Heavy storm clouds hung over a little city called Saint Jude, bringing with them humidity and gusts of cold wind that broke up summer's hot breath. Gray sweated on his hands and knees down in front of the grill of a blue truck. Though the sun was setting, the gravel path into the farm field was a heating pad and the radiator ticked and hot air coiled out from beneath the hood of his truck parked in front of the other, hitting his back and making him more uncomfortable. A bead of sweat ran down his temple.

Heels tapped rhythmically together on the red bumper. "Do you want Juvia to try?"

"Have you ever lifted a licence plate before?" It wasn't rocket science but it did take a certain amount of quickness. He wasn't setting a good example. It wasn't his fault, though. First, he didn't have the right socket, then the bolts were rusty.

"No."

"Just keep a lookout. When I'm done with this one, you take the plates off my truck and we'll swap."

"Okay." Her heels tapped together again in the same rhythm.

Gray got the first bolt off. He breathed relief. How likely was it that this stretch of highway was going to remain deserted for very long? And what about the farmer? It was getting late and he was probably done for the day but Gray was paranoid.

The first drop of rain smacked loudly against the pavement. The second hit Gray behind the ear. He was almost relieved but that hurt, it fell with such force.

"Raindrops are such funny things." Juvia's voice was airy and distant.

"Mmhm."

Gray heard the scrape of fingertips over metal and imagined her running her hands over the hood, palm-down. "They haven't feet or haven't wings."

That would be ridiculous.

"Yet they sail through the air. With the greatest of ease."

Gray looked back over his shoulder. Juvia was lying on the hood of the truck with her arms splayed out like she was waiting to be crucified, not watching the road at all. Her blue hair whipped back and forth in the quickening gale.

"And," she finished, "dance on the street, wherever they please."

"What is that?"

"A little poem. Do you like it?"

It seemed well enough but when it was spoken in her melodic voice, so dead-pan, it was actually a little bit eerie. "It's pretty."

Juvia pushed herself up on the hood so she could see him work. She was still in the dress he'd picked her up in and the material fluttered around her legs just as much as it could. It reminded Gray of blackbirds fighting to get away.

Thunder rumbled and it was close. Gray set the socket on the next bolt and wrenched. The rusty old bolt broke off and the licence plate fell free. Juvia slid off the hood of the truck and pulled a screwdriver out from between her breasts. She crouched down to his level and worked on getting Gray's last licence plate free while he did the one on the back. Those went quicker, less abused by salt and water. By the time he returned, Juvia was done and handing over the screwdriver. He fixed up the rear licence plate and changed the sticker over so everything was valid, then put his old license plates on the farm truck.

Careless people were those that got caught.

Juvia got into the front of the truck through the driver's door and slid over to the passenger's side. Gray got in after her and rolled back out onto the road.

The sky really opened up and raindrops suicided against the windshield. Juvia wasn't afraid of the rain. She undid her window and leaned back in her seat with her eyes closed while the water fell to her skin. The bruises had faded around her eyes and her chest, her arms were free and clear of any marks, and she looked like a goddess, and acted like one, too, aloof and indifferent. She was a far cry from the woman he met four days ago—most of the time, anyway. Sometimes, that woman still made an appearance. Like yesterday, when the truck got a flat. Gray may have overreacted and Juvia monitored him like he was a nuclear weapon, waiting to explode.

He didn't apologize to her while he put on the spare; silence seemed to be the best route when Juvia was involved. Eventually, she decided he wasn't going to take his rage out on her and reached out to him in the strange, detached way Juvia had. She opened up the yogurt she'd swiped from the grocery store, got a glob of it on her spoon, and put it in his mouth. The tension vanished and they were fine again.

Juvia sank down in her seat and folded her legs up on the dash.

"You're getting wet."

"Do you mind?"

No, he liked the way her skin glistened.

"Touch me?" she said like she read his mind.

Gray reached over and slid his fingers over her kneecap. Her skin was cool and smooth. She wiggled down a little further, inviting him to touch higher, and shot a furtive look his way. He still couldn't tell if she did this as some kind of payment, just like he couldn't tell if she liked doing this as he was driving because he liked doing it or if it honestly turned her on.

Between her thighs was warm. He ran his finger over her centre and Juvia spread her legs more. Her underwear was wet and he supposed he had his answer. He touched her as he drove, one eye on the road, the other on her. Sometimes, she'd grab her breasts and push them up and together. When she really wanted his attention, she'd take them out. It made the kilometres whirl past. One minute, he was in the town of Floret, the next, Juvia was coming and thirty kilometres had gone by. She looked pleased with herself; Gray was, too, but frustrated. He wanted more.

Juvia asked in a husky voice, "How far will we go?"

Gray looked at a road sign and read three town names on it. Tolan, Kingsway, and Rideau Valley. The last was the furthest away at three hundred kilometres. "Rideau?"

She pouted. "That's so far."

Sometimes, she'd focus on him and seemed to forget that they were on the run. Sometimes, he did, too. It was dangerous to forget, though. "I don't want to be anywhere near that town in case that farmer reports his plates missing."

Juvia sobered some and lifted the straps of her bra. When she was decent again, she pulled out the phone Gray had paid a lot of money to have off the grid and typed in the town name. "It's small. Five thousand people. And it's off the highway."

Small enough and out of the way enough that maybe no one would be looking for them there.

"Sounds good to me." Gray made the turn onto the highway and set his cruise to the speed limit. He wouldn't get caught because he was doing one ten in a hundred zone. No, if he got caught it was going to be for something really stupid, like watching an almost-stranger pleasure herself in his passenger's seat.

She looked so melancholy after he denied her. He didn't like it. "We just have to be careful."

"So the police don't catch us."

"Yeah."

Pensive replaced melancholy. "How did you kill him?"

He went over a multitude of answers ranging everywhere from, 'don't ask me that stuff,' to the truth. He settled on, "It doesn't matter how a guy dies, as long as he's dead."

She had opinions on the matter that she chose not to share and Gray didn't care to ask. Dead was dead was dead.

Feeling restless, he cranked on his police scanner. The local dispatch was a woman, and her voice filled the cab of the truck as she relayed calls to officers. Traffic stops, domestic disturbances that Juvia pretended she didn't hear, and the occasional call to a bar. Routine stuff that made the passing of hillocks and highway slow-going. Gray wished Juvia was still feeling playful.

An hour went by before the yellow light of a gas station lit up the highway. Juvia announced, "I have to pee."

Gray checked the gas gauge. They were running low, anyway. He reached into the back and got a baseball hat before anything and fixed it over his head. Then he slowed down just enough that he wouldn't get flattened by the transport behind them and swung into the gas station, to the pump furthest from the store. The less his truck could be examined, the better.

There was only one other car in at the pumps, an old Chrysler van. It moved when they pulled up, going toward the other side of the parking lot and stopping by the highway exit.

Juvia hopped out and hurried inside, Gray got to pumping, filling up two jerry cans in the back first. He preferred to get his gas and run but he'd have to pay tonight, with Juvia going inside. The best time to hit and quit was in the middle of the day, at a busy gas station. Sometimes, if he was clever and he was quick and the gas attendant was slow, he could sneak into the pump right after someone left and pump an extra ten bucks into his tank on their card with no one noticing a thing.

The gas nozzle clunked. His tank was full. Gray got out his wallet before he got inside and took out his money, too. He didn't need anyone seeing his licence accidentally.

A bell jingled overhead and his shoes squeaked on the tiled floor; the ground outside was still wet. Juvia's prints led to the bathroom. The door was still closed. Gray directed his attention to the counter. It was empty. He stood by its front and waited, passing the time by glancing up at the TV screen above.

First was a radar shot of a storm system moving through. It looked wicked. They were on the leading edge of it, and it was chasing them north toward that little French town Juvia sometimes talked about, sometimes sang about. The storm's centre looked violent and red and the clouds were slowly churning in a clockwise manner.

Something banged in the back of the store. "Hello?" Gray called. "I got gas, I want to pay and hit the road again."

No response came.

The TV screen flicked over and lettering began to scroll. Notorious Gang Leader Jose Porla Found Beaten to Death in his Apartment. Underneath was Though the police have named no suspects, Mister Porla's girlfriend is wanted for questioning. A picture of Juvia popped up on screen. Gray chewed his cheek, looking between the back of the store, the bathroom, and the TV.

The banging got closer, then the door opened and a dishevelled man came through, bald on top of his head, sparse hair on the sides. Gray's guts churned. He glanced up at the TV again; Juvia's face was gone and instead, there was a house fire.

Gray got no apology. "Smokes?"

It was an expensive habit to have when you were on the lam but just then, he needed something to calm his nerves. "Redwing."

"Don't have that brand."

"Jackson, then."

A gust of wind knocked the powerlines and made the lights inside flicker. The man lifted his eyes to the ceiling drolly and said, "Don't have those, either."

"Give me whatever, then." Honestly. He wanted to get out of there before he knew if his face would be on the local station, too, and he wanted to keep ahead of this storm front.

The man slid a package of nondescript cigarettes across the counter. Gray snatched up a pack of matches, too, and counted out his money.

The clerk didn't immediately punch Gray's purchases into the till. "Where are you headed?"

"Lac du Trésor," Gray named a town way east. Lying was easy now.

"Got some ways ahead of you. You should buy some snacks."

Though he was frustrated at the clerk's poorly veiled attempt to get his money, Gray grabbed a bag of beef jerky and added that to his tab, and a chocolate bar for Juvia. The man rung him up. He gathered everything up and got back outside where the wind was picking up even more.

Clogs of dirt and dust bunnies whipped across the parking lot and tried to get in his eyes. Gray held his hat and circled the truck. He stopped short of entering, though. The driver's back door was open and his shotgun was missing from its rack. It hadn't gone very far, if that decisive one-two cock was anything to go by, or the nose pressing into his back. He sighed, dropped his goods and held up his hands.

"Give me your money." The person sounded young. A boy, maybe, no older than nineteen.

"I just spent it all on shitty jerky," Gray said.

"Empty your pockets."

"Look—"

"I'm not fucking around." The gun was shaking, like the boy's voice.

"Me, neither."

The gun was jammed into his kidney and for a moment, Gray was breathless. That hurt. "Empty your fucking pockets."

Inside, Gray saw the bathroom door open and Juvia came out. She didn't come outside immediately, though. She was looking at something. The TV. And it'd be best if she just stayed that way. Gray said, "Alright," and lowered his hands gradually. In his right pocket was a fiver, separate from his other cash. He handed that over and hoped that would serve as a distraction.

The kid took the bait, snapping the bill from his hand and scrutinizing it. "Is that it?"

Gray kept his voice even and calm. "That's everything I have."

"What about her?" Juvia had been spotted. She still stared at the TV inside, though, and made no move to come out into the parking lot. What the fuck is she doing? Gray couldn't tell if he was glad she was loitering because that kept her out of the way or angry because what happened when the clerk stopped pulling his dick in the back of the store and came out to see if she was stealing anything and saw her up on the TV?

"Everything she's got is there on the floor of the truck."

His robber wasn't very good at what he did. He eased back just a little to see where Gray pointed, and when he did that, Gray stepped aside and back and brought his elbow back with great force. The boy was about his height so the elbow landed against his nose. Blood gushed forward, the boy rushed back and tripped over the gas pump curb. He stumbled, the gas pump caught him.

Unskilled or not, he could take a hit well enough and remembered that he had the shotgun in his hand. He stood again and used it not as the weapon it was designed to be but as a bludgeoning tool and swung at Gray. Gray dodged. The driver's window broke out and glass sprinkled over the parking lot and was swept across the ground by the storm front.

Gray stared at it, flabbergasted. The truck was his father's. And now where the fuck was he going to get a window from? He couldn't just walk into places anymore and get shit like that fixed.

He saw in the mirror the descending gun barrel and moved enough that it hit him in the shoulder and not in the temple. His arm felt momentarily useless. The boy lifted the gun again and was about to bring it down but instead, he fell sideways like a sack of bricks, revealing Juvia with a rusty tire iron. Merciless, she struck again, and twice more, getting him in the temple and his eyes turned unseeing.

She raised the iron again.

"No, Juvia!" Gray had to grab her wrists and fight with her. She was single-minded and strong. It took tearing the weapon away and throwing it into the bed of the truck to get her to see anything but her target, and then, it wasn't for very long. As soon as she realized what she'd done, she dropped her eyes and looked at the mess of blood pooling on the pavement, running through shattered glass like a river running through pebbles.

Her eyes locked on Gray's and her shoulders trembled. Gray pushed her toward the driver's door, sensing the coming turmoil. "Get in the truck."

Juvia mindlessly obeyed and then it was just him and the wind and the boy.

Is he dead?

It was hard to tell.

Gray crouched and touched his jugular. A long, long moment passed, and then he felt the thready thump of a heart.

His knees felt weak with relief.

But now what? He couldn't leave him there on the ground. When he woke—if—he'd report this to the police and they'd be on their trail.

...then?

He didn't know.

Think, think, think.

This wasn't supposed to fucking happen.

Think, think, think. And act, act, act. Inaction was the world's biggest killer.

Gray looked over the hood of the truck toward the storefront. Behind the desk was still empty. He couldn't tell if that was because they'd been spotted and the man was calling the police or if he actually hadn't come out at all. Whatever the case, they had to get out of there, and they couldn't just leave a boy lying by the gas pumps.

Think, think, think.

His eyes swept the parking lot and landed on the van; it now sat behind the store, its lights off but its motor running. And in the back of the truck was a roll of soggy duct tape.

Even as he lifted the boy over his good shoulder, Gray knew how bad of an idea this was. The safest thing to do would be to kill him but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not in cold blood like that.

He'll likely succumb to his injuries, Gray thought. Heads were hardy until they'd been bludgeoned, then they were susceptible to innumerable issues, each worse than the last.

Dead men don't speak, so be thankful, he thought with as much callousness as he could muster.

"What do we do?" Juvia leaned out of the truck, breaking what was turning into a cyclical argument.

"Follow me in the truck," Gray answered and hurried across the parking lot.

The stench of stale marijuana flooded out of the van along with cold, air-conditioned air. The back seats were a mess, a sleeping bag and magazines and food wrappers. Either he was a runaway or he was road tripping. The former was more probable, considering how he chose to get his money.

Gray put the boy in the passenger's seat and then got in the driver's seat and pulled out. The truck followed on his tail as Gray hunted for a remote place. It wasn't very hard up in this country, a small cottage road appearing out of rows of thick, towering trees. Gray took it, and a bumpy service road off of that and parked the van by a choppy lake.

Then came the hard part, where he taped up the boy's arms and legs, and then wrapped the duct tape around his body and the seat, too, trapping him. He'd leave the boy's cell phone, found in his jean pocket, close enough that if he was clever enough and asked it to make a call using a voice command, it would, providing it still worked for that kind of stuff.

Juvia pulled in behind him and the van's cab was illuminated in the truck's headlights. The boy looked sickly pale in that glow, blood trekking down the side of his face. Gray couldn't tell if he was breathing. He could have checked for a pulse but instead took a bottle of vodka that had been rolling around in the back. A sip calmed his nerves. He'd save the rest for when he wasn't trying to drive straight down the road.

He turned off the van, put the keys also within reaching distance, and then wondered if he shouldn't have. Honestly, if he was trying not to get caught, he could do a better job.


The motel Gray chose had a run-down log front and curling shingles, thin, dusty windows and a vending machine that blinked on and off, its selection sparse and questionably old. The driveway was gravel and crunched beneath his tires. He parked in the overflow around the back of the motel, out of view of the road, and turned to Juvia.

"I need you to go in."

"What?" she asked dazedly.

"I need you to go in and book a room. Can you do that?"

"Why me? You always do that."

For five days now. Not even, because two of those days they'd slept in the truck in shifts. "I have blood on me. I need you to. We have to clean up and we need somewhere private to do it. Okay?"

He thought she'd cry. She stiffened her lip, though, and pulled down the visor. She checked herself in the mirror, fixed her hair, adjusted her dress. There were parts of the black material that looked stiff and tacky but black always hid red, didn't it?

Gray counted out a hundred dollars and hoped that was enough. Juvia took it from him with hands that no longer shook. It seemed she just needed direction.

Gray watched her cross the parking lot, half expecting her to take the money and run. Gravel made her ankles wobble but she didn't fall. Her dress still fluttered around her legs; it looked more hectic now, though, a flock of blackbirds all fussing all at once to take flight, fighting her. Her hair lifted and tangled. He was forming an image in his mind. It fell apart before he could grasp it; she was inside the building and out of sight.

A long time passed, so long, in fact, that Gray started to think that something had gone wrong. His fingers twitched around the ignition. He recognized the impulse: he was considering starting the truck and leaving her there. It wouldn't be right. But it'd be easier. He wasn't just running for his crimes anymore, he was trying to run for two of hers, too, and he didn't know if he could run fast enough.

It was you that put the kid in that van. You're in it together.

He didn't get a chance to argue the stance. The door opened and Juvia came out. She walked at a moderate pace, hips twitching, so Gray figured not everything was lost, and there was a key in her hand. He pulled the key from the ignition and stepped out into the stormy weather.

"Room seven," Juvia said. Gray grabbed the tire iron out of the bed and followed her under the maroon flapping awning and into a room that smelled like mildew and perfume.

It looked like every other dive he'd run through over the last few weeks. There were paisley bedsheets and matching drapes and a TV that you had to squint to see if you were sitting at the head of the twin bed.

Gray locked the door, then brought his shoes and the tire iron into the bathroom. Juvia joined him and together, they washed away the blood, Gray using the bathtub, Juvia the sink. Gray watched her work out of the corner of his eye. She scrubbed a spot on his shirt hard enough that her hands chafed and turned red, her mouth turned down in a snarl that was depreciating and frightened.

"Juvia." She didn't respond so Gray stood and touched her wrist. She jumped and when her eyes came to him, she was wearing the same manic expression she had when she told him she'd killed her boyfriend and stuffed him in a closet.

"Are you okay?"

She looked relieved he'd asked. "I hurt someone," she said. "But he was trying to hurt you."

"He was," Gray agreed.

"So Juvia's done nothing wrong."

"Thanks for stepping in." He'd thank her, even if the law wouldn't.

"He might wake and tell people about us."

Gray voiced what really had been plaguing her conscience. "And he might not wake at all."

"That would be best."

Juvia returned to scrubbing his boots. Gray stripped his shirt one-handed because lifting his left arm above his head was agony—that kid got him good—and his pants and stepped into the shower with the tire iron. The water occasionally went cold when Juvia picked up and rinsed his clothes. He watched her through the sheer shower curtain. Sometimes, she'd wipe her eyes. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better. He didn't feel all that guilty for what he'd done. He was freaking out about what he didn't.

She hung up his shirt on the towel rack and then did her own dress and shawl, then left him alone. Gray took his time, washing away road grime, cigarette smoke, sweat and blood. His thoughts kept circling back to the gas station no matter what he did. They shouldn't have stopped. He knew better. He did. They should have found some junker parked near the road and swiped some gas from its tank. Juvia could have gone pee in the bush.

He cranked off the water, dried, and exited the room just as Juvia was stripping off her bra and underwear and climbing into the bed. She had to shimmy her hips to be successful, she was so plump. He liked it. She seemed to be ashamed at first but, gradually, she was becoming more comfortable.

Both items she dropped on the floor, then she peeled back the bedsheets and climbed inside, on her side, facing Gray. She no longer looked like the blackbird queen or a water goddess. She looked like a woman with hair dyed blue fanning over the pillow, blonde roots growing in. She looked displaced and lost.

Gray got rid of his towel, shut out the light, and joined her. The sheets were polyester and stiff as the hospital sheets he'd lived with for six long months. Juvia's skin was a sharp contrast, soft and warm and smelling of iron.

She came closer when he turned on his side and put his arm out. Her head rested on his bicep and Gray put his hand in her hair. It was knotty and got stuck in his fingers but he liked it for the same crazy reason he liked her. It was a mess. A mess he could focus on and slowly, slowly untangle, even if he didn't know that he needed to untangle it. His fingers moved methodically, starting at the ends and working north. Occasionally, lightning would strike and make her skin gleam like ice; the storm was in full-swing now.

Juvia kept her eyes open and watched him attentively. Gray told her, "You should go to sleep; I want to get out early tomorrow."

"I can't close my eyes," she said plainly. "Every time I do I see that boy falling."

He sighed. "You did the right thing, Juvia."

"Yes. He was trying to hurt you," Juvia said again. "Juvia had to."

Gray again thought about all the things they did wrong. Like, keep the truck. The gas attendant had seen it. That piece of metal was going to be Gray's fucking undoing but he didn't want to part with it. He also should have checked for cameras.

Honestly. He knew better. It was basic fucking criminality. These were the mistakes that people made that got them caught.

So go back?

But he'd driven so far and what would he do if there were cameras? If the owner hadn't reported anything yet, he'd have to go in, take the recordings, and think about a permanent way to make the owner quiet.

He'd have to step even further away from the man he used to be.

Juvia stared at him for a while more, too absorbed in her own turmoil to care much about his. "Jose used to say we had to do bad things sometimes because there was no god. People needed to be punished."

"Sometimes." Not that he liked agreeing with Jose but even wicked people could be right once in a while.

Juvia asked, "Do you believe in God?"

"I don't know." There was a cross on his neck that didn't belong to him. There were countless memories of church that were way more important to the last woman in his life. Faith never kept her safe.

"Juvia doesn't." She said it vehemently. "Juvia will take care of Juvia now."

The saying God helped people who helped themselves came to mind.

Juvia touched his bruised shoulder with her fingers and then her lips. Gray felt a flat pain, almost numb. Manageable, though, if he didn't jar it or it wasn't touched too much. He tightened his good arm around her and pulled her in closer. A day ago he wouldn't feel comfortable doing this, she was just a girl he slept with sometimes and was running with. But secrets had ways to bring people together.

They also have the capacity to tear them apart, Gray reminded himself. Juvia was different, though. Manic and desperate-seeming, sometimes, but also steadfast when she committed to a thing. He didn't think she'd be the one to tear their unlikely partnership to shreds.

She settled in and Gray closed his eyes and tried not to think of how strange his life was now.

Dream came in a violent wave. He watched his mother get shot in the middle and his father mostly through the throat. And then everyone else. He heard "Daddy—" He felt blood spray his cheek and wet his fingers. He felt his shoulder burst when a bullet came for him, too.

He woke in a cold sweat, sitting upright and all at once alert. His shoulder was aching and his heart was knocking against his ribs, trying to find a way out. He looked left and right, (for a gunman) trying to get his bearings. The room was unfamiliar, the girl sitting beside him with the blankets down around her bare waist was barely any better. They'd only been together for a few days and it was only within the last two that Gray noticed the freckles on her shoulders and the earring stabbed through the top of her ear. The little things that made Juvia Juvia and not some other random girl he picked up out of a parking lot.

Her expression was wary like he was an irritated snake readying a strike. She didn't flinch, per se, when he lifted his hands and scrubbed his face and pushed his hair back, but she watched and waited in the way the long-time abused did.

Gray rose and washed some of the clamminess from his body. She was still upright when he returned, watching him go to the vodka bottle he'd swiped and swigging down more than enough to make his head spin and then to put him into what he hoped would be a dreamless sleep, and didn't lay down again until he did.

"You always have nightmares," she stated.

"When we get to Dormont, we'll figure out a way to get a place with two beds." Gray couldn't see her face with only the pale streetlamp coming through the curtains, so he couldn't tell how she felt about staying with him past that.

"Juvia doesn't mind," she said at last and wiggled closer, earlier reserve vanished. Her fingers tickled up his arm and over his shoulder and down his back. Gray closed his eyes. It was a world of red nightmares behind them, everything happening at high-speed. A small, thin body running through a massive house, sidestepping the dead, small, paint-soaked hands reaching for his neck, "Daddy!" on the air. And pop, pop, pop. With his eyes open, he just saw soft blue, the glint of Juvia's hair. Somehow, she was an island and a stormy sea.

Gray turned onto his back and invited her to touch his chest. She put herself against his arm and traced his collarbone and his shoulders, careful not to touch the bullet wound on one or press too hard on the bruise on the other, and then she went down to his pectorals and his abs.

The alcohol was starting to do its job. His head was getting fuzzy and Juvia's fingers were wicking away his worries one touch at a time, getting lower and lower. She put herself in his lap when she felt the results of her soft touch and continued from there. He touched her legs and between, her hips and her belly and her breasts. She still stifled her moans. Gray was getting good at teasing them out anyway. When he could, he swallowed them back, her mouth on his. Eventually, his dream faded, the boy he'd left restrained in his van faded, and Juvia made sure he was tired enough to sleep.