Run Away

By the time I get back to my apartment it occurs to me that I’ve slept in most of the day already. I don’t have much time before the big show finally starts. The best plans are simple ones and for now I think I’ll just show up. Play it by ear. Maybe tell a few jokes. Ferris is dressing when I open the door and gives me a half-smile before her eyes settle on the newspaper wrapped book. They bulge a bit. “Where did you…is that it?” she asks. I nod and give her a weak smile. She sits back on the bed and just stares at it. Then looks at me. “What are you going to do?” she asks. Just as she says it her cell phone rings and she glances at the Caller I.D. “It’s Mills,” she says without answering. “Don’t. He’s going to ask you where I am and that the kid has been found dead near where they picked me up,” I say. She mutes the sound on the phone. “Shade…we both know the Paladins aren’t overly fond of their cured immortals. I don’t…you’re not going to take it back to them, are you? Don’t think you have to on account of me. We could…just take it and run,” she says. Her face looks sincere enough to make me feel a chill. And I think about what she’s proposing. “What else would I do with it? Run where? Turn us both back into what we once were? I still don’t know if I believe this thing is anything more than a wad of paper anyways,” I explain. I reach for my cigarettes but the pack is empty. There’s no hiding from this. Ferris bites her lip and shrugs. “With that book we could do anything. Be anything. You’re like me. You don’t have anywhere else to go. You can’t go back to your old friends and the people around us don’t accept us. But that Book,” she says with a touch of desperation. “Is just a book,” I say, “And it can’t change a damn thing.” She sighs and rubs her face. She digs around in her coat pocket and comes up with a cigarette. She doesn’t offer me one. “We’re going to finish this, Ferris. Tonight. After that, whatever happens can happen,” I say softly. I know she has a point. And for just a second I think about actually doing it. Wrapping my arm around her waist and just heading out the door. Dingo had probably killed the kid. It fit, it made sense. Why keep pushing? Why this need to know for certain?