Running

Chapter 5

He was tired.

Overwhelmingly exhausted.

He hadn't slept in the last two days, always vigilant, extremely wary of everyone around him, in case someone was following him.

And he was 75% sure that someone was.

After exiting the subway near Georgetown, Connor had bought a bus ticket to Grantsville, Maryland, and then tossed his phone in the trash, to avoid being tracked. He risked using an ATM to get food money and for bus tickets when he got to Grantsville, then he had run to the bus station.

He knew he was being paranoid, and probably a bit sleep deprived, but he didn't care. He would rather be paranoid and get to his grandfather in one piece than not getting there before they could catch him and end up in a morgue.

Now, he was sitting on the bus to Philadelphia, sipping a cappuccino with extra shots of espresso and staring out the window, thinking over his plan and of the quickest route to his grandfather's place after he eventually got to Baltimore, just to stay awake. It was harder than it looked, but he could do it. He had to do it.

He'd been on the run for almost two days now. He had stayed in Grantsville until after midnight before hopping on a bus to Fredericksburg, Virginia. He had found a shelter where he'd taken a shower and crashed for a few hours and got some food before buying a ticket for the next bus heading out to Philadelphia. He didn't want to stay in one place for too long, but he also didn't want to lead them to his grandfather's too fast. He was covering his tracks by running all over the place. He was being smart.

Maybe mom is right and I need to stop watching all those crime shows...

Connor shook his head to try and stop that train of thought. Thinking about his mom made him guilty as heck. He knew she would be worried sick about him. Teddy Graham was the sweetest and fiercest person he knew and Connor would bet that his mom would've either already made a hole on the carpet with all her pacing or driven the local police crazy with her mama bear attitude.

Being a single mom wasn't easy, he knew that which is why he had always worked hard to not make his mom worry about him, and yet here he was, running around different cities like he was on a road trip while leaving his mom to worry about him. He was gonna have to make it up to her when he finally got home. Maybe doing both his and her chores around the house and taking care of the groceries for the rest of the year would be enough.

Who am I kidding? She's still going to kill me on the spot for making her worry so much, Connor thought, his hand scrubbing his sandpaper-feeling eyes. There goes getting that new video game for my birthday. Aw, man!

Connor had called her before ditching his phone, but it had gone straight to voicemail, which meant she was still in the courthouse dealing with that nasty domestic abuse case she'd been telling him about and not in her office signing papers. He knew that as soon as she heard the voicemail he had left behind telling her he was fine and not to worry, all Hell would break loose in Washington DC. His grandfather had once told him that there wasn't a force in the world that could keep a mother from their child and Connor knew that his mother would do everything to bring him home safely, he just hoped he had a city to get back to.

The bus stopping pulled him out of his thoughts. Connor quietly stood up and stretched, before picking his bag from the floor and waiting for the woman beside him to get out so he could go and find another shelter to spend the rest of the day, maybe take a shower and wash his dirty clothes on the bathroom sink. He was starting to stink. Badly. A teenage boy high on hormones was not the best bus companion if said boy hadn't had a shower in hours. He was lucky his mom always made him carry that extra set of clothes in his bag, so showering and changing into clean clothes had been easy when he got in at the Salvation Army shelter in Grantsville. Two days without showering weren't a good look on anybody.

A yawn escaped him despite his best efforts and Connor blinked several times to get rid of his blurry eyes. He needed sleep, fast, before he fell asleep standing. He would ask around where he could find the closest shelter. Maybe that day he would get more than three hours of sleep before being woken up by nightmares of dead women and gunshots. Connor's stomach growled and he smiled sheepishly at the woman beside him as she snickered while they both got out of the bus. Guess he needed to find some food too, or everyone across the state would be able to hear his stomach growl and grumble.

Just one more day, Connor. One more day and you can finally stop running...