There was no telling how far Victor's reach really was. Dwayne knew it was long but he'd just have to hope that word was slow and he and Kyle could travel faster. Memphis was their first major stop after twelve hours on the road. Kyle was slumped against the window and Dwayne had started to lose feeling in his ass. Staying awake was getting harder and harder as his chin kept bouncing against his chest with each nod off. Their transfer didn't leave for another eight hours. They had to find somewhere to crash.

When the breaks squealed and the bus lurched to a stop Dwayne gently rolled Kyle toward him in a bid to wake him up.

"C'mon, bud. Time to get up."

Kyle groaned and rubbed his little fists into his eyes. "Are we there yet?"

"Not California, no, but we get off here for now. C'mon."

Dwayne wrapped his giant's hand around is son's baby one and gently gave his arm a tug. Kyle's eyes were slitted with exhaustion and he lumbered down the aisle with Dwayne nearly tripping over him with every step. The bus leaned with their descent down the stairs and into the humid Tennessee air. It wouldn't be dark for hours yet but their best move was to find something to eat and duck into the nearest motel for a few hours of sleep before heading off again.

The Memphis bus terminal wasn't as big as the Port Authority which equally calmed Dwayne as much as it unnerved him. Fewer spots for someone to tuck away in but the two of them didn't blend in as much in the smaller crowds. A quick glance around showed him multiple exits, a cluster of homeless men around a trash can and just enough commuters milling about that he couldn't pick up on anyone suspicious. His gut was usually pretty good and right now no alarm bells were going off.

Ducking into the terminal lobby Dwayne walked the two of them across the floor and to a door as far opposite from them as he could get. The handle was sticky and he wiped his palm on his jeans in a feeble attempt to get rid of the gunk. What greeted them outside wasn't a whole lot of much. When a plane screamed overhead he knew why. They were near the airport, on the outskirts of the city. They may need to do a little hunting.

A short walk down the road brought them to a dank budget motel with a twenty-four hour diner across the street. It'll have to do. With his son's hand in his they walked into the diner and ordered their share of spectacular diner food. Kyle seemed to wake up a bit at the idea of waffles for dinner but that was short-lived when, five minutes later, he had nearly fallen asleep in a puddle of maple syrup. Dwayne threw down some cash on the table and they scurried out of the diner and into the motel lobby to check in.

The room was well-worn and about a decade out of style but it had beds and a lock on the door. It would do. Dwayne tried to ignore the mystery stains on the carpet and Kyle didn't even notice them. He dropped the plastic bag he held at the foot of the bed and made to pull the cover back until Dwayne stopped him.

"Shower first, buddy. C'mon."

That's when the whine started and Dwayne could hear the tears creeping up with the pitch in Kyle's voice. He almost gave in but he knew it would be easier to get all the washing done now rather than at two in the morning.

"None of that. Let's go. Real quick."

The whine continued around the bed and was met with stomps on the way to the bathroom as Kyle peeled out of his clothes himself. Dwayne was surprised at how little work he had to do. Kyle must have been so tired that all his energy was focused on the fit about not taking a bath that he didn't even notice he was standing undressed in the bathroom.

Keeping good on his word Dwayne kept the bath to five minutes. Any longer and Kyle would have had his face pressed to the tile and snoring. As it was Dwayne was nearly there himself but he pushed through it enough to dry off his son, dress him in some fresh clothes and tuck him into bed. The kid was out before his head even hit the pillow.

Before heading into the steam himself Dwayne double-checked the deadbolt and chain on the door and the latches on the windows. All sealed up tight. It still made him uneasy to leave Kyle out of sight but the kid was dead to the world and they were locked in. He left the bathroom door fully open just in case.

Water near scalding patted against his reddened skin, the steam lulling him into a daze on his feet. He wobbled but caught himself on the wall and shook the sleep away. A bone-tired soreness came over him and it was all he could do to remain standing in the sauna he was creating in the dingy motel bathroom. Cracked tiled, a faded gray tub that at one paint used to be white, a shower curtain that he tried his damndest to keep away from his skin. He hoped this wasn't their life, the start of being on the run indefinitely, of being worried, looking over his shoulder for the both of them. They just needed to get away, bury themselves in a population somewhere far away and they could start again.

California.

His shoulders were still tense, carrying the weight of his stress in the shape of the world but Dwayne forced himself to turn the shower off and pat himself down with a towel that could have sanded the paint off a Buick. Whatever. He was clean.

In just a pair of boxers he crawled into his own bed, a smile creeping across his cheeks as he watched Kyle breathing deeply, nearly lost in the pile of pillows and blankets around him. He set the alarm for two and watched the digits flip to the next minute: 6:12. It was still light out and the evening sun filtered through the cracks in the curtains but that certainly wasn't about to keep Dwayne awake. He flicked off the light, plunging the room into near-darkness, and didn't even remember lying all the way down.

He could have sworn all he did was blink when the alarm sounded its shrill death knell throughout the room, wrenching Dwayne so violently from his sleep that the room spun. He slapped at the nightstand a few times before finding his mark and shutting the damn thing off.

With the heel of his hand he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and blinked himself the rest of the way awake. The room was full dark now, the cracks in the curtains letting in nothing but the dead of night. With tentative fingers he groped for the light switch and flicked the lamp on, groaning as the light pierced his eyes. From the other bed Kyle moaned and threw the blanket over his head. It was harsh, having to force him out of bed in the middle of the night, but they had a bus to catch. Otherwise they'd be stuck there until midday and they were still too close to New York for Dwayne's liking to be sitting still for so long.

"Got a bus to catch. Let's go."

Dwayne pushed himself out of bed and staggered over to Kyle's side of the room. He'd successfully cocooned himself in blankets and didn't look like he was willingly coming out. A couple gentle tugs on the bottom of the blanket didn't get him anywhere. Just a few more kid moans that seemed muffled by pillows. So he fisted the blanket and gave it one good tug. It slid away easily and left a Kyle-shaped lump in the middle of the bed, his eyes squeezed tight and a desperate attempt not to smile twitching on his cheeks.

"Let's go. Up."

A grunt into the mattress was his answer. As much as Dwayne enjoyed these moments they had somewhere to be. They couldn't play around forever. With a single muscled arm Dwayne scooped Kyle up and flipped him over his shoulder. The giggles could no longer be contained and Kyle let out a squeal of laugher. Dwayne flinched but laughed anyway. It was too early for that kind of noise and he didn't want to wake anyone else up. The least amount of attention they brought to themselves the better.

After pulling on some jeans and his little leather jacket Kyle was ready to go, sitting on the edge of the bed and kicking his legs against the mattress. Dwayne was a little slower to move but he tried to hurry himself along. Staying awake until two was a whole different animal than having to get up at two. He felt like he had a mattress tied around each leg and all he wanted to do was plop. But the thought of Victor and Kayleen catching up to them was motivation enough.

He swung the duffel over his shoulder and motioned Kyle toward the door. They'll stop at that greasy spoon they ate at when they first arrived. They had enough time. The rattle of the chain seemed to echo around the dreary room and the deadbolt clicking back was a boom in Dwayne's ears.

In that second the world grew more sinister: the shadows became blacker, the silence more deafening. The back of his neck prickled and Dwayne had a sudden, overwhelming urge to not open the door. Find another way out. But there was none. What was he afraid of? He couldn't pinpoint it but his gut was screaming at him to stop. Don't turn that knob. Except he didn't have a choice. He stepped in front of Kyle, using the whole of his bulk to shield his son, turned the knob and slowly opened the door.

At first it was just the dark of night, a sad, shadowed parking lot with some flickering streetlights over it, faking safe. The dumpy lobby building off to the left had the lobby light on and nothing else. The motel sign was missing a couple of letters. Dwayne could hear the buzzing from where he stood.

Then the brights lit up the night and all he could see was blinding white. He shoved Kyle even further behind him and heard the boy stumble, cry out.

"Stay there!" Dwayne nearly shouted but it came out closer to a choked whisper.

He closed the door so it was only open a crack, widened his stance on the cracked sidewalk and dropped the duffel, trying not to wince in the blaze of headlights and failing.

"You move fast, Dwayne. But you ain't slick."

Fucking cunt. How the hell did Kayleen catch up to them so quickly? Sure he wasn't being covert about it all but he didn't expect them to be tearing at his back.

"Victor gots eyes everywhere. They always watchin'."

A door squeaked open but never crashed shut. Kayleen cast a silhouette against the light as she stumbled over to him, leaning on the hood for support. She stopped in front of one of the headlights and allowed him a little more sight. The bags under her eyes seemed to glow in the haze around her and she looked to have lost even more weight in the short amount of time since he'd last seen her. Her arms were pipe cleaners knotted together as she crossed them over her barely-there chest.

"I want my son."

"The fuck you do."

Dwayne didn't want to swear in front of Kyle but this bitch . . . he couldn't help himself. It just spilled out. She really did bring out the worst in him. His arms at his sides, his leather jacket creaked with every twitch. His fists were clenched so tight he could feel the skin pull taught across his knuckles. This disgusting thing in front of him, she needed to go.

"Now, Dwayne. Don't be using that language in front of Kyle. We don't want him growing up a potty mouth."

"He'll be lucky if that's all he ends up with you watching over him."

She smiled, her lips tightly pursed, her eyes crinkling but the smile never actually touching a gleam to them. Dead eyes.

"Me and Victor can give him so much more than you ever could."

"Over my dead body."

Kayleen merely shrugged. "That can be arranged."

Cold, hard steel pressed into Dwayne's temple and it was all he could do not to flinch. He never even saw the guy creep up on his side, whether he was too focused on Kayleen or the guy was good at blending in with the dark he had no idea. But now Dwayne had a problem: he dies, Kayleen takes Kyle. He lives, she takes Kyle by force, Dwayne hunts them down and reclaims his son. Those were the choices.

He wasn't dying now. Dwayne was going to go down fighting and he'd take as many of these assholes with him as he could. Kyle was his top priority. But no matter how much he denied it, that meant letting her take him now without a fight. His heart clenched. It was the last thing he wanted to do. It was also the lesser of two evils. Dwayne dying now wouldn't help his son in the slightest.

Kayleen stretched herself out, craned her neck and called, "Kyle, sweetie, come to Mommy."

In the strained silence of the night not even wind blew. Humidity hung heavy in the air and Dwayne's shirt was sticking to his back. Nothing stirred. Not even Kyle behind the door. The hinges didn't even squeak.

Kayleen flicked her head toward the door and another body formed from the shadows behind the headlight. The burly thug walked toward Dwayne and he tensed, death metal on one side, fists of death on the other. But the guy veered around him and headed for the door.

Dwayne lunged, or tried to and froze as the hammer at the side of his head was cocked. No stupid moves. He couldn't make any stupid moves or he'd end up with a bullet in his head and Kyle would be lost.

A child's squeal rang out of the room and all common sense evaporated. Dwayne turned and this time he did lunge for the door but before he reached it pain exploded in his head, bursting stars in front of his eyes, and he staggered to his knees. The barrel had shifted and now pressed to the back of his head. Dwayne's vision was bleary and doubled and he reached for the man carrying a kicking Kyle out the door but he easily dodged the father's weak fingers.

Small squeals and grunts passed him by and tears clouded Dwayne's sight even more. The pressure on the back of his head lifted as a slender shadow loomed over him. He looked up and he could just make out the outline of Kayleen's bony shoulders, her wired, scraggly hair. Her face was covered by a curtain of black. It was better that way. His head hurt enough without adding her face to it.

"He's my son, Dwayne," she said as she shifted from foot to foot.

Dwayne blinked slowly. He heard the words, even understood them. So why wasn't he moving? His head hurt too much.

"I'm taking him where you ain't never gonna find him. Me and Victor. So fuck right on off."

It was like trucks smashing in his head as the gun came down on him a second time. Pain was a bomb and it kept detonating in his skull, fireworks of hurt as Dwayne dropped to all fours. Spit collected on his lips. He could feel it. But nothing made him wipe it away as it dangled and then dropped to the cement.

Kyle. He had to get Kyle.

A faint 'yee haw' drifted to him in his fading consciousness and the image of cowboys came to his broken mind. Kyle in a little cowboy hat, stupid tasseled chaps, ugly cowboy boots. Yeah, he'd like to be a cowboy.

Like the bones were wrenched from his body Dwayne crumpled to the sidewalk as the bright lights left him in the dark. The cement was cold despite the muggy night and it crept through his t-shirt. Kyle's face came to mind one more time, his sweet, innocent son dragged through the garbage of his life. Tears streaked down his cheeks and Dwayne inhaled a ragged breath before even the streetlights winked out and the darkness took over.