On The Edge Of Forever

Chapter 8

Arron

My eyes flutter open, adjusting to the sun’s rays sprinkled sporadically on Kat’s sleeping figure. I yawn and make my way over to my drawstring back, bending slightly. I hear a gasp behind me and turn. I didn’t know that she was up… Now I’ll really have some explaining to do.

“What?! What’s wrong,” I exclaim, looking around.

“Y-your back, Arron. What’s wrong with it?”

My mouth goes dry and I stumble through different excuses and lies before she waves me away.

“Arron,” She says, her voice venomous, “Turn around. Now.”

I turn slowly, my back facing her and bite my lip, “I told you that I took a beating for my family only a week or so ago, Kat.”

Her fingers trace the fading wounds and scars on my back, “I had no idea that it was this bad, Arron. Why didn’t you go to a hospital?”

I spin around and take a seat in the chair behind my, gesturing to the chair adjacent to me for Kat, “Well, I was out cold for three days and by then the wounds were healing pretty well, I guess. I left not long after I woke up. Plus, Louis wouldn’t have allowed my mother or Jason to take me to the hospital; too many questions and too many answers.”

She nods her head and pats my arm gently, “We best be on our way, sugar. The situation is a lot tenderer than I thought.”

I shrug my shoulders and smile, “It’s not so bad.”

Kat rolls her eyes and begins gathering her items, straightening different sections of the room as she passes them. She comes out of the bathroom with the complimentary soaps and throws them into her bag. I chuckle and she raises an eyebrow quizzically at me, “What’re you laughing at?”

I shake my head and suppress a grin, “Oh nothing.”

She clicks her teeth and punches me lightly in the arm, “You wanna stop somewhere before we hit the road?”

I shake my head, “No, it’s fine. I have some dried fruit and water.”

Kat rolls her eyes and grabs the keys, opening the rickety door and pushing me out, “Oh hush your little mouth. We’re stopping somewhere.”

I groan and kick a few pebbles across the parking structure, “You re-“

“Ba Baa BUP! Quiet that. I’ve heard about enough of that. Instead of constantly declining my offers, accept them, honey. I’m trying to look out for you.”

I slide into her truck and she saunters over to the man behind the desk, returning our keys and probably getting directions for the best and nearest diner. I smile. I guess she felt I was trustworthy enough to sit in her truck.

My eyes trace the ignition and I chuckle darkly; the keys aren’t even in the ignition. Kat slides smoothly into her carpet like seats and catches my eye. She chuckles to herself and pats my leg, “Now, you don’t think I’d allow you to be in my truck with the keys in the ignition, do ya? I’m nice not stupid, honey.”

She winks at me and starts her truck, pulling out of the vacant motel lot and onto the open road.

I bite my lip, “So how long until Missouri?”

She furrows her brow, turning the radio a few notches lower, “Um, well including the hour we take to sit down and eat about 15 to 16 hours. I don’t know how traffic is going to be, and let me warn you, I have pretty awful road rage.”

I chuckle and lean my head against the seat. The wind blows in through the crack of my window, whipping the strands of hair on the top of my head up in scattered tornados. Kat pulls out her cell phone and turns the radio off, before dialing a number.