He could hear someone pounding on the door, shouting to be let out. Without thinking about what to expect, the door was flung open in panic. Her face, curious and frightened, stared back at him.

“C’mon!” he shouts, “This hospital is going to blow in forty-two seconds! We need to run!” He holds out his hand. Staring, the young lady accepts it and without losing a moment, the boy drags her through the various hallways and exit through the emergency entrance. His mouth moves noiselessly, counting down the seconds; only a couple left. The two scramble across the road, dodging cars, then a blast resonates through the air and they are flown forward from the strength of the blast. He glanced down at his hand, which is scraped and bleeding lightly. For a moment, he lay on the pavement, incapacitated by the ringing in his head, but once he pulls his wits together, he yanks up the sobbing girl and they make it to the opposite side of the street.

The girl that he is holding hands with falls to the pavement, unconscious. His eyes flicker to a brick on the roadway then he picks her up and drapes him over his small, yet muscular, shoulders. Looking back at the toppling structure, cars are crushed by debris and people are climbing out of their cars to look at the mess.

Screaming. Crying. Moans and mumblings.

“Oh my God!” a woman in a pencil skirt suit and some freakishly tall heels, exclaimed near us.

“Can you take care of her for me? My parents will be worried sick for me.”

“Yes, of course I can,”  she nods and sits down next to the unconscious woman as I sprint around the corner and out of sight.

He had told a flat out lie, but it didn’t bother him- at least that’s what he told himself. His parents weren’t worried for him; his father, wherever he is- probably jail- doesn’t know he exists and the young man doesn’t know where biological mother is. He has a mother who adopted him, in a manner of speaking. No papers and such, which is better for both of them, but she took him in, fed him and raised him. She cared for him, but most certainly wasn’t worried for his survival skills.  She knew he could care for myself in the world.

For instance, he has managed to to get away from a speeding ticket by pretending to be a drunk german. Sure, it was probably because he held a rifle to the officers head, but he is not in jail, is he? Not even on the public list of wanted criminals because they don’t want him known. As he is walking down the sidewalk, police sirens go off and he and ducks into an alleyway, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, mapping out a grocery store a few blocks down in his mind. His strong hand turns the tap water and wash my face off. He messes with the hair-style so it would be less recognizable. To ensure the  disguise will be successful, he inverts the double-sided hoodie, giving it a whole new color without arousing suspicion.

He opens his beaten wallet and checks how much cash he’s got, which is only a couple bucks.

“I’ll have to change that, but it’s never hard. People can be so careless,” he mutters to himself and exits restrooms. His experienced eyes start flickering through the selection of people in the store, but nobody significant stands out.

“Excuse me,” he stops a passing employee. “Can I swap a dollar bill for some quarters?”

“We’re a grocery store, not a bank, sweetheart.”

He begins to force tears from his brown eyes, “Please, I need to get on a bus. My mom just got in a car accident and my dad’s in Tokyo on a business trip. She needs me there, because she has severe anxiety issues and-”

“Ok, ok. Calm down,” she led me to an empty register then opened it. She gave me four quarters after I handed her my dollar bill. “Here you go; good luck. I hope your mom is ok.”

“Thank you!” he pockets the coins into his worn jeans, but quickly retracts his hand from the insides of the denim, remembering the hole in that right pocket. He slides them into his left and sprints out of the store, wiping away the fake tears and grinning. He halts abruptly out on the sidewalk, then eventually crosses the road. Where he stops, in front of a small toy shop, the sirens of dozens of cars rushing to the explosion several blocks away and the smell of smoke in the air is nearly tangible.. As one set of sirens came closer to the street he’s standing on, he turns and faces the window. In the reflection, the ambulance shoots by, sirens ringing and lights flaring. In his mind, the realization that it’s probably the girl that he rescued is the one that they are rushing to the hospital; and guilt floods through him. She probably have a family that is freaking out and she could be panicking also, possibly even in shock.

“What if she dies?” he thinks. He reaches for one dollar bill and four coins in his pocket, then, without thinking, jogs to the nearest corner and boards on the next bus towards the hospital. On the bus ride, he berates himself because he should have saved the money, but then wanted to make sure you were okay, because it was technically his fault she was locked in the hospital that was rigged to blow.

When he arrives, he inquires the whereabouts to the woman at the desk and she denies visits yet, because they are performing an MRI currently.

Clearly uncomfortable, he settles in a far corner. The hood is over his head again and opens up a nearby magazine with the celebrity rubbish only a few people actually care about.

In through the doors, to his surprise and sheer panic, come police officers and, to make it worse, his mother, her FBI badge shining on her chest.

He lifts the magazine higher up, concealing my face. They inquire about you, thinking the person must be me. The lady, seeing the badges, immediately tells them your room that you will be in when you’re done with your MRI and they march down the hall. My mother glances back, then recognizes my eyes peeking over the magazine. She grabs a handful of her brown hair and pulls it over her left shoulder, one of the many movements we’ve made to communicate without arousing suspicion.  I drop the magazine as they turn a corner and walk down a parallel hall, searching out the nearest exit.

Locating it down a hall to the right, he makes his way towards and out the glass doors. No official cars here, unlike if I had gone out the front doors. I have to get out of this city; too many police and officials, all of which could recognize me at a glance. Not saying they would, but if they got a good look, they would be after him.

He had felt determined to talk to the girl, to apologize, but there were to too many police to even bother trying yet.  To bide my time, I found a Nordstrom in the downtown mall. Rich people shop there.

As soon as he enters the store, he locates over a dozen potential targets. Three are discounted immediately  because their wallets are their purses. Two men are questionable because their wallets are in the front pocket of their suits jacket. The immediate thought is that it’s not going to happen, but then it is clear that one of the suits is a custom fitted one and the decision is made.

The tall form of the dark-haired adolescent beeline his way and start browsing the rack. The man chooses several shirts and heads for the dressing room to try the multiple shirts on. Several minutes later, he comes back out, but he has no jacket on now. He forgot it in the dressing room. Bingo. He slips in quickly when no one is looking and find the suit. His pocket picking fingers feel the wallet and feel a small stack of bills. He grabs a few and slips them into his pocket. I hurry back out and browse for just a couple minutes. He watches his victim run into the dressing room, then back out, wearing his suit that he had forgotten. He clearly didn’t realize what was missing- at least not yet. He high-tails his way out of there.

“Thank you, sir,” he whispers to himself.

He looks up at the clock on the wall to check the time; just past three in the afternoon. Time for something to eat. He looks at a mall map and heads for the nearest buffet and stuffs himself to bursting with sandwiches, desserts, sodas, and milkshakes.

After the meal, the stranger walks back to the hospital, using a series of back streets. He picks up an old newspaper and lean against an ancient building, pretending to read it, but his eyes are checking the parking lot for the undercover FBI vehicle. It isn’t there and the police are all gone. He drops the newspaper back onto the ground. A few raindrops start falling from the overcast skies and he pick up the pace a little bit to a light jog.

Once in the hospital, he finds his way to where the girl is being kept. As he knocks on the doorframe lightly, she looks over and her blue eyes widen at the sight of him. He stops at the foot of the bed and stands in awkward silence. He hadn’t thought of anything to say so he just started speaking with whatever came to mind.

“Hey, um, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asks, “You saved my life.”

“Well, it’s my fault you were there in the first place. Some,” he pauses, deciding if he is willing to reveal his secret, “people want me dead and they had to lure me in somehow and they used an innocent civilian, which is a weakness of mine.”

“Why do they want you dead?” she isn’t even phased by the fact that people are trying to kill him.

“I can’t tell you. That’d put you in danger.”

"What's your name?"

He pauses again, considering if he wants to tell her his false name or, for the first time in forever, share his real name. He stands for several moments, then, barely audible, "Nathaniel.”

“I’m Adriana, but why-” she stops mid-sentence, “Dad!”

Footsteps  in the doorway make Nathaniel look over immediately. He turns his face from the man entering. He’s a policeman. He ignores Nathaniel, or just didn’t see the nervous boy, but either way, Nathaniel turns and starts to duck out of the room.

“Wait!” Adriana calls me back. Her dad is looking at him and he avoids eye-contact. “This is who saved me,” she smiles.

“Thank you,” her dad holds out his hand. He shakes it as quick as he can and nods shortly.

“Course,” he replies briskly. “I’ve got to go though. Parents don’t like me out late. It was nice meeting you.” he turns abruptly to leave, but her dad stops me.

“Have we met before?”

"Crap, he’s starting to recognize me,"  Nathaniel pauses, “Nope I don’t- I don’t think so. Have a nice day.” Nathaniel jogs down the hall. His hands are sweaty from nervousness, but as he exits the building, he openly relaxes.

“That was way too close,” he thinks angrily. "Why did I go in the first place?" The rain is falling in a steady downpour and, in minutes, he is soaked through. The street lights flicker on. "I need to find somewhere secure to sleep for the night."

“Don’t move!” the father had followed me into a back alley. “I know who you are.”

“Very good,” Nathaniel turned slowly, “took you long enough.”

He’s a few yards away, but he has a pistol pointed at Nathaniel’s chest. “I said don’t move!”

“What are you going to do? Shoot me? I just saved her life. Is this how you repay everyone who helps you?” He steps slowly towards him.

“Reinforcements are on the way.”

Under his calm demeanor, he could feel sweat begin to intermingle with the rain on this face, “You expect me to stand here and wait?”

“No,” Adriana’s dad paused, “I won’t lose my job for not calling you in, but letting you escape could be bad. Regardless of the consequences, take this and get out of here,” he offers his pistol, holding the barrel towards himself.

“What?” Nathaniel stopped and stepped back a few paces.

“I can’t just let you go, but you can escape,” he tosses the pistol and Nathaniel catch it. “You saved my child; this is the least I can do.”
“Thank you,” Nathaniel pockets the gun, then runs as hard as he can for several blocks. As he sees someone nearby, he slows down to a casual stroll.

“Hey,” the man says gruffly, “got any spare change for a dispossessed fellow?”

“Little bit,” I pull one of the hundred dollar bills out, “nicked it off some rich guy.”

“Thanks,” he pockets it, “Two streets down, seventh floor, room sixty-two.” he wandered off.

Nathaniel smiles inwardly; somewhere to stay for the night. Shivering now from the constant rain that has soaked him to the bone, Nathaniel follows the guy’s instructions and finds an extremely nice apartment building. With the hundred given to him, he’ll have two nights here. Nathaniel takes the stairs up the seven flights, having had a bad experience with an elevator recently. He searches out room sixty-two and finds the key under the door mat.

He unlocks the apartment and enters the spacious room, closing and locking the door behind him and pocketing the key. He hits the light switch and the lights flicker on.

The apartment is completely furnished, has several sets of clothes and a washer and a dryer. I open the fridge and find it loaded with food. Nathaniel smiles at his luck, especially when he finds there is a bookshelf full of movies and a forty-inch plasma. There was a small bookshelf with all sorts of book genres on it next to the movies.

First, after scoping the place for cameras, Nathaniel grabs a set of clothes and jumps in the shower. He takes a long, hot shower, enjoying the sound of just the water.

Once out, he towels off his hair and combs it out. Right before he climbs into bed, Nathaniel throws the old jeans and his shirt into the washer. Within minutes, he was fast asleep.

Running. Sirens. Flashing lights. The cold metal of handcuffs. Being placed roughly into a car. The door slamming next to him.

Nathaniel sat upward, woken by his dreams. He wiped the cold sweat from his face and pulled the sheets off. In just the comfy shorts he was wearing, he moved into the kitchen and searched out some nourishing food. Checking the clock, he saw that it was nearly four in the morning. There was no chance he would be falling back asleep anytime soon, so he put the clothes that were wet in the washer into the dryer. Scanning the bookshelf of movies, he pulled out the disk and put it in.

The dryer went off and he ignored it for a while, eventually dozing off.

The doorbell rang and Nathaniel jerked awake. With a strong sense of alarm and a tinge of panic he retrieved the pistol from the bedside table and opened the door just enough to see who was there and, to his utter surprise, he saw Adriana. She looked pale from the hit yesterday, but she didn’t have any bandages. He assumed it must have just been a concussion.

“What are you doing? Where’s your dad? Please tell me you didn’t bring the whole police force to the doorstep of my rented apartment. It would be a shame to stain the floor with blood.”

“No,” she shakes her head incredulously, “I followed you last night. Nobody knows where you are, I swear.”
“Why did you come?” he relaxed his grip on the gun.

“I never got to say thank you properly.”

“I didn’t need you to. I don’t look for a gratitude with my actions.”

“Why?”

“Because anybody that is associated with me is in danger. You should leave.”

“Why is it dangerous to know you?”

“Because there is an alarming number of threatening people after me and I don’t want anyone involved when they are not part of this.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Adriana crosses her arms, “until I know why I was locked in an abandoned hospital that was going to blow up.”

“I can’t tell you!” he argues.

“But why?” she insists.

“It will put you in danger and I don’t want anybody in the same place that I’m in,” he slams the door, but she knocks immediately. “Look,” Nathaniel swings it all the way open, “I didn’t want to do this, but leave. Now.” he reveals the pistol and point it at Adriana.

“No,” she still demands.

I cock the gun. “Leave. I’ve been at this for years. I can make your death look like a suicide.”

“Why bother saving me one day then kill me the next?”

“One day you’re an innocent civilian and the next a stalking nuisance. Go away,” I slam the door a second time.

She rings the doorbell this time and I open it angrily, “Look.”

“No. You look,” you interrupt me, “I want in. I don’t care what happens.”

“You don’t care if you’re hunted for the rest of your life by government officials? There’s a reason your dad recognized me,” he  stepped back.

“But why wouldn’t I know you were wanted?”

“Get in here. If I have to tell, I’m not doing it with the door open.”

Adriana enters and looks around. “Is this place yours?”

“For a couple nights.”

“This is an apartment building though; not a motel.”

“I know people. Now are you going to make small talk about the building or are you going to leave?” he asks, getting annoyed.

“No, fine. Tell me,” she insists.

You make yourself comfortable on a nearby couch.

“Now I will tell you in a very general manner, but you have to promise to leave me alone and make it as if you never met me. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nod.

“I am an outlaw. A criminal the FBI searches for on a daily basis. I saw something, they realized it and now they are trying to kill me. The public doesn’t know because the government doesn’t want everybody to know I’m out here with confidential information. They are afraid that I’ll share my information with somebody.”

“What kind of information?”

“Not going to tell you. That’s information the Pentagon is after! There, now you know. They trapped you to lure me in in an attempt to kill me. Happy? Good. Now leave,” Nathaniel opened the door again, gesturing to her to depart. “Take the stairs, the back exit and alleys to wherever you’re going and if anyone asks where you were, you were taking a walk to get your mind off of what happened yesterday.” Nathaniel closed the door behind her and dropped the pistol on the counter.

Sighing with frustration at her persistence, he layed down on the couch and turned on some pointless baking show. When the dryer announces that it is finished for the second time, with a loud beep.He grabbed a snack from the cupboard and continue watching the film.

Before it was done, he’d eaten a whole box of Cheez-its.

Due to the habit of eating while he could, there was a terrible ache in his stomach and ran to the bathroom to puke up the junk food he practically inhaled.

He massaged his hurting stomach, feeling his ribs with annoyance. No matter how much he ate, it seemed, he couldn’t gain anything. His thinness was dangerous, but he couldn’t help it. He hated it because every article of clothing seemed too big, which makes people worried more often than not.

He sits back down on the couch and continued watching the show he had started. Once it’s done, he hit the power button and turned the tv off. “I can’t stand staying here; being so...stagnant,” he said aloud. He grabbed his sweatshirt and pistol, then open the apartment door to leave, but then remembered to grab the key. He jogged down the steps and out the back exit of the building. He inhaled the warm spring air deeply and looked up into the bright blue sky.

“Hey,” Adriana steps out from behind a dumpster.

“Not you again,” Nathaniel rolls his eyes with irritation.

“Don’t be like that; you saved my life and-”

“We will leave it at that,” he begun to feel sick again and the air wasn’t as freshening as it had originally been.  

“Please, just give me a minute,” she begs, “They know where you are.”

Nathaniel clutched the side of the building and was sick on the pavement, “How do you know this? How do they know this?” he asked spitting up the bile.

“They can use any camera anywhere, anytime especially when the FBI shows up.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My dad’s in the police force, you forget.”

“I remember perfectly clear. Why would he tell you?” He massaged his again aching stomach.

“He’s my dad. I’m not exactly a news broadcaster, either. I’m not telling anybody.”

“Except me.”

“You saved my life.”

“Then consider us even,” he turned into the building again, making a mental list of everything he would need.

“Wait!” she bursts in behind me, “Maybe I could help you.”

“No,” Nathaniel answers grimly, “It could mean your life.”

“I wouldn’t be suspected for a random phone call every now and then.”

“No,” he repeats harshly, starting to climb the stairs.

“Please,” she starts following him, “my dad is high in the ranking; he knows so much of what goes on. I can help you.”

“Fine. I’ll take a cell number, but that’s it,” he surrenders his argument, for times sake alone. “I only call from landlines and stolen cell phones, so the number will be different every time.”  

She writes the number on the back of an old receipt and he accepts it from you, “Now leave me alone and don’t try to find me again.”  

“Ok,” she agrees, though reluctantly, then runs down the stairs.

Nathaniel hurries up to the apartment and packs several sandwiches into a sack and snatches a couple water bottles. He locks the apartment, putting the key under the mat.

He descended the long flights of stairs again and re-entered the alleyway. Avoiding as many main streets as possible, he walks towards the edge of town, where he traded his hundred dollar bills for some twenties, tens, fives, and several ones, using an elderly lady as an errand runner so he wouldn’t have to enter the bank and because he didn’t have a card.

The police will be hot on my trail now, because the number of cameras around a bank are ridiculous and, as Adriana had told me, they have control to any camera they want.

He allowed himself to be seen in a couple cameras in the nearby mall, then hopped on a full train headed for a city across the state. “Goodbye Seattle,” I think, smiling under my hood. We stop to refuel in an obscure town and a few people board and several get off, leaving one seat open next to me.

“Hey kid,” a man in a suit carrying a briefcase talks to me,” can I sit here?” he gestures to the chair next to Nathaniel.

“If you want to,” he invited, smiling.

“Thanks,” he seats himself.

We ride for a couple hours in silence, then he strikes up a conversation. “Say, what are you, all alone, doing on a train like this?”

“Visiting some distant relatives for spring break,” I answer convincingly.

“I’m jealous of you,” he laughs, “I’m on my way to a job with the state. Going to be the most tedious thing, but it pays well, so I’m not complaining. Say, where do you go to school? You look familiar.”

“I’m homeschooled,” I invent, but notice a library card in his briefcase as he starts digging in it, “But I think I’ve seen you at the library a few times.”

“Yea, must be what it was,” he responds, apparently surrendering his search for whatever it was he had been looking for.

We are suddenly thrown sideways as a huge explosion fills the air. He could smell smoke, see the fire, and could feel the heat emanating from the front of the cab. Screams filled the air, but they seem so far off. He scrambled to his feet and was standing on one of the windows. A shard of glass barely misses his face and he looks up to see the seat he had been sitting in. Resisting the urge to pull out his pistol, Nathaniel jumps and grabs a hold of the arm of a chair. He pulled himself up and climbed out the broken window.

A military jet is turning around and he jumped onto the side of the train opposite it, rolling to break his fall.

A moment later, it shoots overhead and out of sight. He hid in the half destroyed engine for a short while, until he could hear sirens nearing the the halted train. Nathaniel ducked under the coal car and waited for a good while, until he could sneak past the cops and ambulances without being noticed. They were leading people from the sight and looking for bodies.

"These inconsiderate pilots are killing people trying to get me," and for a moment, he felt as if he should just surrender to them, to stop this, but as he saw them leading the man he had been sitting next to towards an ambulance, he heard them ask about him, where he had gone. The whole train had been a trap.

He blended into the crowd that was meandering towards the official cars, his face dirty enough, for he had blood smeared on his face from a cut above his eye so he was nearly unrecognizable.

Nathaniel ducked behind an abandoned cop car and climbed in the drivers seat. An officer hat was on the passenger seat, left there by it’s owner and Nathaniel put it on his head. He started the engine, then pulled forward, none of the officials noticed with the chaos taking place and the citizens moved out of his way quickly enough.

Early in the morning, he merges off the freeway and finds an alleyway several blocks away from an inn, where he checked into a room to sleep for the day.

He hid the pistol under the pillow and slept until the evening, then force himself out of the bed. He hitches a ride on a bus heading to the nearest city. It takes just over an hour until he arrives in the city called Spokane. Not too heavy of security here, but he’s not planning on staying long, just in case there’s a chance of them knowing he’s here even though Nathaniel almost positive they’re still searching the dead for him. He stayed in Spokane for two long weeks with no incident and was starting to enjoy himself until, of course, right as he started to get comfortable and begin enjoying the city, they found him.

I’m not really surprised; it took them longer to search the dead than I thought I could possibly  hope for.

The night before, in a back alley way, he had found a good dark spot to sleep for the night, not having enough money to afford even cheapest Motel. He pulled the hood over his head and leaned against a garbage bag that was moderately comfortable and had a minimum of stink.

“Hey!” Nathaniel woke up to someone’s foot in his rib, “Hey! Wake up!” a heavy set man was standing over him. Nathaniel opened his eyes wider and the sound of a loud truck jerked him into full consciousness. A garbage man collecting junk.

He scrambled up, noticing my soaking clothes and smelling rain.

“Hey,” the man said again, staring at Nathaniel, “You need help? Are you running away?”

“What?” he asks, pulling his wet hood down.

“You need money or something?”

“No,” he refuses, “No. No. I’m okay. Thanks though.”

“Well, okay then,” he scratched his beard and watched Nathaniel skeptically as he shuffled sleepily away. As he turned the corner, Nathaniel could hear him slam the truck door and it rolls away. He emerged onto the downtown street, watching a bus drive by with a load of tired-looking passengers.

He heard a buzz of chatter and look to see the nearby Starbucks teeming with life and even as he watched, several arms go up, greeting friends and taking pictures of themselves with their coffee.

He turned towards the crowd, knowing he won’t be noticed by the cops as easily in this mob. His muddy appearance and homeless demeanor gains Nathaniel some weird looks, but he manages to snatch a couple wallets without notice. Neither have much, but he gained  thirty bucks. Enough for a meal. That’s all he is wanting at this moment, except for a nice hot shower, but that is not available for me at the moment. Considering it’s been almost two days since he’s eaten, he finds himself a buffet. All the food he could eat for twenty bucks. He fills up a huge plate and finds a seat at a small table, constantly watching for cops. He watches the garbage man enter, which arouses suspicion.

What kind of garbage man has a lunch so early in the day? He finished his food, watching the garbage man take a seat a few tables behind him.

As he eyes Nathaniel exit the building half an hour later, his suspicions are confirmed. Undercover cop. The garbage man slid his hand into his pocket and his hand grasped a large object and he stands up to follow Nathaniel out.

Nathaniel rounds the corner, then breaks into a sprint. With the pursuers build, he will be easy to outrun, but he can also call backup without a problem.

Rains starts falling down and stinging him in the face as he dodges down the street. Sirens burst from behind him, but he knows the alley is too narrow for a police car. To throw them off for a moment, he runs across the street, barely missing a few cars. The drizzle of rain has upgraded to a steady downpour as he weaves into the next street and he pushes through a crowd, snatching a cell phone from someone.

Policemen are shouting to stop him, but no one hinders his attempted escape.  As he was passing through a second crowd, however, a man in a plaid shirt grabs his left arm. Without pausing, the pistol is in my right hand, pointed at the man.

“I’m sorry, but let me go,” he releases immediately, fear in his face.

The crowd split as he showed the gun- bad luck for him. A shot was fired and the bullet barely missed, although it managed to graze his arm. He screamed and dropped the pistol, clutching his bleeding arm. The crowd starts panicking and scatters. He leads them down several blocks until they are far behind then turned down a spot littered with dumpsters. Nathaniel pulled off the blue-green sweatshirt and threw it in the direction that the police would hopefully run. He climbs into a semi-full dumpster and heaves garbage bags over himself. Even if they looked in, he was practically invisible. His arm is covered in blood and is stinging more than a nest of bees. He clutches at his arm as hard as he can, stanching as much of the blood flow as possible. He finds the cell phone he snatched in his damp pocket and the number Adriana had given me.

Nathaniel uses the light of the phone to read the number then types the series of numerals into the phone.

The policemen run by, shouting the stupid crap they enjoy, such as, “Stop, in the name of the law!”

“Hello?” She picks up. He doesn’t respond, not wanting to reveal his hiding place. “Hello?” Adriana repeats.

“Help. Help me,” he gasps, gritting his teeth as a huge wave of pain envelops his whole body.

“What’s wrong?” you ask hurriedly.

“Bullet wound,” he grunts, then in another fit of agony, Nathaniel bangs the dumpster with his fist.

“They shot you?”

“Yes, now what do I do?”

“Okay. Okay,” Adriana says quietly, “Just calm down. It’s going to be fine. Apply what pressure you can; where you were hit?”

“Right arm.”

“Is the bullet in you?” she asks nervously.

“No; just a graze.”

“Tie it around the wound, then elevate your arm above your heart.”

An old shirt in the dumpster catches his attention and he quickly rips a strip off and secures it over the wound. He holds his burning arm over his head and asks, “What next?”

“That should be good. Keep a bandage on it if you can, as it will be more effective than some fabric, but it’s not necessary.” She lists off a few drugs I could get off the shelf in case it gets infected and instructs me how often to change the bandage.

“Thank you,” he said quietly; the police are coming back around, searching out their cars.

“Of course; just doing what I can,” she replies simply.

Her dad’s voice is in the background and she makes an excuse as to who she is on the phone with.

“I need to go,” he whispers, “the cops are close. Thank you again. I will repay you somehow someday,” he ends the call. The police pass by and make their leave. He exhales the breath he had been holding. Faint from loss of blood, he pushes the garbage bags off and closes his eyes. Before he knows it, he’s waking up in the pitch black container. His arm throbs with renewed pain and he grab at it with his left hand.

He clambers his way out into the sketchy alley, although he couldn’t look more suspicious than any of the homeless guys on the street.

At this hour in the morning, the drunkards are out and about with beers in their hands. Some of them are shouting, several fighting and more running to join the current fights. He slips unnoticed through the crowd and safely into the north end of Spokane. Above all these street lights and store signs shines the tallest and brightest of all. Wal-mart.

He weaves his way to the store and purchases a warm, cheap sweater, pick a few pockets, then gets some new jeans while he’s in there, especially since he has stains all over the ones he currently has. "They will recognize almost anything that I’ve been seen in, even down to the shoes." Several stolen wallets later, he’s replaced all the clothes that he had and ism in a cheap motel room for the next two nights.

Regardless of the fact that it is four in the morning, he takes a long, hot shower. His is throbbing and swollen like crazy, but ignores it until he can bandage it up. Nathaniel cleans his old t-shirt as best he can, then shreds it up to tie around his upper arm.

As six o’clock in the morning rolls in, he climbs into the bed and drops off immediately into an exhausted sleep. Around eleven, the lock in the door turned and it swung open. He jumped out of the bed and grabbed the nearest item, which was a lamp.

The maid screamed and dropped the paper towels she was holding.

“I’m sorry!” I apologize, “I really am!” I replace the lamp.

“No. No,” it’s my fault. I- I should have knocked,”  she picked up the roll of paper towels. She turned to leave.

Suddenly, my body felt weak and I fell to my knees. She looked back at me as I collapsed.

“Are you alright?” she asked tentatively as I pushed myself off the ground.

My stomach growls loudly and I double over in pain.

“Just,” he clutches at his abdomen, “a stomach ache. He slips on his shoes, “I’ll just head down for some food.”

“Would you like your room cleaned?”

“Oh, if you want to,” he shrugs.

He was walking down the hallway, and doubled over again, putting his hand on the wall for support.

“Hey, um, are you ok?” Some guy asked, coming down the hall.

“Yea. Just a bad stomach ache,” he straightens up, still holding his stomach.

“Oh. Nasty buggers those are,” the man nodded and unlocked his door. In a moment he was gone and Nathaniel was hurrying farther down the hallway. He could smell the food and, even at the scent, his stomach growled all the louder, but it stopped aching as if to tell Nathaniel, ‘ok, I see you’re getting what I demand, peasant. I will leave you alone.’ He gets himself a pile of pancakes and several pieces of bacon, then starts consuming the meal. He ate for practically half an hour straight, refilling his plate.

At the continual refills, he gains some weird looks.  "Food is so good," once he finishes forcing the last bit of bacon into his mouth, he leans back in the chair and sighs deeply.

“Wow. That was quite the meal,” a teen girl looks at me.

“Skipped dinner last night,” I make an excuse that could be legitimate.

“Know how that is,” she put a single earbud in and opened the laptop on the table in front of her.

“What happened to your arm?” she asks, biting into a piece of bacon.

Nathaniel searches his mind frantically before saying, “Glass.”

She gave him a skeptical look, typing something into the computer.

“My dad was trying to fix a window on his own and I was helping. He dropped the window and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Where do you live?”

“Libby,” he blurts, feeling uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed.

To Nathaniel’s utter gratitude, a lady, obviously the girl’s mom, came up and exclaimed “Is that a picture someone drew of those two movie stars? Are they gay? What site are you on?” she asked angrily, and the girl slammed the laptop closed.

As they argued at the table to his right, he stood and returned to his room, their voices still echoing through the hallway.

Nathaniel paid for a couple more nights and stayed put where he was, trying to give his arm a chance to heal before he tried to even get near danger anytime soon. The city was exciting, yet tedious at the same time. Same people, same time, same cars. Every day. Nothing varied, but it was a pleasant kind of tedium. He enjoyed the repeated life of a normal person, not that he would know what it was like anytime soon. He couldn't stay here for much longer. The FBI would sooner or later catch his scent and he would be smoked out from his hole, like a rabbit in a forest, and would have nowhere to hide, just places to run.

“I could dive into a bush, but they always sniff me out." The life of a bunny is difficult. His next stop would be somewhere in Montana, he guessed, because he never really cared for Idaho. Not sure why, but it always just seemed like a boring place, although he was sure that many people would disagree with him.

"Good for them. I’m going where I want to go and nothing is stopping me from doing that. In fact, the government is enforcing a road trip, practically. Chasing me from one place to another. They'll set a trap with bait, I'll snatch the bait, but manage to avoid the mechanism that catches me. So many people thought their life was hard, but I really didn't understand. I would sell my soul for a regular life, even if it did feel like crap sometimes. Oh, well. I can't exactly sell my soul so I'm stuck on a life-long road trip. Where in Montana I would go, I'm not sure, but it all depends on how far I can make it before becoming bored of fields, or before they realize where I'm hiding out."

A few days after checking in, he checks out and starts walking. He is now possession of a backpack with some cheap clothes he found at Wal-mart that looked decent enough to buy so he could change after each cop sighting. "Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but there's a first time for everything." He enters a library parking lot and finds a decent, less noticeable car and picks the lock, climbs in, and hot wires the engine. It purrs into life and and he backs out of the parking space. He heads out onto the highway, not really sure where he’s going,  but anywhere is good. He has exited the city and as he’s going down the highway, some nut job is riding down the south bound on a horse at full speed.

"Not something you see everyday, well. Maybe people here see it every day, but it's a first for me."

He drives for a few days, filling the tank with the money he’s collected over at Wal-mart and buying himself some food. He find a good route east and takes it, in a way, excited to see Montana. There would be few to no cops anywhere and he could definitely stay there for a while. Doubt these small towns, if they even deserve that title, have a video camera in them, especially considering everyone could know each other. In a larger one, where it's still small, but large enough he would not be an obvious stranger, he parks the car in a hotel lot and books a couple nights.

As he enters the room provided, he returned to the lobby and ensured that it wasn't a suite. The room was fantastic. The king size bed was perfect and the tv was a good forty two inch plasma. The hotel even provided Netflix. Not bad for sixty bucks a night. He finds the same random show he had watched in Seattle and turns it on, watching over half a season in an afternoon, and preceded to stay up until nearly two to finish the season. Didn't mean to, but he did. He pressed the play button for another episode, changed into some pajamas and climbed under the covers, which were even more comfortable than they appeared. Before the episode is finished, he’s long gone in dreams of police cars and S.W.A.T. teams. When he wakes up around eightish the next morning, the tv is still on, asking if he wants to watch yet another episode. He rolled onto his bare back to see the screen easier and played the episode. He skipped breakfast, not feeling hungry and later realized he didn't have lunch either. Still not hungry, he watched some more of the show.
"I really should eat, but it's a double episode! Can't stop now," he found himself forty-five minutes later, shouting at the television that they could not possibly end a season that way. Needless to say, he started the next one. Two seasons in two days. Nathaniel was enjoying this very laid back life at the moment, so he booked a few more nights in the hotel, which apparently doesn't get many guests, but those who do come, always add to how long they're staying. Understandable. This hotel is perfect in every way a hotel can be. Another seven episodes later, and he finally gets out of bed to shower, having not showered in a embarrassing length of time. Once he’s finished, he wanders to the hotel lobby, where they have a gourmet lunch being served.

"I could live here and I don't think I would ever complain, he thought gratefully, finishing a perfect BLT sandwich.

"Morning, Sheriff," a receptionist at the front counter around the corner said.

"Morning," a man with a heavy cowboy accent answered, "Got any lunch for a starving deputy?"

"Of course we do," she said. Nathaniel jumped up and booked his way down the hall.

"I think I'll hide out in my room for a couple hours, then I should most definitely head out of here, however much I enjoy the current 'living' situation I've got."

“Housekeeping,” someone knocks on the door as he’s picking up his backpack to leave.

“Come on in!” he called, then opened the door, “I was just about to-.”

“Don’t move,” the sheriff was pointing his pistol at Nathaniel’s chest.