Beth hears the furniture shift around in the Uhaul as she drives down the dark highway. She thinks about the poor packing job that she and the kids had accomplished in a 48-hour period. She hadn't really taken time to wrap items very carefully or put moving blankets over the furniture. She was anticipating there would be several damaged items discovered after she arrived at her destination.

She had to leave under the cover of darkness on a week that Rio was away in Canada for 'business' so that he wouldn't get suspicious and notice right away that she had left Detroit..left him.

He would come home to an empty house. Beth had made sure that the only person's who knew she was leaving were Ruby, Dean, Dean's mother, and Annie. It was the summer, so she didn't have to worry about pulling the kids out of school right away and she didn't even tell anyone on the City Council board that she wasn't going to show up to her council woman job on Monday morning. Her 2 year term was ending soon anyways so she didn't think that it would be a big scandal to abandon her position.

She had been driving for more then 12 hours and even after stopping for lunch, dinner and making 3 rest stops, she knew she wouldn't be able to drive for much longer. It was pitch black out and the highway was stretching for miles without Beth seeing a solitary house. She knew that her body was screaming at her to stop somewhere so that she could sleep. She could barely keep her eyes open and it was another 3 hours to the midway point between Detroit and Vegas so she's need to stop off in a rinky dink town in Iowa and find a cheap motel so that she could rest for the night.

She had tucked away some cash that Rio hadn't known about. Mostly from selling handmade items on etsy and eBay. She had a separate savings account that she had set up years before her divorce with Dean was finalized and before she had met Rio. When she had time for 'normal, boring housewife' activities and had wanted to set up a rainy-day fund in case of emergencies. After what had happened earlier in the week, she had decided this was an emergency and had already mostly drained the account on the plane tickets and UHaul. She had a small amount of cash set aside for at least one motel stop and to pay for food for the trip.

She had split meals with Jane at the rest stops and drank water to cut down on her costs. Dinner had consisted of a veggie omelet at an all-night diner that had been the only place to eat for miles after she exited the highway in a small town in Iowa.

She had given a lot of the furniture to Dean for his apartment after the divorce and hadn't replaced most of those items. She had learned to live with the basic items that her and the kids needed. Plus she was barely home anymore, spending a lot of time working or shuffling the kids between her house and Rio's apartment. He had moved to a 3-bedroom apartment soon after their relationship started to get more serious so that the kids would have a bedroom to stay in, which had 2 sets of bunkbeds.

She looks beside her, and notices Jane has fallen asleep in the seat beside her. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind Jane's ear. Her ex-mother law had agreed to fly out with the three oldest children to Vegas, Nevada where they would meet Dean and he would take them to his apartment in Henderson, which wasn't that far from the airport.

Jane had thrown a fit when Beth had told her that she would be flying out with her grandmother and cried to drive with Beth. Beth didn't mind having the companionship as she drove, and it saved her some money by not buying an extra plane ticket. She had just purchased the other tickets 2 days ago and they weren't cheap being last minute ticket.

All her plans were made within the last 3 days after the incident occurred. She was able to arrange with Ruby to stay with her and her family in their new house out near Henderson, where they had settled several years ago. Although Ruby had flown out to Detroit to see Beth and they called or texted each other almost every night, this was the first opportunity Beth had to see her best friend's house.

The kids were all staying with Dean and his mother was booked at a local hotel for the next week. Beth wasn't looking forward to staying on Ruby and Stan's couch and being separated from her children while she looked for a job and a place to stay. She needed to find an 'honest' job, one that wouldn't get her in trouble with the law but something that paid the bills. She needed to find something quickly.

Beth exited the highway at and parked in the parking lot of a Quality Inn. She carried a sleeping Jane into the lobby. The desk clerk took pity on her and found her a room with two double beds for the same price as a single bedroom. Beth knew that she looked for a sore sight for the eyes. She had a large bruise that has formed on her cheek under her left eye from where she was pistol whipped during the attack. Her hair was messy and uncombed, she had no makeup on, but you could still see the remnants of the mascara that had run under her eyes as she cried herself to sleep and Jane was clinging to her, arms wrapped tightly around her neck, drooling on her.

The woman at the front desk gave her a half smile and a nod as if she was reading the situation that was etched onto Beth's face.

"Good on you honey for escaping him". She said. Her eyebrows knitted together in pity as she flashed a kind smile at Beth.

Oh, thought Beth, the lady thinks that I am a battered woman, escaping an abusive relationship. Was she not though in a way? Her relationship with Rio had brought on the violence that occurred to her because she was an easy target to find and hurt in order to get to him. She couldn't put herself and her children's lives at risk because of his lifestyle ..which had also become her lifestyle any longer. That had been the last straw. He had had hidden information from her, that put her who family at risk.

Beth gave her a half smile as she grabbed the room key and made her way to the room. She was so exhausted that she collapsed on the bed after tucking Jane into her bed. She turned her phone on and plugged it in. She hadn't checked her phone all day. There were messages from Ruby asking about her expected arrival time, one from Dean confirming that his Mother and the other kids were picked up at the airport earlier that day and 5 missed calls, 2 voicemails and 13 text messages from Rio.

Listening to the voicemails Beth could hear the confusion and panic in his voice, "Elizabeth, what have you done, I got back from my trip and stopped by to see you. Everything was gone. I got your note. I don't want to lose you. Please pick up the phone.'

The second voicemail was left about 4 hours after the first one, after the text messages. "Please baby, please answer. I promise I will fix this. I am so sorry that you got hurt because of me. I can't let you go, I will come and find you" His voice sounded less panicky and sadder but determined.

"No, you won't come and find me, you need to forget me and move on", Beth said quietly out loud with a tinge of sadness in her voice She stared at the multiple texts declaring his love for her and that they should figure out the situation together and not apart.

Beth wanted more than anything to reply to him, to hear his voice again, to hold him close to her and take in his scent, his whole essence. That wish though, couldn't come true. She was in a motel room that reeked of mildew and cigarette smoke instead of snuggling up besides him and inhaling his sandalwood cologne.

As Beth finished putting her pajamas on, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped in horror. The man who had pistol-whipped her had really hit her hard. The bruise that formed on her cheek was a bright purple bloom and looked blotchy. She touched the spot gently and recoiled as the painful memory of that fateful day that changed her life and put her on the run flooded back to her. She shut her eyes tightly as she laid her head on the pillow. Salty tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth.

If only she had listened to Rio and locked her back door like he had reminded her to do that morning, none of this nightmare may have happened.

Closing her eyes, trying to let sleep envelop her only led to the clear pictures coming back to her of what had happened.