Page 30 of Wayward

“Fine. There’s some flowery language from an FBI agent as well, who believes that you’ll bloom where you’re planted.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I told you it was flowery.”

“Okay, so you think I’ll be fine here.”

“I do,” she assured me. “But if you aren’t, if you need us for any reason, just please reach out, and we’ll get to Rune as soon as we can.”

“It’s a weird name for a town.”

“Not any more so than Chicago, if you think about it.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled.

“Listen, I put the address in your new phone, and it will take you right where you need to be.” She smiled then. “I believe you’re going to be perfectly safe and happy in Rune.”

A place that didn’t even sound real.

“Also, if you get in any trouble with the locals—”

“Because you might,” Byers chimed in.

“Because you might,” Alvarez agreed, “call us. You can get us both night and day.”

I had a new iPhone programmed with their numbers and nobody else’s.

It was becoming important to leave already. I was getting antsy, ready to start. I had to get on the road. “I will follow directions,” I reiterated, then walked around the car, opened the passenger side door, and threw onto the seat my duffel with the few clothes that had been bought in New York—not a designer label in the bunch. I had on the shearling-lined barn coat that Special Agent Lewis had purchased for me because she wanted to make sure I didn’t freeze in Oregon. At the time I was confused because I figured there would be rain, yes, but that it wouldn’t be cold, not in May. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Like today, it was raining, and the high was only fifty-seven. At night, with the showers, it would be down to forty-five. So no, I wouldn’t freeze, but the coat was a good call. It was strange not to have all my old clothes. Normally, people had personal items they took with them when they entered WITSEC. I had nothing, as everything I owned had been divvied up once I was considered dead. It had to be weird for everyone now, knowing I wasn’t.

I had thought at first that I would have loved to see the look on Lev’s face when my father gave him the news I wasn’t dead. But it turned out that the further I got from everything and everyone who used to consume my life in Chicago, the clearer it became that it only mattered what those I loved thought. I only cared about them. I had taken my revenge in the best way possible, and really, it was enough.

I missed my shoes, though. Hiking boots had never really been me. Or Converse sneakers. Even the harness boots currently on my feet were less me and more a hipster or a guy who rode a motorcycle. As I was neither, it all felt weird.

The only things I did have that were mine were the watch I’d been wearing the night Lev tried to kill me—and which was worth more than everything else, including the Jeep—and my locket. I was very thankful for that. Lev could have very well torn it from my neck when he leaned in to shoot me that night, but he would have also had to get closer than he wanted. Because of the formal wear for my brother’s party, Lev would’ve had to loosen my tie and undo suit buttons to get at the locket. There was an interesting number of coincidences that had to occur to save both my life and the personal possessions I still owned. Sava had been my guardian angel, watching me like a hawk, seeing the writing on the wall that I missed completely. Even now, with everything gone and changed, I considered myself a lucky man. My life, which had been predictable, had taken another path. I just needed to figure out what that was.

Getting out of Portland took longer than I thought, but I was on my way half an hour later, around nine in the morning. I drove for almost two hours—including stopping for half an hour for breakfast—and eventually arrived in Seaside, Oregon. This was the closest larger town to where I was going to live, and another twenty minutes away from the fictional-sounding but actually real town of Rune, located between Seaside and Tillamook, on the Oregon coast, up near the border of Washington. There were other towns along the way—Warrenton, Gearhart—but Seaside was the biggest, and that was where the closest police department was that the marshals felt comfortable sending me to in case of trouble. I was to report there in case of emergency. As if I’d go anywhere instead of handling things myself.

Following a bend in the road, when I came around, there was a dog right there, standing still like a statue. Swerving, I went off-road a bit, sliding on the blacktop, which was wet from the slight drizzle, and came to a stop. What had really scared me was that the pit bull was standing there frozen, and I was certain the very next car around the same turn would probably kill him.

Jogging over close, I called the dog to me. Instead of moving, he just stood there and shivered. It wasn’t a particularly busy road, but still.

“C’mon, buddy,” I pleaded, crouching down, and he took several steps forward but stopped. At which point I remembered I still had the peanut-butter crackers the marshals had bought for me before we took the red-eye out of New York. I hadn’t eaten them, dozing instead.

I pulled one out of the breast pocket of my jacket, unwrapped it, held it up for the dog to see, then tossed it close. He gobbled it up like it was a cheeseburger. I threw the next one closer, then the next, getting him to safety just in time, as a minivan came around the corner a moment later. It would have hit him easily, traveling far faster than I had been, but they were probably locals, whereas I was still learning the roads.

When I held the next one in my hand, he took it from me. “You’re so pretty,” I soothed the dog, reaching for him. “What do you call this color, brindle or something?”

The pit bull must have liked the look of me and moved into arm’s reach so I could pet him. When I rose to my knees, he didn’t bolt, just eyed me, at which point I noticed the open cut on his rear thigh, near his hip. I knew knives, knew it had been made with one, so I very gently bent over and lifted him into my arms. When I was carrying him to my car, I heard a pitiful howl from my right.

Putting him in the back seat, wishing there was a blanket for him to lie down on, and promising myself I’d get one, I told him to stay before I closed him in and walked toward the brush. It took me only a minute to find a smaller dog, probably some kind of Australian Shepherd mix since the hair was shorter than on others I’d seen. It had a wound in the same place as the first dog, and a broken front leg. Amazingly, even though the dog had to be in pain, it was wagging its tail in the dirt—which was quickly turning to mud as the sky opened up.

“Oh, love, what happened?” I asked as I lifted the dog into my arms—a girl, I saw—and carried her to my car. When I got the back door open on the passenger side, and put her down beside the pit bull, he licked her face and she whined. Clearly, they were happy to see each other.

Getting in behind the steering wheel, I pulled from the breast pocket of my coat my brand-new, shiny iPhone with its very durable, very not-me-looking case—I normally went in for sleek and stylish—and searched for a veterinarian. There was only one in Rune, which I was closer to now than Gearhart, so I checked Google Maps and headed that way.

The center of town was sort of sweet. There was a square with a gazebo in a grassy area with many pine trees and junipers. It was beautiful. It only went in one direction around the center, and people slowed down to make turns. The vet’s office was toward the end of the circle, after a diner called Starfish and a place I was guessing was a coffee shop, given its name was the Daily Grind.

Pulling into a spot right in front, I hopped out, went immediately to the back seat and picked up the Aussie, cradling her gently in my arms, and had the pit bull jump down since none of his bones were broken as far as I could tell. He was a very good boy and stayed right with me. I was thankful that someone inside saw me and came out to hold the door for me.