CHAPTER 4: MORNING

When Bella awakened – alone – and shrugged off her blanket, she stepped out into a late open morning with an unexpected gray bed of clouds overhead. Her mother was already there, seated on a rock overlooking their little hiding spot and finishing a protein bar and water. The morning had started a bit cooler and was a pleasant surprise when compared to the stifling heat and sunshine that had preceded this change.

It would make running easier, no matter what form they took.

And it seemed like that is all they were destined to do, ultimately, was to run. From town to town, from home to home, from reservation to reservation, a non-stop litany of brief respites and pauses before things caught up with them and they had to move on again. Bella had begun to hate it, even at such a young age.

She took the last of their food and water and sat down next to her mom.

“Momma, how long are we going to have to run?” She asked. “I liked it back there and I’m tired of running all the time.”

Darcy put her arm around her daughter and held her close for a minute. She leaned over and kissed the girl’s head, taking in the aroma of desert air and dust, wolf and human mixed together, a scent wonderfully Bella’s own.

“We don’t have too far to go today, kiddo,” she said. “I promise, it’s not that far. And I have a surprise for you when we get there, okay?”

But Bella, usually so easily placated by promises of surprises or food or ice cream, might have started to catch on to her mother’s tactics. Instead of asking what awaited her, the little girl finished her protein bar and hopped up and off the rock, away from Darcy’s arms.

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “Even when we get to where we’re going, we’ll only be there for a little bit and we’ll have to leave again. And then again and again – it never stops. I don’t want a surprise – I want a forever home, a place where we can be, like, normal.”

A place where we can be, like, normal…

Was she old enough to be told what was happening? Was she going to grow tired of her mom’s dire warnings and, ultimately, become lazy with them? If she were ever in a stare-down moment with Dominic, would he be able to sweet talk her into going with him, the way Darcy had done? The handsome face, the dark eyes, the always-two-day-old stubble and the natural grin. Would Bella get caught in his web, think ‘oh, this guy’s actually pretty cool’ and allow herself to be sucked into his darkness?

Would she have an inherent mistrust of the man based on Darcy’s warnings? Or would Dominic manipulate her the way he did everyone else, with an almost whimsical charm that, when it didn’t work, turned to the darkest rage?

She slipped back to another time, to a time right after Bella was born, and to the memory of a hospital visit that still unnerved her.

He stood in the doorway to her hospital room for the longest time, tall and lithe and angular, muscles wired beneath his two suits – the black suit and tie he wore and the skin of the man beneath it, neither revealing who he really was. When Darcy looked up, coming awake with a little start when she felt eyes on her, she couldn’t place what she saw in his. Although maybe that wasn’t true and maybe she COULD place it. Maybe by trying to force herself not to identify it, she could make it go away somewhere.

When he saw that she was awake, he stepped closely into the room, his front hands in the pocket of his suit pants, his eyes glancing from Darcy to the little baby sleeping in her arms.

She did not like feeling his gaze on her – but even worse – she didn’t like it when his puzzling stare turned to the baby. She could see a little muscle twitch in his jaw, the way it did when he was really pondering something. He wasn’t looking at the baby – nor at her – with anything other than a strange fascination. There wasn’t even a hint of affection, tenderness, or compassion on his face – let alone love – and his gaze was cold and clinical. Indeed, he was looking at her little Bella like the child was a potential science experiment.

“I was told the baby didn’t make it,” he said, his voice emotionless and deep. “The doctors couldn’t detect a heartbeat.”

Darcy tried to match his eyes, but instead focused on Bella’s cute little head peeking out of the bundle of blankets.

“They couldn’t,” she said. “I was… I was prepared for the worst, but… Here she is.”

They were like this for the next few minutes, separated by a few feet and a gulf of a million miles. He wasn’t who she thought he was, she knew that now. His cloak of decency had concealed him, but now she knew. Oh year, she knew…

“A baby’s heart doesn’t just restart itself,” he said. “Things don’t… jumpstart themselves.”

“Yeah well, this one did…”

“Wake her up,” Dominic said, although he didn’t move. “Let me see her eyes.”

Darcy didn’t know if she had ever really stood up to him – not really. When it came to decisions, he generally made them or approved them if she did. He was like this with everyone, not just her, but his assumed control and subtly restrained violence shown most brightly in her dealings with him. She thought of the Eagles’ tune ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ and the dark line ‘he had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude – they said he was ruthless, they said he was crude.’ That was Dominic Black, a chameleon capable of charm when it served him and his natural ugliness when it did not.

What she had learned, however, was that the ugliness was his truest form and the charm merely his disguise - and like anyone wearing a disguise, they were far more comfortable shrugging it off.

“She’s sleeping and comfortable, Dom,” she said. “Just… let her be, okay?”

He took a step closer to her, a single polished shoe making a little tapping noise as he did so.

“Let me see her eyes,” he repeated.

“No, Dom,” she said, hoping he didn’t see her uncertainty, nervousness, and fear – and convinced that, of course, he did. “I said she’s sleeping.”

“I’ll bet her eyes are silver, aren’t they?” He asked, taking another step closer to the bed, his face – the eyes and lips and jaw – menacing. “Most likely just a little hint of silver in there – so unique and beautiful.”

And Darcy did it – she did it.

She summoned up a resolve of strength and energy, stubbornness and protectiveness that only a mother can feel. Despite being physically and emotionally exhausted – and knowing damn well she couldn’t do much against Dominic physically should he go that route – she stared him down.

“Don’t you touch her,” Darcy said.

But he was toying with her and they both knew it. No one was going to muscle their way by him and Darcy knew even the medical staff would back off if he told them to.

“I won’t wake her up, I promise,” he said, with that grin on his face that, at one time, had melted her. “Just a little peek.”

Darcy tensed, hoping that Little Bella wouldn’t wake up by sensing the change in mom’s heart rate.

“You know this is going to happen, Darcy…” He said.

“And yet it’s not…” A voice said.

Darcy was too wound up, too tightened and tensed, to do anything but force herself to breathe – to focus solely on the task of inhaling and exhaling while trying to control her rising anger – while Little Bella whimpered and stirred in her arms. Mom was far too exhausted and physically weak to muster much resistance if Dominic used force to look into the baby’s eyes, but Darcy had to put up that fight.

Dominic had turned at the sound of the man’s voice entering the room, and for a moment he and the visitor just stood and stared at each other.

“Well, would you look at that,” Dominic said with his all-to-familiar sarcasm and barely restrained contempt. “Did you just polish that uniform up before you came down here?”

Keith Taylor matched Dominic’s grin with one of his own, although the tension in the room ramped up at the confrontation. Just beneath the facial expressions and the posturing, the pseudo smiles and the attempts at wit and goodwill, there was something much, much darker, a sense of nastiness between two men who might have once called each other friend.

“I had court this morning,” Keith said, stepping deeper into the room and closer to Darcy’s bedside. And although her bed was between them, she felt his protective presence and was wonderfully grateful for it. “It was a homicide case from a few years ago – appeals and all, right?”

“What are you now?” Dominic asked, that smile still on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. “Michigan State Police… what?”

“Major,” Keith said. “I can still get into shit if I want to. Keeps me fresh.”

“Law and order every time, right?”

As Darcy settled, little Bella did, as well.

“It sounded like you were just heading out,” Keith said. “Good seeing you, Dom.”

“Is it…?”

Keith just nodded, sort of: “Not really.”

Dominic might have been tempted to say something additional, maybe just to keep the awkwardness going that hung thick and heavy in the hospital room, but he apparently thought better of it. Instead, he studied Andy for a moment then glanced at Darcy and the baby before he slipped silently out the door.

“Momma?”

“Mom!”

Darcy glanced at Bella, who was looking at her strangely.

“Sorry honey, I guess I sort of zoned out there for a minute,” Darcy said.

Then, brought back to the moment, she stuffed their clothing, blankets and wrappers back into the duffel bag and shoved it all back into the dark rocky shelter.

“We don’t have too far to go today, I promise,” she said. “Just… bear with me a little longer, yeah? I really do have a plan.”

Bella nodded: ‘I know you do, momma.’

Darcy wasn’t sure her daughter really did believe that or if she was merely saying it because her mother looked sort of lost and even frightened then. Maybe Bella was realizing just how important her faith in her mom was to Darcy. I have to know you believe in me, honey. If I don’t have that, I don’t have anything.

In a moment, two wolves – the mom and her cub – took off running again, this time with full bellies and an energy buoyed by the cooler temperatures and the promise of the end of the line looming. They paused only to go to the bathroom, because it was easier NOT to do that in human form, of course.

A short while later, along a flat stretch of State Road 170 south of the New Mexico border with Colorado, the wolves – running slower now but still pushing – slowed to a trot near a large junkyard still lined with torn up green fencing. Through a small gap in the fencing – a gap the mother wolf certainly knew about – they entered the complex, weaving around piles of junk, old vehicles, steel shells and dismembered appliances, all open to the elements. Eventually they came to an object mostly concealed beneath a ragtag collection of town and tattered canvas tarps.

In a moment, Darcy and Bella shifted back into their naked human forms and began pulling the tarps off the object, revealing a 1997 Ford F250 short-bed pickup truck – white with a dark blue stripe running along it – remarkably free of rust and in good shape. It was unlocked, and from behind the passenger side seat, Darcy hauled out yet another stashed duffel bag which contained underwear and clothes, socks and shoes and the basics for her and Bella. Once they were dressed, she walked around the truck to make sure it at least looked ready to rock.

“Where did you get this truck, momma? It’s cool.” Belly ran her fingertips along the blue stripe as she walked along the vehicle.

Darcy smiled, ‘I’m a planner, babe.” From under the driver’s seat, she pulled out a business sized envelope filled with smoothed-out but worn ten- and twenty-dollar bills. “And I know you must be hungry, so take a guess where we’re going to eat?”

Upon hearing the topic of food, Bella’s eyes lit up as she opened the passenger door and hopped up into the truck.

“ANYWHERE!” She called out. ‘No more protein bars! They’re awful!”

As Darcy slipped the key – stashed under a floor mat – into the ignition and started the engine, she grinned at her daughter: ‘We’re going to eat anywhere you want! A real place this time!’

Bella’s face lit up: “Really…? Like a McDonald’s?!”

“Okay, okay – McDonald’s it is,” Darcy said as they began to head towards the junk yard’s exit. “I’d love a milkshake.”

Bella moved all over as they drove – as far as her seatbelt would let her, of course – checking out the truck’s glove box, above the visor, in the door’s pockets… From behind her seat, she pulled on something until it popped out: a long-sleeved, dark red coat.

“A coat?” She asked. “What do I need this for…?”

“Well, where we are going you might need it,” Darcy said. “I’m not sure yet.”

“I won’t be able to think about that until I eat.”

When they pulled out of the gravel parking lot and onto the main road, the clouds were breaking up a bit and sunshine was streaking down in shards across the vast landscape. It was a beautiful country, rugged and rough, both inhospitable and comforting at the same time. It was a place where someone could disappear if they wanted to – and also if they didn’t.

And it was also Darcy’s last option, the only thing she could think of to do next.