It was almost nightfall when the train finally chugged into the station, delayed by some sort of problem with the tracks which didn't really inspire confidence as I got aboard, but having very little choice, I did, climbing into a seat beside a woman with two small children as to avoid the group of young men with 'trouble' written all over them.
"I like your hair," the older child, a girl of maybe four with huge brown eyes and endearingly kinky, out-of-control hair, declared.
"Thank you," I said, smiling as she reached up to touch it and wound up yanking it hard. I had started to really like it too. But, just like I had to strip Maisy to become Maze, I figured I'd have to strip Maze to become... whoever else I needed to become at my next stop.
"Hey ladies," one of the guys from the group called and I felt myself jerk upright, shaking off the melancholy that was steadily building.
"Don't look," the woman warned in a firm tone, jiggling her restless son on her knee. "Better off ignoring them. They'll give up and go onto another target."
"Guys can be such assholes," the little girl informed me with as much seriousness a four-year old could muster.
"Shayna!" her mother snapped, but only half-heartedly.
"You know what?" I said to Shayna, leaning down.
"What?"
"That's true for a lot of them, but some can be really nice."
"The ones that don't pull your hair," she concluded, nodding with authority before barreling back across to her mother to steal her phone and demand she put on the 'coloring book'.
Her mother looked up at me with a sly smile and shrugged. "Sometimes even the ones who pull your hair can be good too," she added with a wink and I felt myself smile despite the feeling of sinking inside.
I got to the station in Philly another hour and a half later, walking with Sheila, Shayna, and Ray until we were sure the group of creeps were long gone. She gave me a smile. Shayna gave me a wave. Ray gave me nothing because he was finally asleep on his mother's shoulder.
I reached inside my boot, moving the liner aside and reached in for the hidden key as I moved in front of my locker. With a somewhat defeated sigh, I opened the locker and pulled out my bag, taking the whole of it back toward the main station where I could find an outlet to sit and charge my phone for a while so I could call K.
Looking through the contents of my bag, I pulled out a sweatshirt and slipped it on, pulling the hood up over my hair. There wasn't much inside, not really. And certainly nothing personal. Hell, I didn't even pick any of the clothes out. That was all K, or whoever K farmed those kinds of jobs out to. I ate a power bar and carefully tucked Reign's money into a shoe at the bottom of the bag. I planned to send that back to him when I settled somewhere. K had emptied my bank account when I went to him and the money was moved into another secure account that I could access wherever and whenever I needed to.
I didn't need Reign's money. And, what's more, I really didn't want any of them thinking that I had stolen from them and skipped town. Why, I wasn't sure, seeing as I would never see any of them again. But it mattered. I guess because I had, over my time with them, learned to respect and even like them all individually.
Reign was tough to like at times, coming across cold and detached. But I attributed that to his needing to keep a certain level of distance from his men for them to not see him as an equal, but a leader. Cash was, well, impossible not to like. He was sweet, often funny, and ridiculously in love with his woman just like his brother was with his wife. And Wolf was the one I spent the least amount of time with. And when I did, well, I did most of the conversing. But he was a steady, solid kind of person that you couldn't help but think that you could lean on anytime you needed to and he would never shrug you away.
And Repo...
"Fuck," I hissed at myself, looking down at my feet.
I had a feeling that wound was going to hurt for a while.
But I would move on.
I would be okay.
I hoped.
I called K's office five times, getting the machine. I was under strict instructions not to leave messages. On a sigh, I unplugged the phone and made my way out onto the street: dark, unfamiliar, and therefore scary. I hailed a cab and asked them to take me to a hotel. I got a room under a temporary alias of Daisy because, yet again, it was close to my actual name so my response wouldn't require practice.