While waiting to hold counsel with my sponsors on the topic of the new plot point that came to mind for You're Pretty Messed Up Too, I decided I should work on something else. You know? Make productive use of the time. So here's the latest chapter of Little Wolf, which comes to you in spite of all the pestering and bugging Cut Myself Shaving has bombarded me with this afternoon. I hope you find it satisfactory.

Chapter 10

My attention was divided between the parking lot, the street and my watch as I perched on one of the large branches of the tree near the service station. It had taken me less time than I would have thought to get to the gas station Steve had mentioned so I'd spent nearly an hour sitting waiting for him to arrive, and biting my nails as the hands ticked closer and closer to midnight. I wouldn't stay even a minute passed the time he'd told me, because that's how stupid people got killed in the movies. "If I'm not there by midnight get to safety." Midnight comes and the idiot is all "I'll give them five more minutes." And then BAM! Their head is rolling on the ground. No thank you. The moment the big hand gets up to the twelve I'll be out of the tree and running for... well, okay, I should have put a little more thought into my options just in case Steve didn't turn up, but in my defence this a really stressful situation and I really hoped he'd show in time.

One minute left.

I scooted back down the branch to the trunk of the tree and shimmied my way to the ground in preparation. With my back pressed to the tree I scanned the lot one more time as time ran out. Suppressing a sigh, I started down the street at a casual pace, not wanting to draw attention to myself – teen running through backstreets at midnight? Hello Suspicion – while I tried to work out the safest place to go. We had no point of contact for emergencies. No trusted adult we were supposed to go to in case something happened. I thought about calling a friend and seeing if I could crash at their place tonight, but figured no parent would agree to a sleepover after midnight.

I was considering just heading home when Dad's voice ran through my head. The place you feel safest isn't always the safest place. Right. Good advice, Dad. I really shouldn't go home despite always feeling safe there. So where should I go? Somewhere that was totally not obvious, but that Steve would probably think of so that we could reunite when he did eventually get free of Kent and the rest of child services.

As I turned the corner onto the next street, walking merely to keep moving as I had no set destination as of yet, movement at the other end of the road had me instinctively ducking into the space between a bin and a stoop, trying my damndest to blend into the shadows. After a few moments of silence, during which the paranoid thought that my breathing was getting louder plagued my mind, I peeked out of my hiding place and spied a man walking down the other side of the street. Broad shoulders, trim waist, lightly muscled, with floppy dark hair that had just a hint of a wave to it. He seemed to be peering into the shadows on my side of the street, so I quickly ducked back into the inky blackness of my little nook.

Holding my breath to listen closely, I heard footsteps approaching, getting nearer and nearer to where I was huddled, until suddenly they stopped. I couldn't see much from my little wedge of space, but I was fairly certain whoever it was was standing right in front of me.

"Reggie?" came Steve's questioning tone, and the breath that I had been holding was released from me with an audible whoosh. Next thing I knew his face was obscuring any light that had been filtering in through the gap between the stoop and the garbage can. "I knew I'd find you around here somewhere," he chuckled, reaching in a hand and fumbling to find my own where it was wrapped around my knees. He tugged gently, urging me to come out, which I did, because I was relieved to have him there. He was annoying and pig headed and sometimes mean, but he was my brother and right now, we were all we had. Our parents were mysteriously missing. We couldn't go back to our home because child services would likely look there for us. All we had was each other and the clothes on our backs. I didn't even have my phone with me, having forgotten to pick it up after my shower.

As I straightened, I gazed around the street, taking more notice of my surroundings than I had previously. I didn't recognise the street as anywhere in particular I would go if I needed safety, but Steve seemed to be gazing around smugly, like he'd known exactly where to find me.

"Where exactly is around here?" I asked, gesturing to the surrounding street.

"Still near the service station," he responded at once, dragging me to the end of the street he'd entered and pointing to the bright lights of the gas station just a block away. For all the walking I'd done in the last – watch check – forty five minutes, I'd only managed to get a block away from the meet venue. Dad would have pummelled me with a full clip of Nerf bullets if I'd pulled something like that during one of our games. That realisation seemed to solidify Steve's words from earlier in my mind: events like this is what Dad has been preparing us for our entire lives.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

Steve shrugged and started leading the way down another street, heading away from the service station in a different direction. "Find somewhere safe to stay for the night," he suggested, leaving out the 'Duh' in deference to our situation. We both knew we'd have to spend more than the usual amount of time with each other, so it was best if we started putting aside our petty qualms and focusing on the bigger picture. Probably that was the reason Dad always teamed Steve an I together, so that we could learn to work as a team without bickering over every single decision. The whole thing made me wonder what kind of information Dad had that he hadn't told us all these years.

"Feeling safe doesn't mean we're safe," I paraphrased Dad's sage words of advice.

"Thanks for that, Dad," Steve said sarcastically. "So where are we supposed to go?"

"I don't know," I admitted, shoulders slumped as I trailed behind him. "That's why I didn't get far, I guess. I kept trying to think of safe places to hide, but all I could think of were places I felt safe, which prompted Dad's voice in my head."

Steve slowed, forcing me to walk beside him, and in the dim light from the street lamp a few yards away I could see he had a contemplative expression on his face. Clearly he had the same dilemma as I did coming up with a place that was safe for us to crash for the night but that we didn't necessarily feel safe. Because if we felt safe we were likely to let our guard down. And if we let our guard down we could end up right back where we started, which in no way helped us to find our parents, wherever they may be.

As a shadow appeared at the opposite end of the street I tensed, ready to run, but Steve pushed me onto my rear on the nearest stoop. As I stared up at him in confusion he hoisted himself up onto the low wall beside me, letting one foot hang down by my head. "What are you doing?" I whispered to him. "We should be hiding, it could be child services."

"With a grocery bag on one hip?" he shot back, reclining against the sloping section of the wall that ran parallel with the stairs. "Just look natural, okay?"

"Who goes grocery shopping at midnight?" I asked him.

"Who cares?" he replied. "We're a couple of kids hanging out after curfew."

"Right," I agreed as the woman turned into our street and I leaned my elbows on my knees, trying for casual or perhaps bored, I wasn't sure which. Steve pulled his phone from his pocket, fiddling with it in some way so that it was looked like he was texting someone. Neither of us spoke. I followed the woman's progress down the street with my eyes, leaning on my hand and trying to create an I'd-rather-be-somewhere-else expression on my face.

The woman slowed to a stop when she reached the stoop we'd come to occupy, glancing between the pair of us in the low lighting cast by the sparse street lamps. "You look homeless," she informed us thoughtfully. "If I leave a saucer of milk for you on the stoop, are you likely to return night after night?"

"Uh..." I uttered ever so eloquently.

At the same moment Steve sent her a dubious look. "We're humans, not kittens, lady," he informed her.

"How about Cheetos then?" she enquired, retrieving a bag of orange food bats from her grocery bags. "If you need somewhere to stay tonight I have a couple of nice soft blankets I could lay on the floor for you by the fireplace," she added merrily, skipping up the steps and inserting a key into the front door.

Steve and I exchanged an incredulous look, each trying to silently gauge the other's opinion on the option of staying in this strange woman's apartment. "What if we're no good delinquents out on a murder spree?" Steve challenged, standing on the wall so that he towered over her.

"What if I'm a no good ... what's the adult version of a delinquent?" Lost in thought, she seemed to mutter to herself for a moment before exclaiming, "CRIMINAL! What if I'm a crim? A paedophile looking for a couple of new victims?" she countered merrily, adding in a conspiratorial whisper, "They're not just men anymore, you know?"

"Okay," Steve said, hopping down onto the stair beside me and pulling me to my feet. "I get what you're saying. We can't trust anyone in this day and age, right?"

She cocked her head to the side, contemplating us from the open doorway. "Actually, I was trying for people who are up to no good don't usually announce it... but I guess yours works too." Without even a moment's pause, she entered the row house, leaving the front door open behind her. Lights came on, spilling their glow through the front windows and the doorway and I looked up to Steve in question.

"What are you gonna do?" I asked quietly.

In answer, Steve stepped forward so that he was right at the threshold, peering into the strange – and this time I mean strange as in weird, not strange as in we didn't know her, though she was that as well – lady's house. I expected him to explain that we were on the run/hiding from people and needed a place to crash for the night, but before he could get the words out the woman's voice carried out to us.

"Here, little humans," she called. "Come and get the Cheetos!"

I leaned up on tip-toes to see over Steve's shoulder only to be met with the sight of the woman laying down a trail of cheetos on the floor, a bundle of blankets tucked under her arm as she apparently tried to coax us into her house. Chances are, she was certifiably insane, but something was telling me this was the solution to our current immediate problem of where we would go for the night. She had the fixings for safety – a roof over the head, a locked door, warmth, privacy, and amenities – but was unfamiliar (and weird) enough that we'd be kept on guard the entire time we were here. To me that spelled out a safe place that didn't make us feel inherently safe.

So I pushed Steve inside, following quickly behind him and shut the door pulling on the chain and throwing deadbolts I found on the inside. Safe but not guaranteed, I assured myself, nudging my older brother further down the hall, to the room the cheetos lead to. We'd have to sleep in shifts.

So what are you thoughts on this woman? Good? Bad? Other? Review to find out more about her.