The storm let up a few days later. By then I was already on the road, left the town the morning after the awkward conversation held. I didn't know where we were or where I was even headed. I never had a destination, I only knew that I had to keep moving. He didn't seem to mind, although he was in between consciousness and unconsciousness. The road was slippery, I drove slowly. I glanced back in the rearview mirror to see him still asleep, bandages wrapped around his waist. I patched him up the afternoon after our conversation in the alleyway.

     The snow had slowed down considerably. I stopped on the side of the road, town a mere speck in the distance. He needed to be fixed up. I hopped out of the truck and dug through a few of the boxes in the back of the truck. He awoke when I opened the side door letting the frigid air waft through the vehicle. His eyes shot open, once again I was seeing green. I climbed up and onto the back pushing his feet out of the way before shutting the door behind me.

     I dropped the materials I gathered on the seat in front of me before situating myself to sit on my knees. I had a cloth, a bottle of extra strength painkillers, and the lighter I stole from him. "That was my brothers." he said, eyes trained on the old lighter.

"Yeah well thank your brother because this might actually save your life."

     The injury was higher up on his waist, just below his ribcage. I was surprised he hadn't died yet. Whoever had stabbed him didn't want him to die immediately, rather, bleed out slowly and painfully. I didn't have anything to suture him up with and if I didn't close the wound he would surely bleed to death. There was only so much blood a single pad could absorb. "And you have done this before, right?" he asked. We were in an awkward position now.

     This man I had never met in my life was underneath me. I didn't answer, instead, I ripped the taped down pad off him. Blood instantly began gushing freely from the wound. It wasn't too wide, but it was wide enough to cause some damage. I covered it with the cloth and pressed down onto it with one hand. I flicked the back of the lighter watching the flame ignite on the top. "You've done this before." he said, his voice was slightly pitched higher.

     I met his green-eyed gaze. I studied his eyes for a moment, green with specks of blue near the pupils. I gave him a 'trust me' type of look. The cloth was removed and was replaced with my hand. He yelled when I brought the flame to his skin. He squirmed underneath me as I slowly dragged the lighter across the wound. I chanced a glance up at him, he was biting his hand now, eyes squeezed closed. I looked back down at the wound. It was bright red now and his skin had melted together to form a flaming red line.

     The bottle of generic painkillers stated that two should be taken every few hours. I poured two of them out and dropped them into his free hand. The bandaging part was the easiest, he didn't squirm too much.

     We were still on the road. He was still asleep and I was still driving. I didn't know his name and he didn't know mine. Names were dangerous. The power that a name had was great. Giving a name to something, to someone, was automatically forming some sort of connection to that someone. He didn't need a name, I didn't need to know it. Becky was different, she was already dead. For all, I knew her name wasn't even Becky. Becky was just a corpse swinging in the subtle wind.

     I reached over and grabbed a handful of chips from a bag I found in one of the boxes earlier. The bag it was in crackled whenever I dragged my hand out of it. The chips were salty and tasted of onion. I wasn't too bothered with the flavours or textures of things anymore. If it was food that stopped my stomach from aching and grumbling, I didn't care. I hadn't had a proper meal in a long time anyways. "How long have you been alone?" he asked, so he was awake now.

     Instead of answering I popped the handful of chips into my mouth and looked ahead at the snowy road. It was harder to drive in this weather with the ground covered like this. Sometimes it was difficult to even tell if I was still on the road. "So, you don't talk, you don't have a name, and you steal people's things. Gotcha." he said, I could sense the dry sarcasm in his tone.

     Kit nudged my arm, I lowered one of my hands from the wheel and rubbed the top of her small fluffy head. "What's its name?" he asked obviously taking the cue that I would not answer his previous questions. I glanced down at Kit and her big beady eyes, "Kit." I answered quietly before returning my hand to the wheel and my gaze to the road. "Her name is Kit." I confirmed, my voice a tad louder this time.

"Any specific -" he hissed when I hit a bump in the road, "- reason behind the name?" he asked.

     There wasn't any specific reason actually. The name just sort of fell into place with her, she looked like a Kit. I didn't want any of those childish names or super flamboyant names like 'Rocket, Striker' or the most stereotypical one for a small dog like herself, 'Princess'. None of those names seemed to fit her. I shrugged my shoulders, gaze briefly meeting his in the mirror before I glanced back to the snow-covered road. We didn't talk much after, quite frankly I didn't want to speak to him any longer. I drove for hours until the sun began to sink in the sky and the snow started up again.

     The snowfall hadn't been as heavy as before. It was a peaceful snowfall. The type of snowfall you would see advertised in old Christmas movies. I turned sideways in the seat, legs stretched across all the way to the passenger's side. Kit was in the back with him. I couldn't blame her; it was warmer back there with him and all the blankets than up here with me who had nothing. My eyes were closed, arms folded across my chest and my head leaning back against the chilled window. The engine had been off for an hour now.

     I hated the winter months. It was cold, I despised the cold. I liked it better when I could sleep in the back underneath MY blankets by myself. Now I had this stranger with me that the better side of me wished to save. "Should've left you on the roadside." I mumbled under my breath.

"Would've bitten you in the ass later." he retorted just as quietly.

     I laughed bitterly, one of my eyes cracking open. He was situated in the opposing direction in the backseat. I could see his face, calm as ever with the hint of a smirk on his lips. In the dark, I could barely see the dark splotches of freckles sprinkling his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. His whole face was sprinkled with those dark splotchy freckles but they mostly clustered across his cheeks and nose. They stood out against his bronze complexion. I disagreed, to what he said obviously. Instead of firing another comment back I chose silence.

     Sometimes staying silent was for the best; silence was an option, it always was. People before never thought of it as an option, it was only until now that you realized it truly was. "You know I still don't know your name." he said, his green eyes fluttering open.

Silence.

Followed by more silence.

A breath.

"My name's -"

"-stop talking." I interjected.

     This time I wasn't friendly or joking. My tone was low, and eyes narrowed in a deathly glare aimed towards him. Names meant attachment. Didn't they used to say, 'no strings attached', or was that another saying for something else? Anyways, it meant all the same to me. "As soon as you're healed, you're gone." I said, voice flat. I meant every word. After he was healed, or well enough to travel on his own I'd kick him out. He seemed capable of being by himself. After all, he wouldn't have made it this far if he couldn't. 

Skycrystal23