Running From the Devil

Chapter 8

 

Laney (Continued)

It had been a long week since the first women's meeting and they day that Ben left.  I had spent the majority of my time practicing my walking and now I could confidently walk around by myself with a cane.  The doctor said with the way I was progressing it should only be another week or two before my balance issues cleared up completely but it was hard to say definitively. 

He also cleared me for light reading sessions of no longer than 30 minutes  and I made the most of my time.  I found a world atlas in the library and snuck it back to my room. I spent every second of my reading time following the squiggly road lines, memorizing various towns and routes to South America.  I knew the safe feeling I had here was only temporary.  Nothing but real solid distance would keep me safe.  Apparently fate agreed with me.

I went to the women's meeting at 4pm as usual.  It was comforting being around the other women.  We often saw each other throughout the day but the meetings were just us with no other company employees around to hear what we talked about.  There was a special camaraderie between us as survivors of similar situations.  Similar enough anyways. I still hadn't gone into details about my own situation but no one pressured me.  At the end of the meeting Jenna grabbed her purse and pulled out several envelopes passing them around. 

Sarah opened hers first and gasped, staring at Jenna open mouthed. "Is this for real?"

At the expression on her face we all opened up our envelopes and each of us gasped in surprise making Jenna laugh lightly.  I just stared at my hand.  The shiny plastic rectangle winked back at me, the numbers swimming in my eyes. If I wasn't one of the ones doing the staring I would have laughed at all of us flicking our stares between the cards in our hands and Jenna who was beaming with delight. 

"It's a gift from us to you for when you are out getting your lives re-started.  It's terribly hard to get a life started with nothing."

"But, this is $5000!"

Jenna giggled at us all again.  "Yes, it sure is.  Prepaid of course so unless you know the card number it's untraceable.  Really this is something that I wanted to do.  Of course don't worry about toiletries because we'll be sending a load of those things with you when you leave next week.  And Martha, I'd like to talk to you about setting up some funds for future use." 

For the first time since I'd met her Martha was speechless.  She clutched her card and looked over at the beaming Lisa. 

"We can fix the heater!" At that she burst into tears and shuffled over to hug Jenna.  "Oh you beautiful girl, thank you so much.  I'll pray for you every day!" 

Jenna hugged her back just as warmly.  Whoever said that giving was better than receiving definitely had Jenna's face in mind when they thought of it.  She practically glowed in a contagious joy.  So much was possible now.  I had originally thought I'd have to walk or hitchhike the entire way to South America but with $5000 I could easily get a bus to take me to the border and have thousands left to get to the bottom of the continent and start a life.  So many of my old plans just flew out the window. I did decide to continue to wait until I got my cast off in a month, Daniel would have widen his search out from just the city by then so I would probably be able to catch a bus very easily but I wasn't sure about where else to get my cast off.  It would look odd to just show up at an emergency room and ask for it to be removed and who knows what would catch Daniel's attention. 

I also needed to gather supplies discretely.  There was always a stash of protein bars and bags of trail mix in the main and upstairs kitchen so I could swipe one or two of those at every meal and hide them in my room.  It wouldn't even be unusual behavior around here.  For such fit people they ate like mammoths.  Thinking of the bill to feed all those people made me ill.  Just yesterday I watched Jenna eat half a roast by herself!  After dinner I swiped a few protein bars and took them back to my room hiding them in a bag under my bed.  I would use them sparingly, conserving them for times when food would be scarce.  Despite my desire to go south I wasn't sure really what sort of supplies would be available.