A Second Chance

Facing Fears

"Where?"

Stepping back, away from his touch, Naomi gestured for him to come inside and sit down. She needed a breath after Tomak's award-winning outburst and she was not about to indulge him with the answer to his query until he calmed down.

When he was finally seated at the kitchen table, Naomi placed a glass of cold water in front of him as well as her phone that was currently open to a map. Sitting opposite him she gestured that he drink, but as she expected, he ignored the drink and went straight for the phone.

"Southern Ohio," his masked face glanced up from the screen. "That's where I think she is."

"How did you get this?"

Leaning on her elbows she blew out a sigh, "When I went to visit that old family friend at the police station, I had to pretend I was job shadowing him and in doing so," she entwined her fingers, resting her hands on the table, "he showed me how they worked the cameras on the highways and how easily they can run a plate." It had been eye opening and kind of scary how fast they could find people if they really wanted to.

"Long story short, I waited until he was using the restroom before I did some of my own searching. I found those vans we were looking for," she added hopefully. "Guess they did have license plates at one point, they just removed them before entering the logging area." And it turned out all three of the vans had government issued plates. It suddenly made a lot of sense as to why they wanted that hidden from the cameras, they didn't want to have to bother with local police poking around and asking questions. It would have just turned into something political. And their company or whoever they worked for would have gotten caught in the middle of it.

"I only had time to run one of the plates," she informed regretfully, recalling the footsteps outside the door as she scrambled to enter the numbers into the system, barely managing to collect everything she needed in time. As joyous as that moment had been, her heart had been pounding when she quickly took down the page before her friend had entered the office. "It rang up with this address from southern Ohio," she placed a piece of paper with her handwriting on the table in front of him, sliding it over to his side where his clawed fingers examined it.

"How far is it?" Tomak finally asked, the lenses of his mask glimmering briefly as the kitchen light bounced off it from an angle.

Naomi shrugged, "How fast is your ship?" 

The way he stiffened and looked at her made her frown, "You do have a ship, right?" How else had he gotten here?

Being reminded of the events, Tomak let out a savage growl, "In simplest terms, it was destroyed."

Naomi's eyes widened, suddenly understanding. "Wait, so you're stranded here?" she breathed, immediately regretting her words when she saw him inhale sharply.

Attempting to change the subject, she ran her hand over her face, turning away in thought, "Well... if we were to drive, it might be sixteen hours, maybe more if traffic is particularly bad."

But before she let Tomak get ahead of himself, she silently asked for the phone back. Zooming in on the designated place, she plopped it back down in front of him again, pointing insistently at the changing geography.

"The only issue is, my maps aren't showing a building structure in this region, just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres," she pinched her fingers on the screen, zooming out of the overall image, "of dense forest. I was trying to make sense of it when you made your grand entrance," she added dryly, turning her face up to him.

Seemingly ignoring her remark, the big guy was silent as he stared at the map in front of him, deep in thought.

Naomi watched him carefully, trying to see what he was thinking. "I mean, I can get you there," that wasn't the issue. "There's no guarantee the facility is even in that area. We could be wasting valuable time."