Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Mal
Wayward One
As I pack my things I realize I forgot May-May in my closet. This time, I won’t get to see her again. Regret fills me, but with my life on the line, I’m realistic.
I shove away the prickle of tears threatening to break through and head out.
By my nose the bored woman manning the hotel’s front desk is a chain-smoking human with a love of cheap beer and even cheaper perfume.
She wasn’t on duty when I checked in the other night.
When I check out I have my bike and backpack with me in the lobby.
The only reason I bother to check out is just in case I need the extra witness to point pursuers in the wrong direction.
I stayed there four days, paying day-to-day in cash. I weighed running farther, faster, but I needed information before blindly running. I needed a destination. Likely not my final one, but I have limited funds and limited transportation.
Plus, I wanted to see if there were any reports on the news about me.
If Dad believes Mom and Lana, no one will start looking for me until tonight, maybe tomorrow, and they’ll start at the wildlife reserve.
They won’t expect me to head this way. The woods out there are thick and wild, and I doubled back on myself several times, plus using the bike, meaning it’ll slow anyone tracking me.
My father is important but he will want to run down leads himself before involving the police.
He’s got pull, but he’ll have to wait the standard 48 hours to report me missing without proof there’s foul play.
If he tries calling in favors that might bring attention he doesn’t want to his private affairs.
And that’s something I’ll use in my favor.
While she’s checking me out I throw in a soft drawl, pitching my voice down. “Meeting my brother. We’re heading over to the Talladega National Forest. He’s driving up from Macon. Going to spend a week there trail riding and camping.”
She nods but I can tell she’s not really listening, just wants me gone so she can go back to playing video slots on her phone. “Have fun.”
Five minutes later, I’m on my way. It’s still cool and there’s not much traffic, so I make good time.
The touring bike has paid for itself many times over, and this journey is no exception.
I have a rack on the back to carry my backpack so I don’t have to wear it all the time, and the gel seat’s comfortable enough to ride for long hours.
Which is good because I’ll be on it for at least the next several days. Thanks to being a wolf shifter, and spending the past couple of years using this bike, fifty miles in a day is a doable objective if the weather and road conditions hold in my favor.
By daylight, I’m fifteen miles south and picking up speed because I’m sticking to back roads and sidewalks when needed, trying to avoid clay roads.
I mean, I can ride them but it’ll slow me down and vibrate my teeth right out of my head.
When I reach Highway 27, the going gets easier and I pick up speed.
I only stop for water breaks and to go to the bathroom, usually at busy convenience stores or gas stations, where I buy one and take care of the other.
It’s nearly dark when I pull in at a smaller one-off truck stop not far from Warm Springs that looks like it was left behind decades ago. I sit at the hot counter with my backpack propped next to me and the grandmotherly waitress cocks her head at me. She’s definitely a human.
“You hitchhiking?” she asks as she refills my water glass.
I hook my thumb over my shoulder, where I’ve secured my bike in the rack just out front. “In training for a fundraiser for pediatric cancer research,” I say with my adopted drawl.
Her drawn-on eyebrows go up. “Oh! That’s so neat!”
“My brother’s stationed at Ft. Moore,” I continue, having prepped this. “He’s on deployment right now, due back in a month. He asked me to do it with him when he gets back.”
“Where you from?”
“Savannah.”
“You rode your bike all the way over here?”
I nod. “I needed to get my mind off my ex. And my roommate’s moving to California in three months to be closer to his parents. I’ll live with my brother once he’s back. I’ve got my stuff in storage…”
She doesn’t have many customers right now, and she’s feeling really sorry for me by the time I pay my $10 tab and leave her a $5 tip.
“Is there a safe place to camp around here?” I ask. “Or an inexpensive motel?”
“Hold on just a minute,” she says. “I think I have the perfect solution for you!” She grabs her cell, makes a call, and then takes a quick note.
When she ends the call she hands me the paper.
On it, directions and an address. “Go two miles down this road right here, take a right at that street, then your first left. The third house on the right. Little B&B, and they have a spare room tonight.” She smiles.
“My sister and her husband run it. Told them about you and she said to come on, no charge.”
The tears I blink back are genuine because of her kindness. “I really appreciate that.”
“She told me you can stay up to three days, if you want. No charge. They have reservations after that.”
“Oh, I just need tonight. Thank you so much.”
She rounds the counter to hug me before I leave and I feel guilty about lying.
I’m on the way ten minutes later. It’s one less night I have to spend in the open, thankfully.
And as I climb on my bike I look up at the moon.
Miss you, Mom.
The next morning, what little laundry I have is freshly washed (for free, at the woman’s insistence), I have several sandwiches in my panniers—also at her insistence—and I’m on my way before dawn with assurances that I will send them an e-mail before the fundraiser starts so they can donate and follow my progress.
I feel bad about the lie—and that she refuses to take money from me—but I look at it as the karmic scales tipping ever so slightly in my direction, for once.
That evening, I’m eating at a truck stop just outside Fort Moore. It’s busier there, but I haven’t scented a single shifter of any species. While I keep my guard up and don’t relax, I decide to keep an open mind for opportunities.
This time the waitress is still older than me, but not quite mom-to-me age.
I’m also using a version of the same story.
Except I’m from Talladega now, my accent’s a thicker, rounder, slightly more nasally drawl, and I’m trying to get to Titusville, on Florida’s east coast, not far from Patrick Air Force Base.
My sister lives there. She’s due back from deployment in two weeks, and we’ll start training together.
“Hold on, sugar,” the waitress says. She looks around. “Don’t leave—I’ll be right back.”
When she returns she’s followed by an older woman who I guess is a truck driver and maybe as old as my own mother.
“This is Connie,” the waitress says, indicating me.
The woman sticks her hand out to shake with me. She’s got a damned strong grip. “If you want a ride as far as Orlando, we can give you that. What was your name again?” Now I realize she’s carrying a small backpack slung over one shoulder and holding a shower ticket, apparently awaiting her turn.
“Ron,” I say.
An older man about her age, with his hair freshly damp from the shower, walks up carrying his own bag. “Damn, that feels better.”
His name turns out to be Patrick, he’s Connie’s husband, and sure, there’s plenty of room for me and my bike.
I even get to take a shower there after loading my bike into their trailer and the rest of my stuff into their cab. They’re returning home to Orlando for two weeks to attend their daughter’s baby shower and take time off.
Two hours later, I’ve got a full stomach, a clean body, and I’m curled up asleep in the bunk in their cab while they drive.
The next afternoon, I’m biking west across Florida with Orlando disappearing behind me. State Road 50 runs all the way across the state from coast to coast.
Even better? I stop for the night at one of several campgrounds along that route, pitch my tent, and take a shower. While it’s not as good as sleeping behind a locked door I know I’m far enough from Atlanta no one can find me as long as I don’t do something stupid.
Before arriving here I stopped at a drugstore and bought hair dye and trimmers. Once the campground settles for the evening, I return to the showers, buzz my hair down, and bleach it blond.
I’ve also stopped shaving. While I’m not nearly as hairy as my father and brothers, I do have a light scruff now.
I have no idea what I’ll find when I reach my destination. Who knows if I’ll even locate any shifters, much less ones who will adopt me into their pack?
It’s difficult not to look too far ahead with the future so tantalizingly close yet murky and impenetrable.
Ideally, I’ll find a room to rent, a job I can work for cash under the table, and save up for several months.
Let my hair grow out and then dye it dark so it matches a little better.
My father’s never seen me with facial hair, much less long hair, because that wasn’t allowed.
If he doesn’t put out a missing persons report it wouldn’t shock me if he asks law enforcement friends to keep an eye out for me to show up in their system. So whatever I do, I need to be careful. I have no idea how to get a fake ID.
In a perfect world—I mean for my situation—I’d head out west to California, Oregon, Washington, or maybe even Alaska.
It wouldn’t have to hook up with shifters out there because I can pick crops, I can work on a fishing boat, or do logging, construction—anything manual that will pay me in cash every day without asking too many questions.
But I can’t do that via ticketed transportation. If I buy a bus or train ticket, if he’s put out alerts I would expect him or Paul or my brothers, someone, to show up waiting for me along the route.