The water faucet was turned off, and the air dryer was still running when the heels clicked their way across the tile floor. It stopped in time for Kat to hear to the door close, and she crept out of the closed stall and locked the door. There was a small couch against one wall of the bathroom, and she pulled it in front of the door as an added security.She'd been in the little bathroom for almost four hours. The traffic in and out had slowly died down after the sun set, but the open air mall was still open for another thirty minutes or so and she didn't want to take any more chances.
She fretted with the couch a little longer, trying to wedge it under the doorknob, but then it occurred to her that it might sound suspicious from outside and she left it. When she finally convinced herself that there was nothing more she could do to keep the little room private, she hurried to the faucet, turned the tap on and pressed her face under it.
The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly metallic, but she drank as much as she could before she had to take a breath. She drank again. It had been a long wait, but Kat had learned in the past weeks that it wasn't safe for people to see her anymore, not if she could help it. Her clothes and her hair drew stares now, and people didn't like it when she looked at them or came too near to them or to the businesses they ran. Most of them tried to pretend she wasn't there, some of them told her to leave, but a few of them - the dangerous ones - tried to talk to her.
Talking meant questions, and questions meant the IF, sooner or later. She knew that, and as her appearance made it harder and harder to remain unnoticed she began to take greater and greater pains to avoid being seen at all.
Someone rattled the door and she hit her chin as she jerked away from the faucet so she could stare at the door. It rattled again.
Go away. Go away go away go away.
It rattled once more and then fell silent. A moment later there were retreating footsteps, and she started breathing again. She turned back to the faucet and jumped when she saw movement, but the frightening apparition had become familiar to her now. The hair was matted and snarled, its face and clothes lined and creased with dirt and sweat. It made no more sense to her than anything else, and she dismissed her reflection and dipped her head under the water for another drink.
When she'd drunk enough to feel nauseous she tried to wash her face. It hurt in several places, and when she looked up again she almost wished she hadn't. Without the top layer of dirt she could see the bruises, scratches and scrapes her secretive path had left her with. She couldn't really feel the dirt anymore, or the snarls in her hair, but she could feel those, and it reminded her that the filthy creature she was looking at was herself.
She washed her hands, pointlessly. Once she'd tried to wash her hair, but it had only made it worse and she hadn't tried since. Anything she tried to do just seemed to make it worse. Nothing here was like home. There were no cleaners in public bathrooms, no showers. There were no beds safe for her to sleep in, no kitchens to feed her. Most people didn't wear uniforms and didn't patrol in regular patterns. Her entire life had been carried out in enclosed spaces and conducted around regimented people. Even in Charybdis there had been rules. Here there were none, or none that she could fathom. It was too bright and too open and often too crowded, and the IF was around every corner, waiting to catch her if she made too many mistakes, and she had to get to Wick.
Wick.
She reached into the grimy pocket of the jeans she was wearing and pulled out a battered, stained map. It was one of the first things she'd managed to steal after she'd touched down in South Carolina, back when shopkeepers would still let her in. On it the shopkeeper had marked her location at the time, and later that night she'd painstakingly located Wick's house on it. She had a general idea of where she was, and Wick's mark was deceptively close now. She still had sixty miles to go, a tiny fraction of the map space...but she'd learned the hard way just how long a mile was. Maybe tomorrow, probably the day after that, and then -
There was another rattle at the door, and she hastily shoved the map back into her pocket and took one last gulp of water, despite the dangerous lurch her stomach made. There was no telling how long it would be before she had another. She turned the faucet off, she put the couch back, and she turned out the light.
The dark made her feel better, and she waited for the intruder to give up and leave before she unlocked the door and slipped into the greater darkness outside.
An hour later and a few miles closer to her goal, Kat found shelter in a drain pipe under a small wooden bridge. She dragged heavy branches in after her, partially to shield her and partially to make sure any interlopers would have to make a lot of noise to get to her, and then crawled as far back into the pipe as she dared and curled up.
Tomorrow, or the day after, and then she would be with Wick. Wick would help her. Together they would make everything right. She didn't need to know how Wick would fix it. She would, that was all, and then she could have Jacks back, she could have Mode back and everything would be like it was.
Kat wrapped herself tighter against the dead leaves and mud that covered the drain pipe floor and slept.
