After Elsie had finished her awkward dinner in the lobby, she'd returned to her room. The wedding dress was still crumpled on the floor, absorbing the smell and dirt of the carpet. She wanted to rip it up, but the fabric was too strong to tear by hand, and she wasn't going to the lobby to ask for scissors. Burning it would be cathartic, but she had no lighter, and besides, she didn't want to accidentally set her room on fire.

She settled for stomping on it, over and over. The nightstand rattled as she did. The other girls had thrifted the dress for the wedding, stitched it up as a labor of love. She was trashing her relationship with them as much as she was trashing the dress. When her legs grew tired, she rolled it up into a little ball and shoved it in the bottom of her backpack. When she hit New York City, she'd drop it in the Atlantic and let sharks have at it.

Wait -- would that be harmful to the aquatic life? Never mind. She'd dump it unceremoniously in the dumpster somewhere. No harm done there.

Elsie dragged the armchair over to the window and curled up on it. She left the curtains closed for the most part, wanting to keep her privacy, but after some time had passed, she parted them to see how bad the rain had gotten.

She saw a silhouette walking through the parking lot. It got into a car, but went back to the lobby, only to come back, get into another car, and then go back to the lobby. Elsie found it strange until she thought it through a bit. It could've been two different people -- it was hard to see through the rain and through just a slit in the curtains. Perhaps they'd wanted to drive but thought against it. She heard there were mudslides in this area.

Elsie closed the curtains and sunk into the armchair. It was rather comfortable for the kind of hotel it was in. Almost made up for the lack of TV or radio or even a phone. She laid there for a bit, assuming she'd fall asleep for the night, and then her stomach grumbled.

Elsie rolled her eyes at herself. Really? Already? She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. After her former diet of happiness, love, miscellaneous drugs, alcohol, and random bites of food, it only made sense that now that she was free, her stomach was demanding to be treated better. It was seemingly catching up after years of the mindset: who needs adequate food when you have transcendence and higher thinking?

Elsie put on her shoes, a ratty pair of sneakers that had seen better days many, many days ago. She'd ditched the wedding heels way back in New Mexico. She exited her room and stuck to the awning for as long as she could, but there was an unsheltered gap in between the closest west wing room, W1, and the main building. 

She decided to run for it, in hopes of keeping her only shoes as dry as she could, and that turned out to be a mistake. Who knew rain could be as slippery as ice? Elsie felt her forward foot start to slide ahead, and in hopes of not falling back on her head, she lurched forward onto her hands and knees. Pain shot through her arms and legs, and she let out a pathetic gasp.

Elsie carefully sat back on her legs and observed her red palms. She could already feel the rainwater on her knees; she'd scraped holes through her pants. A few days rest would turn into a week if she wanted the wounds to scab over enough so she could drive painlessly.

"Are you okay?"

Elsie looked up. The boy who'd bumped into her and ran into E1 -- Tate McGowan, since the man at the bar had been Luke Galloway-- was standing in front of her, hood pulled back so she could see his face.

"Just scraped up," she said. She stood and winced as the broken skin on her knees stretched. It hurt more than she wished to admit, but she struggled to wipe the grimace off her face.

"I'm sorry I bumped into you earlier," Tate replied. "I should've watched where I was going." He fidgeted with his sleeve for a bit. "Do you need help?"

Elsie could probably hobble into the lobby, but she nodded and accepted. He carefully placed her arm around his shoulders and helped her along. Leaning some of her weight on him did take some pressure off her throbbing knees, and she appreciated it.

The lobby was empty save for Tasi, who was standing behind the desk and straightened when the door's bell chimed. Poor girl must've had a long day; she looked exhausted and even anxious.

Her eyes dropped to Elsie's knees. "Do you--are you--"

"Do you have any antiseptic?" Elsie asked hopefully.

Tasi seemed not to hear the question. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I slipped."

"Oh." Oddly, Tasi seemed relieved about that. "Oh, sure. Hold on a moment, I'll be back."

She disappeared into the back door. Elsie eased into a lounge couch, and Tate stood around awkwardly before sitting down across from her.

"I'm Elsie," she said. "And you're Tate McGowan, right? Are you here by yourself?"

He panicked and stood up, but Elsie gently grabbed his hand to keep him from leaving.

"I ain't no narc," she whispered. "Don't worry. I was like you once, all on my lonesome."

That appeared to appease him. He sat back down, still fidgeting with his sleeve. Tasi returned with a small tube of antiseptic cream, set it down next to Elsie, and returned to the desk. Elsie brushed the gravel from her wounded knees, wincing as she did so. It looked...awful. Just awful. She was glad to not have broken any bones, but these scabs would take forever to form and heal.

"How old are you?" Tate asked suddenly.

She didn't mind the question; he was clearly wondering how long ago 'I was like you once' was. "Twenty-one," she replied. "You?"

Tate glanced over his shoulder at Tasi, but Tasi was staring at her desk, hands clasped tightly together. "Fifteen," he said quietly. "What..." He cleared his throat. "What're you doing here? Vacation?"

Elsie pursed her lips. He hadn't seen her when she checked in; he hadn't seen the runaway bride. She could say anything simple or grand, and he'd likely believe her, but she felt compelled to tell the truth. She wished she'd ran across someone like herself when she was drifting along at his age. She wished someone had been kind and honest to her without recruiting or charming her.

"I fell in with some bad people a few years ago," she said finally. "Now I'm runnin' away to NYC. They say dreams come true there."

Tate smiled. It was small; she could tell he hadn't done it in a while. "I'm going to California," he said. "It's warmer there than Kentucky, where I'm from. Less likely to snow."

Elsie felt her heart twitch. That had been her thought process, too. Go somewhere warm, where you could sleep outside without worrying about freezing to death. 

"Tate..." She struggled to explain this properly. "If you want to go to California, go to California, but there are some strange people there, you hear? Preyin' on kids."

"There are strange predators everywhere," he pointed out. "Are you...speaking from experience?"

"Unfortunately," she confessed. "If you ever meet a man that asks you to join his family, and they all live together in some commune and look out for each other and say they understand more than what God or government decrees, say no, alright? Run away."

"Okay. I will."

Elsie nodded, pleased, and started tending to her knees. She considered asking for gauze, but for the time being, she wanted to give the wounds a little time to breathe. She spread thick layers of the ointment onto her knees and then held the tube out to Tasi. Tasi took it wordlessly, returned it to wherever it belonged in the back, and returned to the desk.

"My name ain't actually Tate McGowan."

Elsie returned her attention to Tate. He was staring at his hands. "What is it, then?" she asked.

"Tate Archer." He very slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. They were glassy, and he took a few deep breaths and swallowed and blinked a few times before his next statement, so low it was a whisper. "I killed someone."

Tasi gasped. Elsie and Tate both jumped in their seats to look at her, and Elsie frowned. 

"Were you eavesdropping?" she asked lightly.

Tasi removed her hand from her over her mouth, frazzled. "Yes. I'm sorry, I can't exactly block out your voices when you're sitting right there. I--" She looked at Tate, uneasy. "You killed someone?"

Tate slowly turned back to Elsie, his gaze once again glued to the floor. "My father wasn't a good man," he said quietly. "He hurt...he killed my mother. So I killed him and ran away."

Tasi let out a breath and leaned on her palms on the desk. Elsie was relieved, too. She'd imagined the worst, but self-defense against a monster was nothing to be ashamed about, in her opinion, though she saw that Tate was conflicted about it. She wondered how he committed the murder, but she knew better than to ask.

"Hey," she said softly. "My folks weren't good people either. That's why I ended up runnin' away to California in the first place. Sometimes kids gotta take care of themselves. There's no shame in that."

She leaned across the table between them to put her hand on his shoulder, her touch light in case he shook it off. He looked at it, put his own hand over hers, and let out a deep breath she imagined he'd been holding since leaving Kentucky.

The tender moment was disturbed when the bell chimed. Elsie turned her head and watched Margaret close the front door behind her and race to the desk.

"You gotta call the police!" she frantically told Tasi. "'Cause I think I just saw a person dragging another person out of W1."

Tasi paled. "W1?" she squeaked.

There was another chime. Elsie turned once more to see a woman she hadn't seen before standing there, soaking wet from the rain. The woman blinked at everyone's attention until she zeroed in on Tasi and Margaret, who both looked uncertain at first but eventually met her glare with fear.

"God damn it," the woman muttered. She took out a handgun from inside her jacket and aimed at Margaret.

.......................

After leaving Luke in the lobby and returning to her room, Margaret had dumped the contents of her ashtray into a plastic baggie, tied it off, and placed it neatly in the trash can. Leave a place better than you found it, that was what she believed. There wasn't much she could do about the lingering smell, but the smell was here even before she got in.

She leaned her back against the headboard, stretched her legs on the bed, and spent some time doing absolutely nothing. She wished she'd brought a book. A crossword. Anything. It wasn't her first business trip, and she should've known better.

There was no TV in the room, or a radio. There was no phone, either, and that was her biggest problem. With the rain going as it was, there was a fifty-fifty chance tomorrow morning's meeting would be postponed, and how was she to know if she couldn't call and verify?

Margaret sighed and pulled on her shoes and her jacket. She was fairly certain there was a single phone booth near the welcome sign where the parking lot began. Tasi likely had a phone behind the desk as well, but she'd prefer not to curse out her boss in front of her.

Margaret walked outside and paused under the awning to prepare herself for the deluge. The ground was coated in water that rippled with thousands of raindrop strikes every second. The main building's lights and the welcome sign's neon bulbs -- half of which were dead -- reflected in the slick, warping around her boots as she trekked to the phone both that was, indeed, where she thought it was.

Margaret entered and lowered the hood of her jacket. She felt oddly exposed, knowing she was illuminated in the clear booth. A bear nearby -- did Arkansas have bears? -- would consider her a shiny treat.

Margaret dialed her manager's number and held the phone to her ear. There was nothing but a dull buzz. She frowned, brows furrowing, and tried again. Was he not picking up, or was there something wrong with the phone? He was usually still at his office at this time, and she needed to know if the people in Little Rock told him to tell her to push the meetings back.

Frustrated, she hung up and exited the booth, headed for the lobby to see if there was a phone there. As she passed her own car, she saw a rectangle of light appear as the door to W1 opened. Margaret slowed, wondering who had that room, when she saw a figure poke their head out, glance around, and...drag two ankles out of the room. 

The body attached to said ankles slid along the ground, unmoving. Margaret stifled a gasp and crouched in the cover of her car, risking a peek through the windows. She couldn't tell if it was anyone she'd seen already. Had the woman in the wedding dress brought a husband? Had one of them killed the other?

Before thinking it through, Margaret stuck to the east side of the parking lot and ran for the lobby. She prayed and prayed with every step that the figure was too occupied with their task to look over their shoulder and notice her running, but even though the main building was disjointed from the wing, W1 was at the tip of the wing and close to the lobby. Margaret would go unnoticed until the very end when she actually had to go through the door.

Margaret went anyway, and as soon as she was in the lobby, she ran to the desk. "You gotta call the police!" she urged. "'Cause I think I just saw a person dragging another person out of W1."

Tasi paled. "W1?" she squeaked.

There was another chime. Margaret whirled around to face the door. A woman she hadn't seen before had walked in, and Margaret tightened her fingers on the edge of the front desk behind her. Was this the mysterious figure? She got here so soon after Margaret, it had to be her.

The woman blinked at first, confused by all the attention. Then the confusion quickly became a glare. "God damn it," she muttered, producing a handgun from her jacket and aiming at Margaret.