They left the state as soon as Tegan woke up and they'd stuffed anything valuable or useful into two holdalls. Mickey stole a car and drove with Kara sleeping against the window in the bag, her hand still pressed against her side and Tegan up front with him pointing at random things out the window and generally just trying to lighten the mood. Or maybe she was filling the silence.
Mickey didn't particularly know or care, he just thought that having some noise was better than none and it freaked him out ever so slightly that she now kept grinning at him like they were the best of friends or something. He was impressed that she didn't seem fazed by any of this at all though.
When they got to the far end of Iowa, they stopped in a shitty motel and Tegan waited outside whilst Mickey robbed a nearby store. Kara didn't even blink, but then he supposed if she'd been living on the run for a while and since she'd worked for a drug dealer, she was used to having to resort to different methods to survive. Later on they played darts with kitchen knives, the dartboard just a piece of cardboard that Mickey had drawn on. They even managed to coax Kara into playing even though she held her side the entire time and looked far too pale to be standing upright. The bruising on her face her faded, but her ribs would take a while to heal.
They stayed in that shitty hotel for three months, with Kara homeschooling reluctant Tegan and Mickey teaching her things like how to shoot a gun. Kara complained at first, but the idea of Tegan being able to defend herself was an attractive one. She liked knives the best, which Mickey thought was sort of creepy, but he didn't say anything. She kept one in the side of the stupid fucking army boots she always insisted on wearing.
Tegan's dad found them just after the third month was up and Mickey was out holding up a drug store to get cash; which he actually thought was for the best. The girls locked themselves in the bathroom and Kara called Mickey off her cell. He could hear Derek ranting and raving in the background as he trashed the motel room. Luckily, most of the stuff they still kept in the car so that they could be ready to bolt and Kara had grabbed one of the other bags on the way to the bathroom. Mickey had to punch out the little bathroom window so that the girls could climb out.
They didn't stop driving for three days straight, trying to put as much distance between them and Derek and possible. Mickey and Kara took turns behind the wheel and for almost the entire time for the first few days, Tegan stayed curled up against Mickey's side. Her grip was white-knuckled on a knife as she clutched it to her chest, her expression blank. That was the first time that Mickey realised how oddly protective he felt of Tegan. Kara to, but especially Tegan.
When they finally topped he stole a packet of marshmellows as well as the usual money and alcohol and they sat in the back of the car whilst Kara drove, melting them on the end of a pen knife with a lighter. They tasted a little dodgy, but it made Tegan smile.
He told himself that it was okay for him to feel a little attached. After all, you didn't spend so much time with someone and not feel something. But he also told himself that it was still for nothing but convenience. He didn't give that much of a shit, just a little. He blamed the eyes, the way both of them would look up at him with wide, watery eyes and remind him so much of that person he couldn't forget.
It was convenience though, that was all. Not because Mickey actually had a heart or anything though.
When they stopped on the edge of some shitty road with Tegan sprawled out asleep in the backseat, Kara and Mickey sat on the hood of the car and passed a joint between them. It was warm, but the air felt heavy as they breathed in, slightly uncomfortable. Still, uncomfortable was better than dead.
"You don't have to stick around, you know," Kara said, not looking at him as she spoke, blowing smoke out of her nostrils in that way he noticed she always did when she was nervous. He'd started noticing weird things like that, picking up on their habits, he couldn't particularly help it. "Nobody should have to deal with that nut job, I wouldn't blame you for dibbing out."
And he knew she wouldn't, that was the thing. She wouldn't blame him in the slightest, because he knew that as far as she was concerned, Derek was her burden. And yeah, that was true, but Mickey was begrudgingly growing a conscience and he knew he'd feel bad about leaving. He'd never really felt that before. He thought maybe it was the fact that he'd already left Mandy once and Tegan sort of reminded him of his sister, it would feel too much like he was leaving Mandy twice.
Of course he didn't say that.
"Not like I've got anything better to be doing," he said, taking the joint off of her again. He was fine with the whole not looking at each other when they spoke thing. Mickey wasn't really into that whole eye contact shit. He only liked looking people in the eye when he was staring them down, because otherwise he was afraid people might see something in him that he didn't want them to find out. That had happened once with some stupid redhead he'd let get under his skin, he put that down to too much eye contact or some shit.
It had definitely been the eye contact.