31. Comfort of The Chase
Clothing, shaken and folded neatly… check.
Toiletries, labeled and organized… check.
Money, counted and folded, emergency funds hidden in her right boot… check.
Derringers, oiled, loaded and stowed properly… double check.
Meryl went over her mental checklist for packing as she straightened her traveler's cloak in the cracked, spotted mirror that every cheap motel seemed to have. After going through it three times, she was satisfied that she had everything. Then she paused, suddenly struck by how this routine of running and bullets had become just another part of her life. How chasing some idiotic outlaw across the desert, how putting her life, her friends and certainly her sanity in harm's way, and how living out of her suitcase by day and sleeping with a derringer under her pillow by night, had suddenly become her reality. How it all had suddenly become normal.
But Meryl had always known that a desk job was not for her. After all, she had been running away for most of her life. She ran away from her family, she ran away from boredom, from complacency, from the too easy satisfaction of the familiar. She ran because she knew that if she ever stopped, she would be left with nothing but her cylindrical thoughts and her doubting emotions, all the what-ifs that haunted her mind before she fell asleep each night.
Everyone had told her it was crazy for a young woman to want to travel across the Outer in search of the most dangerous man conceivable. But she had done it, was still doing it.
Meryl gathered her things and exited the dingy motel, wheeling her suitcase out the door and into possible danger, probable conflict and almost certain chaos. Ahead of her, she could see Vash and his ridiculous red coat standing out against the endless sands. Meryl allowed herself a wry smile. They had all said she was crazy, and they were probably right. But this time, she was running towards something. Or, at least, someone.