The bus screeched to a stop, jolting Cordelia out of her reverie. Misty made a snuffling noise in her sleep, and Cordelia smiled at her girlfriend, who had fallen asleep on Cordelia's shoulder.

"Everyone off!" The driver called. There was a flurry of movement as the other passengers began standing up and gathering their luggage.

Cordelia shook Misty awake, careful not to touch her back. She hoped it had at least scabbed over by now – she would have a look at it when they found somewhere to stay for the night. "Misty. Mist, wake up."

Misty groaned, and rubbed her eyes. "We here?" she said blearily.

Cordelia didn't have much idea of where they would go next, so she wasn't sure how to define 'here', but she nodded anyway. "Yeah. C'mon, let's find somewhere to stay."

They gathered their things, Cordelia taking most of the luggage. "Let me help, Dee," Misty protested.

Cordelia shook her head. "Not a chance. Not with your back."

Misty frowned at her. "You'll hurt yourself carryin' all that."

Seeing that Misty would only keep asking, Cordelia handed her a duffel bag – the lightest one they had. Misty glared at her. "Fine," she said, sighing, and let Misty carry her own suitcase. It should be fine – if she wasn't carrying anything on her back it probably wouldn't be an issue. Cordelia just didn't want Misty to overexert herself. She felt, in a way, as if she was responsible for Misty's injuries – she'd been the one who sought Misty out after the Madison debacle, she was the one who allowed them both to fall asleep in the abandoned classroom. She wished they had escaped under the right circumstances. She wished Misty wasn't in pain. She wished there was something she could do about it.

Misty smiled and took the suitcase from her. "Much better."

They stepped off the bus, after they had thanked the bus driver. "So what now?" Cordelia said aloud, looking up and down the street. It wasn't too busy – she hadn't been able to find a bus that went directly into the city, but she thought they could rest for the remainder of the day and go to New Orleans the day after. She didn't want Misty's back constantly brushing on the (probably germ-ridden) seats before it had the chance to scab, at least.

"I don't know," Misty said. "Maybe we can find a motel? Somewhere cheap."

"Good idea," Cordelia agreed.

The town wasn't incredibly large, but it wasn't as tiny as some of the towns they'd travelled through. Surely it couldn't be too hard to find a reasonable motel – admittedly, Cordelia had never stayed in a motel before. Whenever she'd travelled with her parents, they'd stayed in expensive hotels, or they'd rented whole houses if it was a longer trip. She was feeling quite out of her depth.

But Misty seemed to know what she was doing. She took Cordelia's elbow in hers and led her down the street, to a busier part, with bustling storefronts and traffic. Cordelia looked around – it was quite different to the town she'd grown up in, considering there were only a couple of hours between them. In her town, most people were more reserved, kept to themselves and small social circles. But here everyone seemed so… carefree. People mingled, talked to each other on the streets – she watched a woman laughing, her face scrunched up with joy. Cordelia realised then just how much she had missed out on – she'd grown up rich, of course, but she'd never had a true human connection besides her father – and Fiona took that away from her too. She was determined not to let Misty into her mother's grasp.

After walking around for fifteen or so minutes, they had managed to find a cheap motel that wasn't infested with roaches or rats. The first one they'd been in hadn't even tried to disguise the roach corpses on the windowsills of the lobby. Cordelia shuddered at the thought.

"Hi. Uh, we'd like a room, please?" Misty asked the woman at the desk. Behind the desk, where the woman couldn't see, Cordelia found Misty's hand for comfort.

She looked up at them – although somehow it felt as though she was also looking down on them. "Just the one?"

They looked at each other. "Yes," said Cordelia.

The woman looked down, going through some files. "Double or single room?" she asked listlessly.

"Double," said Misty. They could just push the beds together – they didn't want the woman to be suspicious. As far as she knew right now, they were just two friends travelling together, not lesbian runaways whose disappearance probably definitely had been noticed by now.

"It's three dollars a night."

"That's fine," Misty replied. "Just the one night, for now."

The woman wrote something down, before reaching behind her and grabbing a room key from the shelf. She handed it to Misty. "Here's your key. Your room's just down the hall. We don't offer room service. Don't make a mess. Don't be too loud. Don't – "

"Thank you," interrupted Cordelia. Misty looked tired, and Cordelia didn't want to wait around all day for this woman while her girlfriend was suffering.

They headed down the hallway. "12," Misty read from the key. "Oh, here."

The door opened with a creak. They stepped inside, and Cordelia switched the light on. It seemed like quite a simple room – two narrow twin beds against either wall, a dresser opposite them with a small TV on it. There was a chair at the end of each bed, and a lamp in the corner.

Cordelia dumped the bags on the floor. "I'm going to use the bathroom, and then I want to look at your back."

"Okay," Misty agreed, before flopping onto one of the beds on her stomach. Her golden hair spread out across the greying bed cover. Cordelia pressed a kiss to the back of her head.

The bathroom was also simple – a toilet, sink, and grimy shower-bath. Cordelia flushed the toilet and stood up, choosing to avoid the cake of soap with mysterious hairs on it. Wait, not on it – they seemed to be growing right out of the bar.

On another day, Cordelia would have cleaned the whole bathroom right then and there. But today she was a runaway and her girlfriend's back had been torn open and she'd just been on a bus for three hours and she was not in the mood to do anything about it.

When she got back into the bedroom, Misty had fallen asleep. Cordelia wanted to do the same – she was exhausted. But someone needed to stay up – what if Fiona burst through the door and dragged her away to be married? She knew the chances of that were virtually impossible. But they weren't zero – her mother had the nose of a Bloodhound.

Her stomach grumbled. Cordelia realised she hadn't eaten anything since the dinner when Misty had slapped Madison. Misty hadn't even eaten then, and Cordelia doubted she had eaten anything since. No wonder her girlfriend was so exhausted – she hadn't had anything to eat since dinner the night before, which felt like eons ago. It was hard to believe that it had only been about ten hours. Cordelia looked over at Misty, wondering what she should do. She wanted to let Misty sleep, but they both needed food. She gently shook Misty's arm. "Misty."

"Uunnh?" Misty said into the bed, her voice muffled by the blankets.

"You need food."

"Kay'," Misty said. She sat up, and yawned widely.

Cordelia felt terrible for waking her. "Sorry, Mist, but you really need to eat something." Cordelia reached out and stroked Misty's hair back from her face. "You need all your strength so you can heal."

She yawned and sat up, stretching. "Don't apologise, Dee," she said. She rested her hand on Cordelia's cheek. "I'll go anywhere with you, any time."

A wave of affection ran through Cordelia. She leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Misty's lips. "I love you, Misty."

Misty smiled, blue eyes crinkling. "I love you too. Let's go get some food."

0o0o

There was a small diner not too far from their motel. The booths were sticky, but Cordelia supposed that was all part of its charm. Or maybe they were just sticky. She didn't know. She was tired.

Misty seemed to notice her drowsiness, and frowned at her from across the table. "When's the last time you slept, Dee?" she asked.

Cordelia shrugged, and then grinned, thinking of an argument. "I don't know. When's the last time you ate?"

Misty smirked, and rolled her eyes. "Touché. We both suck."

The diner was still on the breakfast menu. Misty ordered pancakes with fresh fruit, and Cordelia ordered scrambled eggs with bacon.

When the food arrived, Cordelia realised just how hungry she was, and immediately tucked in. For ten minutes, they were silent, both of them eating as quickly as they could. Cordelia was glad to see that Misty had an appetite.

Cordelia ate the last bite of egg and set her fork down, watching Misty spear a strawberry with a single prong of her fork. She wondered if Robichaux had noticed their absence yet. She wondered how long they had before their faces were all over the news. If she knew her mother at all, there would soon be a cavalry after them. "Do you think they've noticed were gone by now at school?" She said thoughtfully, staring out the window. She hoped their friends were okay. Would the headmistress question them?

Misty frowned. "Surely they have by now, right? I mean, they definitely know that I'm gone, cos they were keepin' me in that shed. And I mean, classes have started by now, so – "

Cordelia felt a flash of rage. "They were keeping you in a shed?" Cordelia interjected furiously. She dug her nails into a napkin, shredding the thin fibres. A mental image of her girlfriend, freezing and injured, huddled in some dirty shed, sprung to her mind. She wanted to go back to the school just so she could punch Miss Robichaux in the throat.

"Yeah," Misty said. "It sounds bad, and I guess it was kinda cold, but there weren't too many spiders at least." Seeing Cordelia's expression, her face softened. She reached across the table and took Cordelia's hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb. "We got away, let's just move on."

"I am never moving on after what they did to you," Cordelia said, her voice shaking with rage. "Misty, let's go back and burn that fucking school down."

Misty shrugged. "That does sound good," she admitted. "But I don't want that place to hold us back anymore. We got the whole world, Delia."

Cordelia was just about to suggest another form of warfare against the school when the TV across the room caught her eye. Mainly because her and Misty's faces were on the screen. She stifled a gasp. "Misty, look," she whispered, pointing at the TV.

Misty turned around. "What?"

"The TV." Cordelia said. She slipped her hand out of Misty's and began biting her nails.

There was a sharp intake of breath when Misty saw it. "Oh, shit."

"Two schoolgirls have disappeared from Miss Robichaux's Academy for Delinquent Young Ladies. They are believed to be at risk and if you see them, you are urged to contact police."

The newscaster flashed to another image of Cordelia – a school photo from when she was fifteen. Cordelia wondered if, by showing a younger photo, they were trying to make her seem younger, make out as though she were innocent and helpless – that was one of Fiona's moves, all right. "Cordelia Goode was sent to the school by her mother following a depressive episode after the death of her father. At this time, she is believed to have been taken advantage of by Misty Day –" here another photo of Misty flashed onto the screen. "–who was sent to the school by her parents, hoping they would be able to cure her of homosexuality."

Cordelia saw red. "Taken advantage of?" she hissed. They were trying to make Misty seem like a predator – trying to make Cordelia seem helpless. "I could just kill Fiona. How dare they, how dare they-"

Misty turned away from the TV. She reached out and tugged Cordelia's hand from her mouth before she could do any more damage to her fingernails. She, too, looked furious, but there was something else mixed with her anger – there was a cool determination in the set of her jaw. "It's gonna be okay. I promise you, it's gonna be okay." Cordelia grabbed Misty's hand and squeezed it for all she was worth.

When she looked at the TV again, her mother had appeared. Fiona was wearing a neat black pantsuit, her makeup and hair perfectly done. She did not look worried or sad at all over Cordelia's disappearance, and Cordelia wasn't surprised. Fiona had always treated her like a possession. And now that her possession had been stolen… she would do anything to get it back. "Cordelia, if you're watching this, please come home. I miss you, your friends miss you. Don't let Misty Day fool you into thinking you can make it out there. Come home, Delia."

Cordelia resisted the urge to fling her scrambled eggs at her mother's staticky face. It wouldn't do to draw attention to themselves – not when their faces were just all over the television. It was then that Cordelia realised there were other people in the diner. Other people who were watching the TV. People who only needed to look up from their breakfast burgers and deluxe coffees to see them sitting right there. "Misty, we need to go."

Misty looked around, eyes widening, and she nodded. "C'mon." They rose out of their seats. Cordelia left a ten dollar note on the table. It was way too much, but they needed to get out of sight as soon as possible. The waitress could keep the change.

If shit had hit the fan before, it was now being loaded into rocket launchers and pointed right at them.

Keep in mind that I'm a suburban Australian and I have no idea about what it's like in Louisiana. I apologise in advance if some of the details are inaccurate.

Chapter title from 'Two Kinds of Love' by Stevie Nicks.