Clearing his throat, he nods ahead. “There’s a bus station at the next town over. I can drop you off there if you want?”
“That’ll work.”
He grunts in acknowledgement, and the cab once again goes silent, with only some sports news playing on the radio in the background.
I lean my head back on the headrest and close my heavy eyelids. Might as well catch some shut eye while I can, since this is probably going to be the most comfortable place I’ll be for a while.
But as soon as I close my eyes, my mind replays what happened like string spinning off a spool. Now that I’m still, with adrenaline abandonment, all of it unravels, bit by bit.
Cliff planned this. I don’t know how long it’s been in the works, and I don’t know when he got in touch with a conjurer, but this has been going on for...a while. The money confirmed it. How he managed to save all of this money is beyond me. We’re all in so much debt to Kaazu that we never see a single solitary cent.
But what blows my mind the most is the fact that he found a willing conjurer to risk his hide and attempt to break my collar. A conjurer has always been the key to escape, and one we didn’t have much chance of finding.
We don’t perform for conjurers. Shifters? All the time. Vampires? Often. But conjurers? Nope.
I used to wonder why, especially since Kaazu is one himself. I thought he’d want to perform for his fellow Cane breed and show off. But no. He’s careful to keep us away from anyone with the power to take his troupe members from him. He also likes to be the most powerful male in the room.
Sighing, I give up on sleeping, opening my burning eyes to stare out the window instead. I always thought it would be a relief to get away. But all I feel right now is dread and guilt.
I know, no matter what words he tried to spew, Cliff isn’t going to be able to meet me. Kaazu will be more anal than ever about the troupers now. The rest of them will hate me for getting away and making their lives even more difficult.
No one has ever gotten away from Kaazu. Ever. And I’m not under any illusions that this is over. I was able to walk away. Get in this cab. Put distance between us. But for how long?
Now that I’m out of immediate danger, the reality of my situation is becoming clear. I have nowhere to go. I have no connections. I don’t know anyone outside of the troupe, and I have no family. No money, no job. I’m alone, with two hundred more bucks to my name.
And yeah, I’m free. For now. But what good is being free when I don’t have my heart with me?
5
Jetta
I crossed state lines.
I don’t know for sure when, but the trucker confirmed it. I’m somewhere in California, the terrain now filled with more trees and mountains since I’m in the northern part. After a cab ride and multiple long-distance bus rides, I’m onto my last fifty bucks.
I’ve been debating about where I can settle down and try to find a job, but it’s dangerous, and not even because of Kaazu. A rogue shifter passing into a pack’s territory can be met with a challenge. If I end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, that could be bad for me.
Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to tell where territory lines are. If I was in a pack, my alpha would know. But I’ve never had an alpha, so that information is lost to me.
“You sure are quiet.”
I glance over at the male who’s currently driving the huge semitruck. He’s forty-something years old with week-old stubble on his face and a left arm that’s more tanned than the rest of him from all his time driving with the sun shining in through the window.
I hitched a ride from him last night, and although I’m glad for the reprieve of walking, I have a feeling it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t trust strange men. Any of them, Cane or human. In my experience, they always want something from you that you don’t want to give.
I was loitering around a gas station late last night, using the bathroom where I tried to wash up the best I could. No matter how many paper towel baths I give myself, there’s just no getting truly clean. Not after weeks of traveling and sleeping outdoors. I sleep in my animal form so that I can burrow down and stay relatively safe, but even so, I look rough. And with only two outfits to trade off, my clothes are wrinkled and they don’t smell the best.
Which is why the gas station attendant kicked my ass out. I was apparently taking too long, since I stripped down and washed both sets of clothes and underwear in the sink before drying them under the hand dryer. I washed my hair too, so at least I got to finish that before he made me leave. My scalp was getting itchy.
The attendant screamed at me, cussing me out and threatening to call the police. Fucking humans are just as brutal to rogues as shifters are. They treat the homeless like some kind of disease. Like it’s something to be shooed away instead of shown some compassion.
The truck driver spotted me during our shout-fest, and he offered to let me hitch a ride before the cops got there, so I jumped at the offer. I passed out in the seat as soon as I finished eating some beef jerky. Now I’m awake, blearily looking out at the landscape of fuck-knows-where, and I’m already hungry again.
“You slept a long time,” the trucker says, his tone friendly as he smiles out the windshield.
I watch him warily out of the corner of my eye, because I don’t care how friendly and happy he seems, at some point, he’s going to be a perverted fucker. It’s just a matter of time.
“Yep,” I answer simply, not wanting to engage in more conversation.
Unfortunately, he’s been a regular Chatty Cathy ever since I opened my eyes. Like he was just bursting at the seams to talk to someone and now’s his time to shine.
“I sleep ’bout four or five hours at a time, myself. S’all I need before I’m recharged and ready to go,” he says with a toothy smile.
I want to roll my eyes at him, but I also want to get as much distance out of this ride as I can, so I don’t want to piss him off. I don’t have any more money to waste on transportation, since I need every cent to go to food.
Otherwise, I’ll be forced to shift and forage for some, and that’s a huge last resort. People don’t like my animal. They see me and they run the other direction.
“Cool,” I reply, keeping my eyes on the pavement in front of us as we lumber down the highway.
“You didn’t tell me where you was headed,” he prompts, and I have to bite back a sigh. I detest small talk.
“I’m headed in whatever direction you’re going right now,” I tell him.
He chuckles. “You’re a regular beatnik nomad, huh? Jack Kerouac would be proud.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“You like to read?” he asks, but he keeps talking before I can tell him that no, I don’t, because Master Kaazu would’ve never allowed us to do something so sedentary. I’m lucky I even learned how. “Well, I like to read. Mostly Westerns. You ever read them cowboy books? See, they usually...”
He drones on, telling me all about his favorite cowboy books, but I’m not paying attention. It’s funny, the further away I get from Troupe Delirium, the more memories resurface—things I haven’t thought about for years.