“Okay, so now that we switched the license plates, we are on our way west.”

“It’s four now, so I think we can drive until like, nine maybe.” I suggested as Thomas stuffed that pocket knife into his pocket again after exchanging the license plates on the SUV with another black SUV that was parked not too far down the road.

“Sure, that sounds fine.” Thomas agreed with me.

“Alrighty. So how did you get the keys to this SUV and not have to hotwire it?” I asked curiously as he drove- he insisted on driving- down the road to get onto the highway to go west.

He smirked. “It was a teenage girl and she figured she’d just stop in the mall to say hi to her boyfriend who works at one of the stores. I overheard the conversation she was having on the phone when I was walking down the aisle. It was almost too easy.”

I nodded and crinkled my nose. “That’s why it smells all girly and perfumey in here.”

“Yep.” He smiled. “But it’s big and we can put the seats down in the back for a bed if need be.”

I nodded. “It’s nice, but I feel really bad for that poor girl.”

“She left her keys on the car and her doors unlocked in a busy mall parking lot. I don’t feel too bad for her. Although, she was kind of hot.”

I rolled my eyes at him and hugged my knees to my chest in the passenger seat. “I still feel bad for her, she’s probably freaking out right now.”

“She’ll get over it, with a car like this, I’m sure Daddy can just buy her a new one.” He assured me.

I sighed, not wanting to sound like a big baby about complaining about breaking the law so I just dropped the subject. “I hope somebody takes good care of my baby.” I whined, finding a new topic to complain about.

He laughed. “I don’t think this will help you, but you will probably never see that car again.”

“You’re right.” I snapped. “That was completely unhelpful.”

“Why is it so important to you anyway?” He asked curiously.

I shrugged. “I’ve had it since last year and I’ve been rigging it with stuff ever since.”

“Rigging it with what kind of stuff? Are you a drug dealer or something?” He joked.

“Yes.” I replied sarcastically. “I sell weed and LCD from the back of my pink Bug, you caught me.”

He laughed and now that I wasn’t driving, I had free reign to watch his smile, and I think that it got prettier since the last time that I’d seen it. “Okay, but seriously, what did you rig it with?”

“Those blankets and pillows and the stuff that was in the trunk, and I had maps in the doors of every continent, state, country, ocean, city, I grabbed the main ones that we may need, but most of them, I had to leave behind.”

“Were you planning on running away or something?” He asked, again in a joking manner.

When I remained silent, looking out the window, he realized that he’d pegged it on the dot and suddenly, the smile was gone from his face.

“Oh.” He said quietly.

“I never was really going to, though.” I muttered, keeping my eyes trained on everything outside of the window. We were out of Akron now and moving through country roads again. “I just want to see the world, I guess.”

“Well, if I had a mother who locked me in closed spaces as you explained, I would want to run away too.” He defended.

“It’s not like she starved me or anything, she’d just lock me in the study or something like that and have a maid bring me food. It was still agonizing, but nothing illegal.”

“She still doesn’t seem like a very nice woman. Especially since you’d rather escape with somebody like me instead of going home.” He added with a small smile.

I frowned at him at the way he said ‘somebody like me’ as if he was putting himself down. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him or any grounds for Thomas to think lowly of himself. He was attractive, for once, and he was funny and nice- unless he’s threatening somebody with a knife or stealing their obviously expensive vehicle. “I don’t think you’re bad.” I said quietly, looking out the window again. “And escaping with you is much better than going home.”

He smirked softly at me before training his eyes on the road once more. “You must not get out that much if you don’t think that I’m bad, Charlie.”

“Well, if you’re bad then that means that I’m bad too.” I said, seeing two deer running through a field and then disappearing into a hidden forest.

“You’re not bad.” He said with a humorless laugh. “I’ve seen bad, and you aren’t it.”

“And neither are you.” I insisted.

“You don’t know anything about me.” He said dryly, the humor slowly draining out of his voice.

“I’m hungry.” I spoke suddenly, flashing back to the small argument we had in the condo when I said the wrong thing. I didn’t want that to happen again, so I just decided to change the subject.

His small smile was back and I was relieved that the serious topic of conversation was adverted. “Let’s go eat, then.”

We quickly agreed on Wendy’s this time and I’d have to go into the restaurant to order the food since, even though Thomas changed his hair color, people could still recognize him. He’s been splashed on the news for the past few days along with the long list of crimes that he supposedly committed. I’m not saying he’s innocent or anything, I’m just saying that people jump to conclusions and maybe there’s more to the story than people are letting on. So I’d wait until Thomas was ready to tell me his story and then I’d decide for myself if he really was the monster that everybody thinks that he is, which I seriously doubt.

I returned to the SUV with our food before Thomas was driving away from the building and we were on the road again.

“How far do you think we’ll get today?” Thomas asked me.

“Why are you asking me?” I asked him with a mouth full of fries.

“You’re the one with the maps and stuff.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, do you know where we are now?”

“We’re about halfway through Ohio, I think. We went north on 77 out of Akron and then west on 80 and we just passed a place called Elyria.”

I nodded and took out the map that I had of Ohio from under the seat where I’d put most of my seemingly important maps when we’d transferred everything over to the SUV. “Elyria is less than halfway through Ohio.” I informed him as I tried moving the map around at the same time as eating my fries and skillfully avoiding getting any grease on the paper. “And it’s six now, so I think we’ll have to stop somewhere in Indiana. But really, you can just take 80 all the way through Ohio and Indiana and it will take you into Illinois.”

“We’ll be close to Chicago, won’t we, when we get into Illinois?” He asked.

My eyes lit up at the thought of going to Chicago. “Yeah, I suppose we’d be close.”

He chuckled. “You seem excited by that.”

I shrugged. “I-I guess Chicago seems like a cool place.” I said, trying to seem nonchalant about it, when in fact, Chicago is one of my dream cities. Not to live there, because I’m not much of an urban girl, but to visit, it’d be amazing.

“Well, we might be able to squeeze Chicago in there.” He said, taking a bite of his sandwich as he was only driving with one hand down the rural road.

I studied the map for just a little bit longer before folding it back up and tucking it back under the seat and eating the rest of my food.

“Hey, Thomas?” I asked after we were riding in a comfortable silence for almost twenty minutes. I would have turned on the radio, but I didn’t want to hear what the news was saying, probably making up rumors about Thomas and most likely me too.

“Yeah?” He chirped.

“I know this sounds stupid, but do you think that we could make it to California?” I asked timidly, looking out the window towards the spring blue sky.

“I don’t know, maybe. Why?” He asked curiously.

I shrugged, but there was a real reason, I just didn’t feel like explaining myself. “Just curious.” I mumbled softly, laying my head back. “Do you mind if I sleep?”

“No.” He mumbled. “You can sleep.”

I nodded. “If you want me to drive, just wake me up or something.”

“Okay, but I think I can handle it.” He said with a small teasing smile.

I chuckled with a yawn and laid my head back, allowing my fatigue to take over and I then drifted off into sleepy land.

~~~~

“Charlie!” I was woken up with a soft tap to the head before I felt myself being lifted into a pair of strong arms. Thomas’s arms, to be more exact.

“Where are we?” I croaked tiredly as he gently sat me on the ground so that I was standing on my feet beside the large SUV. The sky was dark, only spotted with street lights, restaurant lights, and car lights. I groggily looked up to see that we were standing in the parking lot of a motel.

“We are in Joliet, Illinois and I already got us a room.” He replied softly, showing me the room key that was in the form of a credit card-like card.

“How?” I mumbled, still very groggy from my seemingly long nap.

“They didn’t ask for any ID and I found a wad of cash in the ash tray, so I used that.” He explained softly, leading me towards what was probably the room to our motel. “The lady didn’t recognize me, I don’t think, so we should be good.”

I yawned tiredly and slid my jacket off once we got into the motel room that had a stench of bleach and cigarettes. There were two small twin beds and Thomas had already claimed the one closest to the door by sitting on the edge of the mattress with very unsubtle creaks.

I moved over to the other bed silently and I was about to plop down into the stiff mattress but before I could, the familiar shrill of my ringtone shook the tired silence of the room.

I groaned and pulled my iPhone out of my pocket, looking at the caller ID- it was my mom.

“Shit.” I grumbled, stupidly pressing the ‘answer’ button and putting the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I asked into the phone, noticing Thomas’s confused look he was giving me. I mouthed ‘mom’ to him and he just nodded, laying back on his bed after kicking off his shoes.

“Charlotte, where are you?” My mother’s voice hissed on the other end. I felt like I hadn’t heard that poisonous voice in forever when in reality, it’s only been a little over a day, since the clock on the wall was telling me that it was just after eleven at night.

“I’m, um, just out.” I muttered a quick excuse.

“We had a dinner tonight and you missed.” She informed me. “It was a very important dinner.”

“Sorry,” I sighed. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, I we have a preshow tomorrow, so I expect you to be there and dressed properly.” She told me. “And none of this attitude, young lady.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” I grumbled. Of course, I wasn’t going back home, but it was just easier to agree with her now and destroy the phone later instead of denying her requests and getting an earful for it. I didn’t even know what a preshow was and I sure as heck didn’t know why I was being forced into going, even if I wasn’t going to go at all.

“Valerie won’t be attending, so you need to be on your best behavior and you really need to show up. When you take over the company, you can’t just miss important events like this. You need to be more responsible, young lady.” She repeated for emphasis.

“Valerie never attends stuff.” I pointed out lazily.

“Don’t back mouth!” She snapped, causing me to flip off the phone. Of course, she couldn’t see it, but it made me feel better and that’s all that counts, right?

“I’m sorry, Mother.” I sighed, feeding her the words that she wanted to hear. I knew that if I just told her what she wanted to hear then the conversation would be over a lot quicker and it would go a lot smoother than if I spoke my mind which, with my mother involved, never ends well. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“You better Charlotte Brikers.” She snapped before hanging up the phone. I sighed and carelessly dropped the phone to the floor of the motel with a loud thud, but disappointingly, there was no crash and the screen didn’t break. Isn’t that what iPhones are good for? How did it not break?

“What was that about?” Thomas asked with raised eyebrows from his bed.

I let out a gruff sigh and slid under the covers of my bed- she didn’t even care about where I was or if I was okay, she just needed me for her goddamn business. I felt so wrong saying that I hated my mother- she’s my family and she’s 1/3rd of the family that I have, but I can say that and mean it wholeheartedly. I really do hate her.

“Was she mad that you aren’t home?” He asked as I turned the lamp off, emptying the room of all light and allowing darkness to engulf the entirety of the room.

“She didn’t even notice.” I mumbled quietly. I closed my eyes and just felt really angry at everything. I wasn’t angry at Thomas, though, I was angry at the life that I left behind and I was so relieved that I really did leave it behind. And now, if Thomas is correct and we’re in Illinois, there are two full states between me and that… that beast. I was finally kind of free and she was taking that away from me just with one phone call, which is really not fair at all.  

“I’m sure she misses you.” He tried to reassure me in the darkness before either one of us had fallen asleep.

I felt tears prickle my eyes and was glad that it was pitch black so that he couldn’t see me begin to cry. I didn’t want him to see me cry because I think that if he sees me cry then he’ll think that I’m weak and then we’ll be at square one with the whole ‘I work alone’ speech. “Just go to sleep.” I nearly pleaded. If he heard the sniffle at the end of my wavering plea, he didn’t show it because he didn’t say anything after that.

“Goodnight.” He nearly whispered, his voice laced with awkwardness yet a lot of concern, but that was the last thing he said. I let a few tears fall from my eyes before I closed them tightly and forced myself to sleep.

_________________________________

So the song to the side, I'm like, obsessed with that whole album right now, which is why that song's there, because I'm addicted :P

I'm trying to think up a new updating schedule that's three times a week, but I'm not sure yet. Just be prepared (:

Thanks for reading!! <3