Author's Notice: I've decided to continue! As this story develops, I hope that I will get many more opinions on it (:

Chapter Two

Bella's Point-of-View:

Buses and taxi cabs had been in my plans for travel at first. I quickly started to realize that taxis were too expensive, so buses became my main means for travel. I took multiple ones throughout the state of Washington, winding my way south, staying at a women's shelter here and there, but mostly sleeping on the cracked plastic seats. I stared out of the windows for hours on end, my mind mostly devoid of thought.

Even though I didn't think much, when I did, it was usually about my dad. I wondered what he was doing at that moment in time. Was he wondering where I was? I'm sure he was. I had been careful to leave no traces behind; all of my plans to leave had been hidden in a notebook that I carried in my back pack now. Stuffed full of map cut-outs, Map Quest print-outs, lists of where to go and what to see and what to do while I was on the road.

I decided early on in my planning to leave for the south. I would take as many buses as I could all the way through Washington and maybe Oregon, if I could, then as far into California as I could. I didn't have much money, but I had a bus pass that was viable at most bus stations. I was careful with it. If I ever lost my bus pass, I would be doomed to hoof it.

I didn't really know at first why I wanted to go to the south. Maybe not the southeast – Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana – but definitely south from Washington. I didn't really want to go to Arizona, even though I knew the terrain well. I was worried that my mom would find me there, even in a large state. I just wanted warmth. Sun and maybe some sand and surf. But from the start, I knew that I would eventually be caught or I would return home. This journey was only temporary, but it would last for a while.

• • •

The bus's brakes squealed and I was tossed against the back of the seat in front of me, blinking the sleep from my eyes frantically. Car horns blared and the few passengers that had been awake during the crash peered over the tops of the seats at their driver. I'd known as soon as I'd boarded that the man was a drunkard. Apparently, during the night, while most of the passengers were asleep, he'd been steadily sipping at a thermos of hard liquor. I'd smelled it on him when I'd climbed the stairs and let him scan my bus pass.

The police came and all of the passengers were ordered off of the bus. My heart thrummed against my rib cage when the sheriff told us that we would all have to give a statement. I hoped that no one had issued a missing person's report. I hoped that we wouldn't have to show identification. I hoped that the black hair dye I'd used covered my naturally brunette hair well enough.

A thin man in a police uniform with wire-rimmed glasses approached me. He was young; like he had just gotten out of the academy and into the field. But he was confident in his work and dutiful. He took out a pen and a little note pad and started to ask me questions about the accident. I told him that I was asleep, so that I wouldn't be of much help, but he'd looked up at me severely and said, "Every statement counts for something."

I told him that I'd smelled alcohol on the bus driver when I'd boarded, back in the southern part of Washington. I felt that the man was swerving a bit, but nothing that couldn't have been due to the rain and the traffic. The policeman took extensive notes, nodding occasionally to show me that he was still listening intently. When I finished, he clicked his pen and tucked the note pad inside his coat pocket. We stood in silence for a few beats before he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Where are you traveling from, if I may ask?" He was polite and had kind blue eyes and a trustworthy face, so I decided that it wouldn't kill me to answer without a complete lie.

"Near Seattle," I told him with a small smile. He nodded and I could tell he was calculating the distance from Seattle to Olympia.

"Why so far away from home?" he inquired, real curiosity in his voice. I sighed through my nose and looked off to the side at the little shops lining the street. I'd been to Olympia a few times but I'd never stayed long. Mom had never liked Olympia. She said it was for old people.

"Just needed a change of scenery." I adjusted the straps of my back pack and the policeman, whose name tag read Officer Davison, smiled at me. He nodded and told me to have a safer trip, laughing when he put extra emphasis on the 'safer.'

• • •

I boarded another bus a few hours later and took that one all the way out of Washington into Portland and on. I didn't even know how many days had passed since I'd left, but I'd stopped caring. I'd stopped worrying and I'd stopped trying to turn my cell phone on. I knew from being a policeman's daughter that I could be tracked if I turned my cell phone on. I also knew that I would need to renew my bus pass in the next month, which created a problem. By then, my face could be all over 'Have you seen her?' posters.

But by then, I could be so far south that the missing person's report couldn't reach me.

Author's Notice: A reviewer suggested that I make the next chapter Bella's Point-of-View, which I've done. Hope you enjoyed.