The first part of the day passed in silence. Emily was exhausted after having spent the night before debating herself on whether she should dare to propose the idea of driving back to California together. She found herself drifting off to sleep, watching the shifting landscape slide by. There were many emotions that buzzed inside her and she quietly tried sorting between them while feeling them melt into her sleepy state. She was blissful to have some time alone with Paige, even though most of it would be spent stuck inside a small, metal vehicle. Yet she found that there was still primal fear, gnawing at the pit of her stomach, wondering what the stalkers next move was going to be. There was also another feeling fluttering around that she couldn't quite place: was it sadness? Excitement? Her head got foggier and she found herself seeing instances that were not presently happening.

"Are you sure you took the right lane?" Emily asked, pressing the little machine next to the dashboard.

"Yes Em, I'm sure," Paige said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, the GPS could be wrong couldn't it?"

"No way. It's top of the line. It's just a little longer. We're just going a little slow so it seems longer than it should be."

"Okay. I trust you."

"Thanks. It's just a weekend trip Em, not brain surgery. We're going to be fine."

"I know. I'm sorry that I'm being so antsy."

"It's fine, really."

"No. It's not. You're trying to do something special for me and all I can do is complain."

"It's understandable Em. That whole A business is very unnerving. I get it. I really do."

"That thing is horrible yes. But I shouldn't be taking it out on you. I just want to have a good time this weekend."

She felt the warmth of the other woman's hand reaching for hers and squeezing it reassuringly:

"I think we already are," Paige said and smiled. "Look Em, we're a couple. I'll survive a little quizzing. And besides, that whole A business, it will pass. And we will have plenty of time after that to travel together."

Emily smiled at the memory of Paige's comment. She had been so confident in what they had, so convinced that they had their whole lives ahead of them, together. She was feeling nostalgic, but it was a bittersweet one. The memory brought her such joy but not without a bit of sadness at the thought that she had lost what she had treasured so dearly.

"Em, Emily?" she heard Paige saying.

"Hm?" Emily mumbled, her head twitching upwards. "How long was I out?"

"Pretty darn long. It's almost noon now."

"Wow. I must have really needed the rest."

"I guess you did. I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to grab some lunch?"

"I could eat."

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After the two women ate lunch at a truck stop, Paige accepted Emily's suggestion that she would take the wheel for a couple of hours.

"Do you mind?" Paige asked.

Emily turned around to find that the other woman was waving the book that she had given her.

"Of course. You gave it to me after all."

"True. Did you like it?"
"I loved it. It had all of my favorite things."

"Action, adventure and bold women who fear neither pain nor death?"

"That and also the fact that it had enduring love you know? It's funny, we were speaking about it that day when you gave it to me."

"Love that never goes away?"

"Yes. The invisible thread that never breaks no matter how much time passes."

"I loved that part too."

They were interrupted by Paige's phone ringing.

"I'm sorry," Paige said and smiled apologetically. "It's Mona."

The auburn haired woman pressed a couple of buttons and put the phone between them:
"Hey there Miss Bond. You're on speakerphone."

"That name hasn't gotten any funnier Paige. And who are you putting me on speakerphone for might I ask?"

"Emily."

"I thought you were going home today."

"Well, as it turns out me and Em were leaving on the same day so she decided to tag along."

"A drive across the country. How romantic…"

"Are you getting something out of this?" Emily interjected, Mona's comment hitting her where it hurt. "Just drop it Mona."

"Your demand would be so much more effective if I hadn't been commissioned to spend the last couple of days going over the details of photographs of you two sucking face."

She could almost hear the woman on the other end smirking, content with the rise she was able to get out of her. So she bit back on her frustration and turned towards Paige who was trying to form a coherent sentence:

"What did you find out Mona?"

"Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Which ones do you want first?"

"Just get the bad news over with first."

"Well, I have skimmed every single shot that was taken that night and I talked to some of the staff at the Hungry Owl. It turned out that there was someone new working but they never showed up for a second shift."

"Did you find anything out about them? A name maybe?"

"They gave a name which I traced and turned out to be complete bogus."

"Damn it!"

"Anything else would have been an amateur move. The staff also wasn't a lot of help. Couldn't give me any description beside 'average'.Turns out that nobody really pays attention to the bus boys. Even the cameras in the parking lot didn't give me anything other than a figure with a black cap."

"I don't even want to know how you got those tapes…"

"Good. Because I would never tell you."

"Speaking of good, are we going to get to those news any time soon?"

"We are. I looked over the memory stick and its content and I can tell you that it's sloppy work. So whoever you're dealing with does not have good technical knowledge."

"And that is suppose to help us how?" Emily interjected.

"When it comes to tracking people down, to know who you're dealing with you need to know what you're dealing with."

"And what are we dealing with?"

"A lone wolf. Someone with amazing stealth skills, capacities to break and enter but limited academic knowledge. My profile is that this is someone who has minimum official education but has acquired a certain set of skill, possibly from incarceration. You remember those picture that they sent you?"

"Yes. What about them?"

"There was no official goal when it came to those photos. There is nothing on them that incriminated you or puts you at risk. So the point was not to show that they have something on you."

"Then what was the point?"

"To show you that whoever they are they have you. The message is that you can't escape them. They're not just trying to break into your house, they're breaking into your head."