Freedom

Negotiating

"Hey Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, we've gotta get a move on." Chub's nagging got louder as I woke up.

"Chubs, what a lovely way to wake up." Liam spoke sarcastically as he became accustomed to the bring sunlight of morning. We made our way out of the tent and sat down outside. Liam seemed to be in a better mood today, we all did. A night to regroup was much needed amongst our group morale. Chubs had us all sit down around where the fire used to be.

"What are we going to do now?" Chubs asked with a hopeful tone. Very unusual for Chubs, being the this usual demeanor is much more pessimistic and sarcastic. 

"Well we need car no matter what we plan to do." Liam started to pack up everything we could salvage into backpacks.

"And where do you suppose we get a car?" Chubs retorted, sounding more like his usual self. 

"Lighten up Chubs, we found a car before. We'll find one again. We just need to find our way to a road. Wherever there's a road, there's bound to be a car." He looked as though he believed he had just said the most profound statement of his life. It was funny to me, apparently a statement worth an eye roll from Chubs. 

"Well before we find a new ride, can we find a place to stock up on supplies. I doubt our old spots have anything, they all sourced from the East River." I picked up a backpack and put it on. 

"Once we find a road, we'll start looking of new places to do supply runs." Liam picked up the other backpack and Chubs and Zu started walking. Chubs determined that if we go east from our location, then we should eventually make it to major highway. That is, if he's even right about where we are. 

After walking for what seemed like hours, we miraculously made it to a highway.

"I told you there was a highway!" Liam and Chubs had been arguing over Chubs' poor sense of direction. 

"We're not out of the woods yet, we're exposed now. We've got to find something for cover in an emergency." Liam was herding us along the side of a road, through the overgrown foliage next to the highway. Chubs and I ended up complaining about the length of the walk for most of the journey.

"If I had a map I could get us to somewhere so much faster." Chubs would complain every hour or so.

"I guess I don't need my feet anymore." Was my favorite complaint. We kept getting more outrageous with our complaints, it was entertaining for us and especially Zu. An eternity later we spotted something in the distance. 

"Hey Liam! Do you see that up there?" I could just barely see the outline of what looked to be a building.

"Yeah Ruby, good eyes. Listen up! Let's head to that building, be careful, eyes open. We don't know who's in this area." Liam waited for us to catch up before diverting us out of the eyes of anyone on the highway or in that building.

"Liam, what if this place doesn't have anything useful?" Chubs and I were starting to realize the gravity of our situation if we didn't find anything to stock up on. 

"Even if it doesn't, we might have a place to stay for the night. It could have running water, we could all use a shower." We approached the building with caution. A run down sign made out the words Elias' Motel Four. 

"We struck gold." Chubs looked in amazement at our rundown oasis.

"Damn straight we finally got some luck out here. After all we've been through we've earned this motel." Liam had a look of accomplishment plastered across his face. The look he gets when he's succeeded in providing for someone I the dorkiest and cutest face. We started looking for a way in. From what we remembered from our adventures on the road the doors to thees things are almost always locked. The windows are the only way in at first. It was always my job to get in the hard to reach windows.