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Finally, she was all packed up and ready to go. She took a quick look around to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything, took a paranoid moment to look around outside to see if there were any evil gangbangers or steroid freaks or ninjas or any other threats outside waiting for her, and then she bolted for her car when she saw the coast was clear.
Kate would flip once she realized what Becca had done. That was okay. They’d talk it out over the phone, once Becca was far away and everyone was safe because of it.
Becca began to rehearse the conversation as she started her rental car and drove off, first rehearsing it in her head, and then out loud, as the miles ticked by and she got further and further out of town. She wasn’t even completely aware which direction in which she drove; she was mostly lost to the fictitious arguments and counter-arguments she and the imaginary version of her sister were having.
Eventually, nearly an hour later, Becca won her made-up argument and came back into herself, looking around at where she was. The answer was, she had no idea.
She recklessly risked a look at her maps app on her phone and got at least some semblance of where she was, out in the middle of central Pennsylvania somewhere. It seemed like a perfect place to get lost, which she sort of was, but the likelihood that Death’s Head could find her out here was next to nothing.
Perfect. Now she just needed to find a motel.
It took another twenty minutes to find one. First she maneuvered toward a more significant highway than the tiny road she’d been driving on, then she followed it for a bit until she came across a microscopic town she’d never heard of before.
There was one motel in town, the kind of place that would normally make her shudder, but this was survival, damn it, and if she had to rough it, she would.
The clerk looked like he was on the verge of narcolepsy while she checked in, but to Becca’s surprise, there were more than a few cars in the parking lot of the motel. Her room was up on the second floor, and she hauled her bags up a flight of concrete steps to the second floor landing, walking along it until she found her room.
The room itself was as underwhelming as the town. Small, plain, outdated; she was a little surprised that there wasn’t a VCR attached to the TV or some other relic from days of yore.
“Becca,” a voice said behind her.
She screamed, dropping everything in her hands in her surprise. Someone was there, right there behind her, someone big, someone tall, someone hairy…
Griz. It was Griz, somehow out here at her hiding place before she was ever really in it.
“Jesus, Chewie!” she said. “How do you sneak up on someone when you’re that big?”
“I just walk real quiet,” he said.
She sighed. Really, she should’ve expected that sort of response from Griz. “Good answer. Good answer. A bit literal, but…”
“What are you doing out here?” Griz asked her.
“Never mind that,” Becca said. “How did you find me?”
“Followed you.”
“Followed me?” she said. “How did you know I was leaving?”
“It seemed weird that you would want me to leave you alone with Death’s Head out there. So I stayed outside on my bike for a while in case they showed up. Saw that you left. Followed you.”
Poor Griz. Loyal, straightforward Griz. She’d tried to chase him off, and rather than argue with her, he’d simply sat outside where she couldn’t see him, still protecting her.
She couldn’t be mad at him. Sure, he’d messed up her admittedly poorly-conceived plan to go into hiding, but he’d done it out of such a pure motive that Becca couldn’t be upset with him.
If anything, she was a little impressed. She tried to think of another man in her life who had been so dedicated to looking out for her, even if told to do otherwise, and she couldn’t think of one. Well, her Dad, but that didn’t count.
Still, best of intentions or not, Griz was not going to talk her into giving up her plan. The only way to keep the others safe was to stay out here, away from them, where nobody could find her.
“I’m not going back,” she said. She actually put her foot physically down when she said it, even though she felt a little silly the second after she did it.
“Okay,” Griz said.
“I… what?” Becca said. “What does that mean?”
She’d been expecting an argument, but when no argument came, she was a little thrown off. Here she had a whole speech ready to defend her actions… meant for Kate, but Griz would do… and right when she thought she’d have a chance to use it, Griz didn’t put up a fight.
“It means okay,” Griz said.
