Before I Ran || Perrentes

Chapter 9: Take Cover

Tony pulled his hoodie tighter around him as the air seemed to drop another degree in temperature. This, he had to say, was not the nicest motel. It was poorly insulated, built and furnished - but it was enough for Mike to rest in, trying to recover from the days and days of consecutive driving he'd endured.

The clouds had drifted away, revealing billions of stars trapped up in the navy blue velvet of the sky. In the distance, Tony could see the glittering lights of Denver city, never sleeping, never resting, with all its people who cared little for Tony's private plight, who would go about their daily lives normally, who were uncomplicated. It didn't seem fair. Most of them would never stare down the barrel of a gun.

Sleep had evaded Tony - after five hours dozing in the car he couldn't find it in him to rest, so he's pulled up a wooden chair to the motel room window and leant on the window sill to watch the world. It all looked so tired, he thought. Where was all the life? The freedom and the happiness? Did it all just die out at night? Something about the darkness and the lack of sleep made his conflicting emotions damp, and they weighed on his heart. He sighed to himself - he wished he was back in Phoenix with Rian and Cassadee. Thinking of them, he reached down his top and closed his hand around the cold, shining silver of the necklace. He felt the ridges of the feathers carved into the owl, and the pointing corners of its open wings, and the smoothed over orbs of its great, wide eyes.

He thought about Zack, and about Scamper. He wondered if he could get a dog like Scamper when he got to Veil Hill. It didn't have to be a German Shepherd, he supposed. Maybe he'd revert to the original dream and get a spaniel. What would he call it? Would it be allowed to stay in his home? He didn't even know where he was going to live. Mike had told him not to worry about the accommodation - but he worried anyway. He'd never lived alone.

And now there was a more troubling issue at hand. They hadn't even been on the road for a week - and yet Tony was closer with the three highway men than he'd ever been with anyone before. Vic and Jaime treated him like a brother. And Mike...well, what about Mike? What was Mike to him, and what was Tony to Mike? It confused him. It scared him. He'd read about these kinds of feelings. He'd watched them in TV shows. But he'd never felt this before, and so he was left to confront it head on with no experience or clue about what to do about it. And the worst part was that he knew he'd have to say goodbye to them very soon, most likely forever. Somehow, within himself, he knew that it would be the first time his heart broke. He wasn't particularly looking forwards to finding out what that felt like.

Bored, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. Despite having it for quite a few days now since Danielle switched the SIM, he hadn't really bothered looking through it to see what was different. He opened up contacts - he hadn't exactly had many before. He'd had the contact number of work, and then the numbers of two of his colleagues and his boss. As customary, he'd had his parents saved - but he didn't remember a time he'd wanted to talk to his parents. If they ever communicated it was usually to ask Tony if he could go and buy food from the shop, or if he could do a few things around the house while they were out. The last number he'd had in his phone was the number of San Diego Public Library, which he only ever used if he needed to extend borrowing time on a book.

None of those numbers were saved anymore. There was only one contact in there, and the number was saved under 'xomissdanielle'.

He closed contacts and looked through the rest of the phone. All of his social media had disappeared - not that he ever really used anything apart from Tumblr, usually in search of new Superntaural head-canons. On Safari, all of his search history had been wiped aside from the site he used to watch the latest episode yesterday. Staring at the web address, he realised an urge to speak to Kayleigh and Nina and Hunter. Unthinking, he tapped the address and went to log into his forum profile. And then he froze, and then he backtracked. That was foolish. He'd basically light up a beacon to the Collective telling them where to find him.