Pursued

Chapter 7

A/n: Noelle's new hair^^! 

Chapter Seven

Noelle's POV

Short hair was weird. I could now run my hands through it without getting them seriously tangled. I didn't say anything, but I kind of liked it better than my old hair.

This whole experience was so weird. Honestly I just wanted it to be over soon so I could get back to Toby and my mom.

I plopped down on my hotel bed after taking one last look in the mirror. "Darius, when are we going home?"

He paused digging through his backpack and looked at me. "Home?"

I nodded. "Home."

"Um..." He looked down at the pack. "I don't know. Probably not for a while."

I pulled a pillow over my head. "Okay." I was trying so hard not to cry in front of Darius. I needed something to distract me.

Darius pulled out his gun from the bag. "Let's focus on the present. I need some more ammo before we head north. What happened to the glock 42 you got from the glove box?"

"It fell out the window." My voice muffled into the cushion.

"What?"

I pushed the pillow away from my mouth. "It fell out the window!"

"Oh." Darius ejected the magazine from his pistol and started cleaning it with a toothbrush. "That's okay. You don't need one anyways."

The bed shifted as I sat up, startled. "But I'm better at guns then you!"

Darius stopped cleaning. "You are not 'better at guns' then I am."

"But I am! And plus, you're always driving!" I needed a reason to yell at him right then. That seemed like a pretty good reason.

"My job is to protect you, Noelle. Giving you a lethal weapon is not protecting you." Darius set the magazine down on his bed.

"There's a difference between protecting and sheltering!" I slowed down my speech. I wanted him to respect me, not just let me have a gun because I whined too much. "Giving me a gun is making sure I can take care of myself. Not just babysitting me."

"I don't babysit you. You just don't seem like the kind of person who could handle a gun very well. I don't want you hurting yourself." I could see in Darius's eyes that he meant every word he said. It was insulting. It was humiliating.

But it would be so easy to prove him wrong.

I stood up suddenly. Darius jumped back, surprised. "I'm sure there are shooting ranges in Oregon. Let me prove to you I can handle a gun."

He smiled, self-assuredly. "I'll get my keys."

This was going to be fun.

* * *

As Darius and I walked down into the hotel parking lot, I got a proper look at his car.

"How on earth does a teacher's assistant afford a BMW? I doubt even a normal teacher could, honestly."

Darius sighed, looking at the shattered windows. "Well, I had a couple of part-time jobs alongside the TA position at Greendale, so I saved up and bought it as a twenty-first birthday gift to myself. I had been saving since I was fifteen for something like this, anyway."

I took a look at the scratched, green paint that covered the car. "It was pretty noticeable even before that crazy car chase. Are we going to leave it here?"