Run across the main entrance to the next bushes.

After a short mental debate, Jen decided it was best to stick close to the side of the building. The first cluster of bushes was a bit if a distance away, right next to the main entrance. If anyone exited those doors before she reached the bushes it could be disaster, but this would be the shortest path to Eve’s car.

She peered around the parking lot once more, making sure no one was in any of the cars, then stepped out from behind the corner and started sprinting towards the entrance ahead. Her hands covered her nude body out of habit, throwing her body mechanics off slightly, but she didn’t feel it affected her speed that much. The yards passed by quickly, and soon she made it to the first set of bushes.

Practically diving into hiding behind them, Jen wasn’t incredibly comforted by her position. She was well out of sight from many angles, but now she saw that of someone exited through these doors and immediately looked in her direction, they would have a an unobstructed view of an embarrassed, undressed woman hiding behind the bushes. The lights over the doors illuminated her, not incredibly well but more than enough that anyone looking from the right angle would have little trouble realizing what they were seeing.

The less time spent here, the better, she thought.

She slightly stood up and took a tentative step towards the doorway which was set into an recess in the wall. Once she could see past the corner she saw a security guard walking by. He was on the far side of the commons, walking at a leisurely pace. Jen stepped back and returned to the bushes while she waited for the man to pass.

She spent the moment re-checking the cars in the lot once again. No lights were on, and she didn’t hear the sound of any engines aside from ones well off the mall property. There was no movement that she could see, though the car’s interiors were dark enough to potentially conceal someone sitting in one of them. She **** her mind away from that thought quickly.

After estimating enough time had passed for the guard to move out of view Jen returned to the corner. She peered towards the door and saw no one. Without hesitating, she rushed across the entryway and into the patch of plants on the opposite side.

That’s behind me now, Jen thought to herself, try to calm down a little.

The large wall curved ahead of her, preventing her from seeing the entire side of the mall. Jen had no idea if there were any service exits ahead of her or not. She tried to remember how things appeared the times she was here in the past, but quickly discarded the idea. Every time she’d been here she’d never paid attention to such things and couldn’t trust her memory.

She stepped back a hair to check the entryway again, not wanting someone to walk through the doors right as she made her next move. She still saw no one moving about in the mall.

She faced the opposite direction and darted out from behind the bush, quickly reaching a hard run, her arms clamped back in place over her bare breasts and vagina. As she began to turn along with the curve of the wall, another patch of plants came into view, this time with a tall, narrow decorative evergreen next to a bush. The tree was a welcome sight, knowing it would provide good, thick coverage that would obscure her almost completely.

As she ducked into the plants she realized that a ladder to the roof was hidden back here. A hinged grate stood in front of it, stopping any random person from climbing the ladder by blocking several feet of the rungs. It dawned on Jen that this might account for the height of the thin evergreen tree which stood about ten or twelve feet high.

Looking around, Jen wasn’t as happy with this location as she thought she would be. The bush next to the evergreen was shorter than she liked, and it didn’t block her from view too well from the direction she came from. The tree was thick enough to cover her from that direction but she couldn’t help but feel exposed from all other angles.

Peering out from behind the tree, she saw no one up ahead. On the other side of the tree she noticed a service exit that she hadn’t seen before. Beyond that she could make out the corner of the building from here. It was several yards away but she felt that she could make it there fairly quickly.

As she prepared herself to sprint to the corner the service door opened. Ducking back behind the tree she squatted down and waited. She couldn’t see who exited the building through the tree but soon they stepped past it two young men came into her view.

“Come on, man, I really need some advice on this,” one of them said.

“It’s not something I know a ton about,” the other man said, “I honestly don’t know if I could help you.”

“Well maybe hear me out first? You might come up with something. At the very least talking it out might help me think things through.”

Jen watched as they stopped talking, the second man clearly thinking it over. After a few seconds he took a step forward, off the curb and sat down. The other young man followed suit.

“Okay, start from the beginning,” the second man says.

The first man began talking but Jen quickly tuned it out, more worried about being stuck here for who knows how long than anything they had to say. She crouched down further to make up for the short bush at her side.

I really don’t want to be stuck here, she thought. There’s practically nothing to hide me opposite this tree. If a car comes from behind me with its headlights on, this bush is far enough away from the wall that…

She pulled her mind back to the task in front of her. Right now she had to figure out if she had any way out of this situation other than waiting.

After taking a deep breath to try to calm herself, she immediately remembered the ladder. Looking towards it, she pondered the grating that prevented her from reaching the bottom. She estimated that she could jump high enough to grab onto the top of it- but then what? She’d never attempted to climb something like that before and didn’t expect she’d have much luck, not to mention that it was bound to make some noise.

As she slinked slightly closer to the ladder though, she peered at the padlock that kept the grating in place. From her initial quick glance she had thought the padlock was secured, but now she noticed it wasn’t fully closed. She wasn’t certain if this was a mistake the last person locking the grate had made, or perhaps a necessity if all copies of the key were lost, but it might be the only advantage she could find here.

Slowly removing the padlock, Jen worried that the grating would squeak badly as it swung open. But she would have to test it if this was going to be even remotely an option. She lightly touched the grate and pulled. It swung away from the ladder, making the slightest hiss of metal sliding against metal, but no squeaking. Once the grate was a foot away from the ladder she gripped a rung and started pulling on it, lightly at first but then adding more pressure. The ladder seemed completely solid, and shouldn’t rattle if she climbed it.

She ducked back down to think this through carefully. She couldn’t think of any other way out of the situation, and narrowed it down to either taking the ladder or waiting. Waiting was far from ideal in this position, but the ladder had its down drawbacks. The last ten feet of the ladder stood over the tree, so her backside would be clearly exposed to the world if she climbed up. Additionally she had no idea how she might get back down. If there was another ladder somewhere, it might take her down further away from Eve’s pick-up point.

Glancing around, Jen wished the two men would just move on, but they seemed to be pretty deep into their conversation.