A week earlier, when Ron’s blood was still fresh on Traveller and Rose…
The twilight tranquility started to fade. The purple of the evening sky turned a daunting black.
The two of them rushed back to Traveller’s car, both minds racing to come up with a plan. They were both drenched in blood; where could they go without drawing attention to themselves?
“We can’t go back to my place,” Rose spoke quickly. “I still live with my parents. Just bringing you there would cause enough of a freak out. I don’t even want to think how they’d react to this.” She motioned to herself, as if reminding him of the blood—just in case he forgot.
Traveller thought for a moment. “Where are we?”
“We’re a little north of Barrie.”
Barrie… An old face popped into Traveller’s head. He tried his best to think of someone else, but no one else came.
Frustrated, he slammed his fist on the car’s hard roof.
“What?”
Traveller bit his lower lip, giving himself as much extra time to think of an alternative plan as possible before committing to it by speaking. There was no alternative.
He released his bite. “There's an old friend nearby who might help.”
Rose lay on the floor of the backseat, out of view, as Traveller drove. Luckily, they stuck to small, empty roads, so no one had been there to see Traveller’s drenched red face yet.
After a bit of silence, Rose spoke meekly from her hidden cranny:
“What you did back there… Going after Ron… Attacking him head-on… It was really stupid.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m serious. You could’ve died.”
“You’re welcome.”
“… Thank you.”
He took a few wrong turns along the way, but once he got his general bearings, it didn’t take him too long to find the dirt path to the house, bordered on both sides by walls of forest.
Driving onto the property had been like travelling through a portal. One minute he was in the real world, the next he was in an isolated world, completely enclosed by the protective forest circling them.
The car stopped in front of the house, but before Traveller could even think about stopping the engine—
BANG!
There was no bullet hole, but that had definitely been a gunshot.
“Next one’s going right between your eyes!” the grizzled voice yelled from above.
“This is your friend?” Rose remarked, a little shaken, from the back.
Traveller leaned forward, broadening his vertical view through his windshield.
There had been a small, wooden hatch door on the front wall of the attic. Slater laid on his stomach, leaning his head and the front of a hunting rifle out of the hatch.
Only just now seeing, and recognizing Traveller's face in the darkness of night, Slater lowered the rifle and let out a childish grin. “Well I’ll be damned.” He crawled back and the hatch swung shut.
Traveller remained frozen in his seat as he waited for Slater to walk from the attic to the porch.
Slater laughed fully as he approached with his arms held out. Traveller finally stood from the car.
Seeing Traveller in his current state, many questions ran through Slater’s head. “Jesus, kid. You been eatin’?” had been the first he said aloud. “I swear you just keep gettin’ skinnier.”
“Good to see you too, old man.” Traveller walked into Slater’s arms and they hugged each other deeply. They closed their eyes and leaned their heads together.
“How’s Violet?” Slater asked.
Slater opened his eyes, but before he could pull himself back to look at Traveller, he saw the blood-covered girl standing shyly in front of him. “Ah!” He jumped.
Traveller leaned his arm around the old man’s shoulders. “In case you couldn’t tell, we could really use a shower.”
Traveller let Rose bathe first. Although the home didn’t have any proper bath or shower, Slater directed her to a nearby body of water in the forest that he had been using for that purpose.
Waiting, Traveller leaned against the wooden garage and watched Slater dig around through the hood of the Cadillac. “You have work done recently?” Slater asked from within the car.
“Yeah.”
“What was wrong with it?”
“To tell you the truth, I got no idea.”
“Jesus, kid. Didn’t your dad teach you anything about cars?”
“He taught me to drive them. I don’t really have patience for anything beyond that.”
Slater mumbled as he continued to examine the car.
Traveller spoke quietly out from the corner of his lips. “So. You hear anything from Mao?”
“You know I cut myself off from all that.”
“Right.”
“I’m done!” Rose’s voice shouted from across the field, exiting the forest with wet hair.
Traveller stood upright from the wall. “That’s my cue.” He walked towards Rose.
“Hey, kid.”
Traveller stopped and looked back. “Yeah?”
“I’m not gonna ask what happened. Just promise it’s not gonna end up at my door.”
Traveller looked down and shut his eyes with a smirk. “Yeah. I promise.” He continued towards his bath. “Oh, by the way, I need you to pick something up for me in town.”
Slater searched through different brands of sunburn lotion in the pharmacy aisle. He picked out one of the cheaper, value brands and made his way to the cash register.
The teenager behind the register had been so apathetic, Slater hadn’t even been sure she said “hi.”
He placed the money on the counter, just barely noticing Traveller’s face in the corner of his eye.
Although it wasn’t the major story, the scarily accurate police sketch of Traveller had been displayed on a preview box of a local newspaper’s front page, next to a photograph of Rose. Slater saw the word “murder’ in the title.
Their printed faces lay on Slater’s wooden kitchen table. Although Slater had brought down two extra chairs from the attic, Rose had been the only one sitting. The two men paced around her, both frantic.
Rose stared down at her own image in a daze. Her parents must have given that picture to the paper.
“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Traveller asked Slater.
“Luckily, they haven’t actually identified you yet, but when they get that license plate number from the mechanic, it’s only a matter of time before they realize I live right here.”
“So, we gotta get to the mechanic before the cops do.”
“No,” Rose quietly joined the conversation.
The two of them looked down at her. She remained perfectly still. Calm.
“I know Ron’s friends. They'll want their own revenge. They’d rather risk us getting away than letting the cops get to us first.”
Slater pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know that’s supposed to sound reassuring, but knowing that there’s another group of people we gotta worry about doesn’t really make me feel any better.”
“No,” Traveller spoke, the worry beginning to fade from his face. “She’s right. If those guys are anything like Ron, they’re meatheads. I doubt they’d ever even find out you exist. All we have to do is wait for the heat to die down.”
“Why wait?” Rose asked.
The two of them turned to her, confused.
She continued: “Why not just move the heat somewhere else?”
Traveller didn’t like staying still while everyone else did all the work, but nothing Traveller could contribute to Rose’s plan justified the risk of him leaving Slater’s house; so, while the two of them drove off, he waited.
It had been a fairly long drive north to Gravenhurst, but Rose patiently waited on the ground of the pickup truck’s backseat as Slater drove.
“It’s a good plan,” Slater reassured her. “You two’ll be out of here in no time.”
“You’re close with him, right?”
“I was a friend of his dad’s, so you could say we were pretty close.”
“… What’s his name?”
“His dad?”
“No. Him.”
“He hasn’t told you his name?”
“No.”
He stopped himself from answering. “Ah. It’s not my place. If he didn’t tell you, he’s probably got his reasons.”
She silently grimaced.
“Hello? Police? I think I just saw someone you’re looking for. Guy in a white Cadillac. Looked just like the picture in the papers.” Slater spoke into the payphone in as weak a voice as he could. “Yes, I’m certain. No, I’d rather not testify.” He hung up.
Returning to the pickup truck, he drove ten minutes north to another payphone.
Parked across the street from it, Slater turned back to Rose. “Are you sure about this?”
She scanned the streets through the windows, anxiously. “It’ll be more believable if the voices sound different.” She swallowed dryly. “I’m sure.”
It felt surreal calling the police on herself, but as soon as the officer answered the phone, she fell into character. “Officer! Officer! You’ve gotta come quick! I just saw a murderer!”
The three of them laid low for the rest of the week, hiding the white Cadillac behind the house, and keeping an eye on the news. It seemed to have worked. A local paper reported a few days later that the two suspects had been spotted heading north through Gravenhurst and that there was no longer any local threat to the citizens of Barrie.
The heat had gone north, just as Rose planned. They were safe now. Traveller and Rose decided to finally leave after breakfast.
That was the morning Alberto showed up.
When they realized what was going on, Traveller and Rose crawled into a hidden bunker under the floorboards, although they hadn’t been quick enough to turn off the stove.
There had been a shotgun in the bunker as well, which Traveller uncomfortably held onto.
They both breathed a heavy sigh of relief when they heard Alberto leave the house
Then they heard Slater following Alberto to the back of the house.
Traveller bolted, taking the shotgun with him.
Alberto remained calm, even in front of the white Cadillac. “So. He’s here then.”
A gun cocked from behind him. “Don’t move!”
Alberto calmly turned.
Traveller aimed the shotgun around the corner of the home, directly towards him.
Alberto’s hands started to raise from their pockets, but Traveller pointed the gun more aggressively, stepping out from the cover of the building’s corner. “Don’t even think about it!”
Alberto’s expression remained calm. He raised his hands the rest of the way in a slow, nonthreatening pace.
His hands were empty. He held them up. “You can search me if you want. I’m unarmed.”
Traveller cautiously walked closer. “Why?”
“Because I don’t need a weapon.” Alberto smiled aloofly. “Whenever I go into a situation like this, I make sure to tell all my competition—mercenaries, bounty hunters, and the like—exactly where I am. If they don’t get the message from me that this is a dead end, they’ll be more than happy to assume I’m dead and swoop in to steal your bounty off my corpse. Imagine it. Dozens of me storming this house. Do you really want that?” Alberto slowly lowered his hands back into his pockets. “It’s over for you either way; all I really have to lose is my life.”
Traveller grit his teeth.
He slammed the butt of the rifle into Alberto’s face.
Alberto fell to the ground, unconscious.
Traveller could feel Slater’s gaze from behind him. “Save the criticisms for after we’re dead.”
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