Two more days passed and surprisingly, he kept to his word. Well, really my word. I felt an odd sense of satisfaction rising in me with every second of silence that went by. It was definitely more lonely, not having someone to really talk to. But at least the guy could shut up when he was told.

We started passing through some old towns that I'd actually been to before. Somebody went pretty heavy with the police tape; apparently, this area of the state didn't have law enforcement sufficient enough to catch one murderer on the loose. I would have laughed if that murderer wasn't me. One day, Max nudged me in the arm and pointed to an old, metal shack in the middle of a dump. A sudden pang of grief hit me. It was the place I'd abandoned months ago, before I even met him. After a moment, I shook my head and kept walking, while Max just shrugged.

"You know, I heard libraries are kind of like a haven if you're homeless. Maybe we could try that out...?"

I gave it some thought. "I guess we could try. But do you really think people like us would be able to get away with going someplace like that every day?"

"I didn't say we had to go to the same one. Besides, I think I could pull off a 'stuffy college student' look well enough."

"You haven't even been to college."

"Do you want me to help or not?"

That kind of shut my argument down. I sighed and nodded. "Fine. You don't happen to know where one could be, so you?"

He paused, then turned around and looked back up the street we'd just walked down. He seemed to be doing some form of mental calculation, and came to an eventual, "Yes. Not too far from here, just a couple blocks down. The only problem might be that both of us have been here before, right?"

"I guess."

"But nobody should recognize us during the day. Unless..." he stared at my face intently, went through a variety of doubtful expressions, and then fiddled with a shirt sleeve. "Eh, we'll be fine. Come on."

—

We reached the one he had seen earlier soon enough, and decided I was going to wait outside. It dawned on me just then that while both of us were something of a mess from the past couple of days, Max looked far more presentable than me. Besides, there wasn't so much of a chance that people would pick him out from a crowd and guess that he was working for a serial killer; let alone being one himself.

As he was about to enter the building, a sudden realization crossed my mind.

"Wait." I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. He looked at me expectantly.

Does he think I'm going to apologize?

"...first of all, somebody is definitely going to recognize you with that mask on."

"I was going to take it off as soon as I got inside."

"Good. Second, what are you even going to get in there? A full-length novel on how not to get killed on the run?"

His eyes read disappointment, but his voice didn't show that in the slightest. "I get what you're trying to say, but the thing is, there might actually be something like that here. Just give me time to look."

I searched him for any other discernible emotion and found nothing. Dammit. He's getting good at that. "...I guess. Don't be too long, okay?"

"I'll take that as you already miss me. Okay," he said, without an ounce of mischief in his voice. I wondered how he could say some of the things he did with such a straight face. Did he really believe them? As he walked into the building, already crafting some sort of façade for himself and removing his mask, I felt an itching at my throat. Maybe he was just better at lying than I thought.

Has he lied about his feelings for me?

I crossed my arms, biting my lip until it almost bled.

No. No, why do I even care? He royally screwed me over less than a week ago. All to find his stupid "family," I'll bet. I don't care about what he thinks, I don't care about him. And he shouldn't care about me.

I let my mind sit in that for a while. The more I thought it, the more my chest seemed to ache.

...I didn't sign up for this shit.

Max came back out just five minutes later, holding a map, three books, and a small laminated card. He looked relatively pleased with himself. I raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

"So...?"

"I think I found something," he responded vaguely. He dumped his loot onto a nearby bench and sorted through it, determined. I noticed he had a new scent on his hands, and lifted one of them to inspect. "What did you do in there?"

"It's hand sanitizer, Hodek. I'm not an animal."

"Well, I don't—"

"We're not doing this right now. Just...look." He ripped his hand from me and brought out the map to rest on top of his stack.

"Having one of these is just common sense. It's got a layout of this town, plus the three adjacent to it." He unfolded it to reveal exactly what he'd said—four towns, all with the same sort of features, one right next to the other. After I'd gotten a good look, he flipped it over.

"And the back is completely blank, so we can write down anything from these," he said, gesturing to the books in front of us, "in case we need to return them."

"And we'll write on it with...?"

Without so much as blinking he drew a small pen from out of nowhere and clicked it twice. I nodded, though inside I couldn't help but feel like I was about to snap. So I guess this is payback for saying that he can't do anything on his own.

Instead of commenting anything else, I directed my attention to the books. Only one of them was thick enough to provide anything useful, and it was...

"Runaway. The kids' book," I said dryly, pressing two fingers to my forehead.

"Well, why not? I skimmed through it, looks like it has some pointers for us."

"It's about a twelve-year-old girl."

"So?"

"So I don't think she would be getting hunted down by the police for the same reasons as us. At least tell me there's..." I shuffled through what we had, and came across When All Hell Breaks Loose. A real emergency survival book. I sighed with relief and set it aside to look at the last one in the pile.

"...The Wide Window, by Lemony Snicket?" Instead of frustrated, I felt genuinely confused at that one. Max picked it up and took a glance at both sides with a sort of fondness in his eyes.

"I don't know, I just never got to this one as a kid." He responded to my exasperated look with, "What? It's not like you can waste money at a library."

"Unless you're fined for not returning books. You know that's a thing, right?"

"Yeah, which is why this," he said, flicking out what must have been a library card, "is on my mother's email address. And she's dead. Any fines will be directed to her inbox, which will never be opened."

I was surprised into saying, "Well done," to which he gave a soft smile. He didn't utter another word after that for a solid five minutes, and I remembered with embarrassment that I'd told him not to talk if it wasn't helping us forward. I fashioned a sort of makeshift handbag out of some torn cloth I found in a bush, and packed the things he found into it before setting off again.