AN: Thanks to nick2951 for the feedback .
Chapter 2
Her hands tremble as she folds and packs, not troubling to smooth out the creases or refold something that isn't quite up to her usual standards. She regrets sending out the text now, regrets that it will probably bring her friends here while she wants to get away and while she can lie, she isn't quite the best of them. Right now she feels wired, too wound up to think properly and she's acting on autopilot as she folds and packs, the repetition doing nothing to calm her like it usually would. There's a stack of cash in her desk drawer, and more strewn around the room, all different denominations. Jacket and jeans pockets, handbags, tucked into books – she sweeps the room of the cash, not pausing to count it and stuffs it haphazardly into a wallet. There's enough there for the first night in a motel, at any rate, and she's grateful that she had the foresight when all this began to start up an emergency cash fund. It's taken over a year of sporadic small withdrawals at ATMs, but right now she's confident that this will get her moving.
No technology, she decided this as soon as she was getting out the duffle. She'd be a sitting duck if that happened, too easy to trace and she doesn't want to think what A might do to track her down. She wouldn't put it past A to trace her, just for the sake of tormenting her, and people will do a lot for money, she doesn't want to risk it. It's too wearying, too much to deal with all the time. Her friends feel the same, she knows: she can see it in the chipped nails that go unnoticed, the sloppily done homework finished within an hour because there was some bigger crisis, the faint lines of concealer around the eyes. In herself, it's the hands shaking from too much coffee, too many sleepless nights spent trying to unravel the mystery and ending up painted into a corner.
Whoever A is, they are a master at what they do, and the longer this goes on, the better they become at it all. The better they become, the less chance Spencer or anyone else has of unravelling it, because there's still gaps in the knowledge and it's harder to tell what details are important and which are innocuous.
The text has not gone unanswered, but her friends are busy, and it's such a relief that she could cry. She can go now, zips up the bag and hefts it over her elbow. The weight of it is not substantial and for a minute she wonders about more things, but no, there's no time.
In the kitchen, she dithers over leaving a note. Her parents will be out of town for a few more days, and Melissa is still overseas. None of her family will notice she's gone until it's too late, and by that point she could be on the other side of the country. Hitchhiking seems to be the best thing for it. Her own car is out of the question – just as easily traced as a phone, and too conspicuous.
No, no need to leave a note. Her friends will be the first to notice, if A doesn't beat them to it.
At first it had seemed like the best idea, going on the run with her friends, but on second thought, she's better off alone for now. Maybe in a few days she can reach out, give them directions to her location, but right now she has to go and establish a safe place.
It's dark, too dark, and the streetlights are off as she makes her way down the driveway. At this point she hasn't dared to bring even a torch, and already it's clear to her that her paranoia has reached new levels, but she can't bring herself to care because paranoia is probably half of what's keeping her alive at this point.
The rest, she doesn't think about.
Instead, she makes her way over the pavement, feeling the familiar cracks in the ground and keeping close to the shadows. Doing this must be what it's like to be A, always skulking in the dark and never revealing yourself. The insight would usually make her shudder, but instead she's numb to it, pushes away the thought because all her A activities were done in daylight, if she remembers – she probably doesn't, but it's not like she's desperate to remember. Her footsteps feel too loud and she's sure that she's highly visible to anyone who might be looking outside, but that's not important.
Lea-ving. Lea-ving. Lea-ving. It becomes a tattoo that she leaves on the ground and echoes in her brain, one step, two steps, repeat.
She focuses on the rhythm. If she thinks about anything else, she'll falter. If she falters, she knows she'll turn back.
Turning back is not an option, not now.
She has to burn her own trail, has to let her trials be of her own making, because she is so damned tired of having some anonymous coward dictate her every move.
And so when she reaches a payphone, she takes the opportunity to add reading glasses and screw her hair into a knot out of her face, swipes haphazard makeup onto her face. It's the best disguise she can muster. A tiny compact mirror tells her that she looks clownish, but she hurries anyway for fear that someone will crash a car into the phone booth at any moment.
It's the first break she allows herself, she slots in the correct change and dials for a taxi because she can't keep walking in the dark.
So she gets in and commandeers a lift to the bus station, pretends to herself that she isn't silently repulsed by buses because if she wasn't driving herself she would be driven around in a luxury car, all polished metal and leather and all that goes with paying top dollar for a car.
She's safely on a bus within minutes of reaching the depot and does her routine sweep of the surrounding area, but there's no hoodie that she can see, no suspicious dark lurker. She doesn't relax though, remains stiffly seated and she's sure that she'd gain a few curious looks if there were more people on the bus. Letting her guard down would be foolish and she's learnt how to tune out the background noise of her surroundings, knows how to block out the music that comes, tinny, through the speakers, knows how to shut down enough so it's her and her thoughts and a quiet awareness of everything important humming at the front of her mind.
The bus leaves the depot and she allows herself to relax just a bit, lowers her head to a thin paperback and says nothing.
It feels like her first victory in so many months, and she allows herself to savour it just for a few minutes.
So much for academics and extracurriculars.