Never in a Million Years |N.R|

|43| Time to go home.

Two weeks after we aided in the demise of the Red Room, I found myself sat on the back of a motorbike with my arms wrapped tightly around Nat's waist. The wind whipped through my hair as the suns light glinted between the trees, blocked out by the sunglasses I wore on my face.

The bikes engine roared as we drove up a dusty back road, heading for the coordinates that Mason had sent Nat the day prior. She only let me come along because I agreed to apologise to the man, although begrudgingly. It took a lot of convincing on her end for me to even begin considering it.

Which only goes to show that Nat could be very, very convincing when she needed to be.

As I looked ahead, I spotted the mans long legs stretched out in the grass beside the road. I made a bet with myself before we set off that he'd be asleep. If I lost I had to pair my apology with a smile, so the stakes were high. Him laying down gave me a flurry of hope that I was in for the win.

No smiles for me.

When we pulled off to the side and Nat brought the bike to a stop, the sounds of nature immediately filled my ears once the engines roar subsided.

I'd managed to barter my way out of wearing a helmet (a compromise on Nat's end in turn for me apologising to her friend) so that was a small win. It meant that I got to take in every aspect of our journey through the countryside.

Nat, however, had hidden her beautiful face beneath an all black helmet with a full face visor.

When she pulled it off and hung it over the handlebar, her newly cut and dyed hair blew freely in the wind. She was now sporting a light blonde bob, and I loved it.

Ever since we'd escaped out of the back of that 'highly secure' government vehicle (which was just as easy as I'd predicted) we'd allowed ourselves a couple of weeks to live care free. Like we were on holiday, not laying low because we were fugitives. Although it seemed that Ross had mostly given up on locking us away. Probably out of embarrassment for the fact that it never really went to plan for him.

Half an hour of holding us in custody was his worst yet. Although not much could compete with the prison time a few of us had to serve, but I tried not to think about that too much.

Whilst we'd been hopping from place to place over those couple of weeks Nat realised that it would be practical, and I fun, to change her bright red hair. Of course I didn't push her into making any decisions about it at all, just supporting her with whatever ideas she conjured up. For the first little while she was on the fence about biting the bullet and saying yes, but when somebody recognised her in a quaint little cafe in a small town and we had to flee in an instant, her mind was made up.

At our next stop she went straight to the store and picked up a lot more blonde dye than she'd ever need, then dragged me into the bathroom to do the cutting and dyeing.

Not that I minded one bit. I felt like a kid who'd gotten her hands on things she shouldn't have, just without the risk of getting in trouble (so long as I didn't slip with the scissors).

That small hotel bathroom was near 100% fumes by the time we were finished, and I could've sworn that it gave me a two day long headache afterwards.

Her change in hair was one of many alterations we made on our little rendezvous, but all of them led us to that back road in the middle of the countryside where Mason was asleep at our feet.

I didn't hesitate for a second before kicking his foot with my own and scaring him awake. The action earned me a jab in the ribs from Nat, but the opportunity was far too good to pass up.

Nat went for a lighter approach, in the form of her usual teasing. "Do you ever not sleep?"

Mason rose to a stand as quickly as he could, trying to shake his grogginess off. "I've been in six different time zones in three days because of you" he complained.