick to actually prevent trespassing, but in this case there are dogs on the property.

Luke had been here enough that he knew how to avoid them. Good thing too, as they were bred guard dogs. They’d attack you without thinking twice. All one had to do was stay high enough out of their jump.

Even as it sounds easy, it isn’t. There is a narrow ledge to balance on. It was dangerous for anyone, even someone with as much practice as he had. One slip and he was done for, dog meat, never to be heard from again. Not that anyone would miss him. The only reason his mom even keeps him around is she lies to the fucking government saying he goes to school. Gives her extra welfare money and money back on her taxes.

Not that she ever pays any taxes but she sure as Hell files and gets a return every year. The whole thing sickened the fuck out of him. Luke hated living this way. When he was in school, he swore there had to be a way to get out of this place. A way that didn’t include getting shot, getting picked on a sports team, or getting involved in drugs.

He actually worked hard in school, thinking maybe he could get one of those scholarships people talked about. His counselor was happy to blow sunshine up Luke’s ass about how great it was he wanted to make something of his life.

During High School, he worked the typical crap jobs teenagers seem to always get. Fast food and working as a dishwasher. Anything to save some money. Only none of his college acceptance letters had come back. He worked his ass off for this and didn’t hear jack as a result.

Arriving back to the shit hole known as his house, Luke moved towards his bedroom. On the way he hears a set of screaming voices. It wasn’t unusual to hear. His parents were often arguing or fucking. There seemed to be no middle ground between them.

His mom came from another poor family in the neighborhood. Never knew either of his grandparents. Both were killed when he was just a baby. Knowing half of his life was over, it didn’t set well with Luke. Was he really going to sit here and do nothing the rest of his life? Just wait for it to end one day?

Feeling frustrated, Luke went to the only part of the house they were forbidden to go to. It was considered his father’s “office” ; it was basically a larger closet with a folding desk inside. Typically Luke hated closed space, it made him feel like he was in prison. He had been in and out of jail a few times.

Tonight though, the soundproofing of the closet was welcome. He turned on the overhead light bulb. The cheap fluorescence flickered and hummed to a very dull life. Just like his.

The faded fake leather chair ripped at the seams, stuffing was starting to come out, it squeaked in protest as Luke sat down, still, it was comfortable enough. Luke had been in this space often enough with his dad behind the desk, never by himself. Once he was, he noticed a lock drawer with the key still inside.

Whatever the argument was about, it likely started fast and got heated in a hurry, his father never left the drawer unlocked. As he slid it open, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Mostly bills that looked like they were well past due. Collection notices on all different loans his father took to keep them in the shitty excuse of a house. Maybe he should just let them take it. Living in a group home couldn’t be much worse than here.

Below those, he noticed his name. Hands shaking, Luke picked up the envelope and noticed there was more than one envelope in the drawer addressed to him. Carefully he turned them over and noticed the seal was broken on every single envelope. Several people had tried to contact him and he never knew.

Opening the first envelope he noticed it was a letter addressed to him. After skimming the first few lines, he had to go back to the beginning to make sure he was really reading this correctly.

‘Greetings Luke, It is with great honor, I am writing his letter. Due to your outstanding test scores and work ethic, we will be happy to have you a part of the Engineering program at the University of Houston. I understand you likely have your choice of schools. Please take a moment to list why you should choose our university.’

The next envelope he tore open, same letter, but for Texas Tech. Baylor, University of North Texas, TCU, Southern Texas, and San Antonio. They were all here. All the universities he applied to a few years back.

Here he thought he was too much of a dumb shit to be a part of college, yet here were schools fighting over him. Not a full scholarship, but he could have worked at college, taken out student loans. He could have gotten away. Why wasn’t he told about this?

“What the fuck are you doing in my office boy?” His dad, Big Luke, shouted, taking him out of his thoughts.

“I’m wondering why there are letters here with my name on them and I never heard about them,” Luke lifted the letters.

“That’s none of your fucking business, get out of the house and earn us some damn money for a change, you lazy leech,” Big Luke shouted.

“None of my business, this is my mail!” Luke shouted, unable to contain his temper. It never took much for Luke to lose his temper, he was too much like his dad that way. One of the main reasons he was never going to get involved in a relationship.

A hard slap across the face brought his anger from a simmer to a boil as his father had back hand slapped him. Treating him like he was fourteen again. His vision turned red as he struggled to keep his temper from boiling over, but failing.

“Don’t raise your voice to me you little shit,” Big Luke shouts. “I’m your father damn it, I deserve some damn respect.”

“If you were really my father I would be at those colleges now, not stealing fucking cars for money!” Luke shouts back.

“Go to college for what? Give them money we don’t have? Then what, get some magical job somewhere?” Big Luke ridiculed his dreams as if they were the dumbest thing in the world. “Yeah, like you’re the first dumb shit around here to try that. You’d end up back here, broke and begging me for a job. Only you would have brought the school debts with you.”

“You don’t know that!” Luke shouted, ignoring the audience from the house gathering. It was his mom, his sister and a few others.

“I do, because you’re just like the rest of us. A worn down, worthless piece of shit, and you will always be one.” Big Luke shouted back. “Look at you, you’re so pathetic, you can’t even get your worthless hide out of the house to make us money to eat this weekend. Damn, worthless mother fuck-.”

He was about to say more, but Luke did the one thing he had never done once in his life. Punched his father. Big Luke earned his name, while Luke himself was no slouch. His father was much larger than him. He knew if it wasn’t for the fact he wasn’t expecting it and half drunk, he never would have been able to knock his father down.

Luke didn’t wait a second longer, he took out of the house, grabbing only a few things on the way. Including a can of money he had stashed away. Not enough to live on, but enough to give him a day or two to get where he was going.

His mother was behind him begging him not to go, his family was in tears, but Luke didn’t hear any of it. All he knew is he was out of this house and he was never, ever coming back to live like this again.