Shark of Spades

Exit Stage Left

I ditched the car halfway across town and made my way back, stopping at the motel where I'd left Evan. I went up to the room and knocked on the door, somewhat surprised when it was opened by Jack.

"Is Evan here?" I asked directly, and he nodded, looking a little confused.

"Yeah. What's up?" Evan replied, coming out from behind him and gently pushing him aside to make room for me to enter before shutting the door behind me.

I locked it for him before I turned to speak. "Someone's after me. I already took care of one of them, but the other one's still out there. I don't think he followed me here, but I can't be sure." I paused before continuing, ignoring the concerned look on Evan's face. "I'm just stopping in to let you know that I'm skipping town. I'll probably be hopping around for a while."

Without flinching, he asked, "When are we leaving?"

"We?"

"Yeah. You, me. We."

"And me," Jack added in. We both stared at him. "We're a team now, remember?"

"Never say that again," I said dryly. "Let's go back to just being business partners."

"I think we're closer to friends now, wouldn't you say?" Jack pressed, while I rolled my eyes. "I won't try to kill your somewhat dead brother anymore or tattle on him to the government, and he won't try to break my spine into a million pieces because we roomed together. See? That's friendship."

"Who said I wasn't going to break your spine into a million pieces?" Evan deadpanned.

They continued to argue back and forth about the violence they wouldn't be using on each other (but describing it all very vividly) while I watched in amusement.

Eventually, we all left the motel room and all got on a train together, all of us sitting together like three male friends who enjoyed late night travel. Then we got to a new town and hopped that train, and so on until I was so sick of trains that I said, "Screw it," and we got off. Then we booked a room at a cheap motel (yes, one - I felt that it was safer that way), with me claiming the bed, Jack stealing the couch, and Evan content to sleep on the floor between us (giving Jack the evil eye the entire night).

"Hey, I'm worried he might try to get a peek at your tattoo while you're sleeping," Evan defended, crossing his arms while I sighed in exasperation.

"Seriously, Evan."

"Or you could just show me the full tattoo now and spare us all the possibility of sleep-creepers," Jack suggested from the couch, leading to further arguing between him and Evan.

I turned on my side. "Someday," I whispered, not loud enough for either of them to hear me. Then, "Shut up you two. I can't sleep." I smiled into my pillow, secretly preferring the sounds of bickering than the forte of silence.

My road was long and uphill, but at least it wasn't cold with the freezing winds of isolation.