I didn't want to be mean and run away from him, but I had to. Grover kept smothering me and was starting to really freak me out. I wish he'd go back to the way he was when we'd found him. Back then, we were on a run for food for the rest of the group when we stumbled upon Grover. I felt really bad for Grover because he was a handicapped kid that was getting beat up by a couple of teenagers.

We brought Grover back to our 'home' and welcomed him into our makeshift family. He'd really done his part; he couldn't get in and out of convenient stores to steal food, and he certainly sucked at taking a few bucks from purses, but Grover was a good lookout and was decent at finding us a place to sleep for the night.

But maybe we shouldn't have let him into our group, because he was completely nuts.

He dragged me down to the train station to get a one-way ticket to New York. I'm not sure how he was exactly going to get us on the train, unless he had money, which didn't seem likely. Grover kept babbling about some camp that would help me, but I just kept thinking that he was the one who need some help.

When we got to the station, the lady selling tickets seemed pretty skeptical of the two of us; after all, we were wearing ratty clothes stained from the inability to clean them often. Our hair was greasy and need to seriously wash up. But Grover acted like we were wearing first-class clothing and plopped a couple hundred dollars onto the counter.

And we thought he was sharing.

Anger ran through my body at the sight of the money. Here we were, our entire group having to resort to stealing a little bit of food just to keep the hunger pains away and lived in a skate park, and he had the audacity to keep money from us?

The woman handed Grover two tickets and pointed him in the direction of a gate that said "Chicago-New York." Grover grabbed my arm and started pulling me in the direction of the gate. He looked around for a few moments before I was even allowed on the train.

Our seats were decent and comfortable; I felt so strange being in somewhere so nice. The compartment was small and Grover had to sit across from me. We sat in silence for a few minutes until the train suddenly lurched forward and we were leaving the station.

I watched the city of Chicago zip by and in no time, we were zooming through the land surrounding the city. It was then that I decided to start questioning Grover.

"Where did you get the money?" I tried to keep my voice from sounding accusatory, but that was exactly what I was doing.

He shifted uncomfortably, guilty looking. "I've had it since you guys took me in. I had a lot more when you first found me, but I've been spending it on you all along the way."

I was definitely confused now. How had he been spending money on us and we didn't even know?

Almost reading my mind, Grover responded, "I knew you guys would go days, sometimes weeks without being able to successfully pick-pocket people, so I would convince people to let you easily take money from them." He grimaced slightly, "I suppose that makes me a bad person-letting you just steal like that. Perhaps Chiron's right, you're Herm-"

Grover cut off when he saw my expression. I guess it was a mixture between anger, relief and confusion, because I felt all three. I was angry because it gave us false hope that we could actually make it on our own, then again, he managed to give us money for food during days that we'd usually just starve. Confusion…well, that's only because this had been a really weird day.

"Look Violet, I did what I had to for you to trust me. I can't go into detail right now, but it's vital that you trust me. I'll give my life for you Violet, I can guarantee that I'll put myself into danger before I let you get hurt again." Grover's eyes were wide and sincere, as if he'd known me all his life and was his best friend.

Not knowing what else to do, I nodded dumbly.


We were somewhere in Ohio when Grover fell asleep. We stopped for a few minutes at a station on the border and that's when I ditched him. My gut told me to trust Grover, but I just wanted to go back home to my family, the kids I've rolled with since I was 10 years old when I ran away. We always took care of one another and loved each other, so I couldn't just abandon them.

I slipped away quickly and quietly; no one seemed to notice my absence. The train station was in the middle of nowhere and had a large area of woods just across the street. Like a shadow in the night, I was deep inside the woods, going in the opposite direction of the now speeding away train.

Grover was on his way to the other side of the country. It would probably take him an hour to wake up and realize I was gone and more than 8 hours before the train would stop and he'd be in New York. By the time he would be able to get back to Chicago, I would be back home and would convince the group to not accept Grover back into the group.

Because lets face it…Grover's crazy.