Wonderlust

Ours For The Taking

I had to hand it to him, Dylan had a lot more stamina that he let on. I was wheezing (and yes, running closely behind him) by the time he finally held up his hand for us to stop. The path started to dip down to the right in order to go downhill. Looking down the hill I could see the warm light of the motel just below.

"We're cutting down the mountain, be careful not to trip." Dylan informed me as he started off trail.

I followed, watching my feet and managing not to slit on the loose dirt and rock as we skidded down the face of the hill. We made quick work of it, eventually getting to where the trees thinned out and the asphalt started. I could see the parking lot, there were a few cars there and most of the lights were out. I was just about to step forward when Dylan held out his hand.

"What-" I started.

He held his finger to his lips, miming for me to be quiet. Then he pointed and I followed his finger towards a couple that were chatting outside of the cars. The man had a beer in hand and the lady was skimpily dressed and leaned against (presumably) the guy's car. They were talking in hushed voice and staring into each other's eyes. They hadn't seen us yet.

"The straights." Dylan mused under his breath with a smile slyer than your average fox. "Yeah we're going to need them to move."

"What're we going to do?" I whispered back, just picking up on that his jest implied he himself was not straight, which struck me for some reason.

He bit his lip and stared down at the ground, then at a dumpster a few feet away. Then he gestured for me to follow him. As I hid behind the dumpster he looked over the edge and his face lit up. He started digging through it and my brow creased in confusion. What was he doing?"

I got an uneasy feeling as he pulled out a few half empty bottles of alcohol and a cleaning rag. The former probably from someone walking by and the latter probably from the motel. He laid the cloth on the ground and poured on of the bottles over it and thoroughly soaking about half of it.

"Wait a second..." I started to realize what he was doing.

He stuffed the rag down in the bottle real quick and yanked a lighter out of his back pocket. Before I could stop him, he lit the end of it on fire. Holding the flaming bottle carefully he stepped out from behind the dumpster and chucked with all his might some ways off from the couple. It smashed against the ground and exploded, there a couch in the alleyway that caught on fire immediately.

I stood there in shock, and watched as the two adults left the parking lot to go investigate. Something flashed from the guy's hip. Dylan grabbed my hand and yanked me along. The two of us crouched down and bolted across the parking lot. He stopped in front of an old and dilapidated pale brown car.

"What was that?" I demanded, the confusion in my voice was obvious.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Alcohol is flammable."

"But you could of... done something. You could have set the forest on fire!" I protested. "Wasn't there something less life threatening we could have done?" I bit my lip and he reached inside the car window, which was cracked open exactly like he said it would be.

Dylan frowned at me, an expression I wasn't used to on him. "Less life threatening? Atticus that man had a gun. It was our lives who were in more danger. It'll be fine."

I bit down on my tongue and realized he was right, I guess. The odd shape I had seen at his waist fit the description of a firearm. This was a pretty dingy area. Still the lack of hesitation during the whole ordeal... bothered me.

"Okay." Dylan sighed in satisfaction as the door clicked open.

He bounced in and yanked down the sunshade, a key ring fell into his lap. Then he thrusted the key into ignition and the car sputtered to life. The shotgun door clicked and was unlocked. He stared up at me, incredibly focused. This moment was more real than anything I had ever felt before.

"Well?" He asked. "This is decision time Att, are you really on board with this?"

I hesitated, which was just good healthy hesitation. I could come back if I wanted too. This didn't have to be a forever kind of thing. Then Janet's face flashed into my mind, my mother's words, kids telling me to kill myself. It filled me with a spiteful anger that I hadn't really felt before meeting Dylan. I couldn't let one little fire deter me from this. It was either deal with this or go back and quite possible risk my life. I came to a decision right then and there. I didn't want to come back.

I slid over the hood of the car and swung myself into the shotgun seat. "Floor it."

"That's the spirit!" Dylan reeved the engine, which was a lot louder in the early hours of the morning.

He backed the car up, then sped out of the parking lot. I looked back and I thought I might have seen the figure of a man drunkenly screaming at us from the balcony but it disappeared too fast for me to be sure. Then all of a sudden, we were on the highway, surrounded by other people going too fast to care and laughing out butts off.

"We're doing it Atticus! We're going to make it out of here." Then his smile was back and I felt all warm.

My hands were shaking, I felt so alive. This really was happening and I never had to go back. I half expected to be incredibly anxious over the whole thing but in reality, I just felt in control. Whatever I did from here on out was of my own will.

"So, what's part three of your plan?" I asked, letting myself smile while I threw my stuff in the back with Dylan's instruments and his own duffel bag.

"Find a place to park, we can sleep in the back. The worry about morning when it comes to that." He explained.

I started poking around. There were bottles on the floor and it smelled a little rancid but it was nothing I couldn't fix. I opened up the glove compartment to see it was full of condoms and... lots of money.

"Holy cow." I pulled it all out to show Dylan. "Look!"

He glanced over from the road and his eyes widened. "Dude! How much?"

"Three hundred dollars." I mused.

Dylan cackled. "Alright! Thanks for funding my excommunication old man."

"This is so crazy." I grinned.

Dylan met my eyes. "And it's all ours for the taking."

We made our way for a few more miles then pulled off the highway and onto a side street. Dylan pulled out some blankets and pillows from the storage area.

"Don't worry I put these here." He assured, after noticing my hesitation from the thought of touching them.

"Oh good."

It was a little cramped but manageable. Seeing as both of us were below average height for a guy, we fit quite snug. It was somewhere around 3:00 AM now and my fingers were still buzzing from adrenaline, even if my body felt weary. The last thing I saw was the back of Dylan's head, bright blue just like he was.