West Coast Shuffle (Part Five)

The soothing sounds of a moving automobile filled my ears first thing as I regained consciousness. As I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the face of Wolf looming over me as though he were about to eat me.

"You are awake," Wolf said, sounding as pleased as I figured an emotionless voice could. I tried to get up, but a heavy paw kept me down, "Do not move around so much. Your gunshot wound has healed, but I cannot judge your head injury."

I gently lifted his foot off of my chest and prompted him to move aside, "Did somebody knock me out?"

Wolf moved over as much as he could to give me space in our cramped confines, "Laura knocked you unconscious," He informed me.

"I am sorry for that," She chimed in from the front of the van. Van? Yes, this was the inside of a van. How'd we get a van? "I did not want to do that to you."

"Why'd you knock me out?" I spoke with a mushmouth. It had been a while since I'd been ko'ed. It still sucked.

"Because you had lost control of yourself," Ironically, the last time I'd been properly knocked out, another friend of mine had also done it, "Also, if I remember correctly, you heal quicker when you are unconscious."

She was right about that. I checked myself over. There were two bullet wounds on my body. One at my upper right chest, the other lower, underneath my pec. I knew this because there were two holes in my shirt, underneath, they were covered with bloody patches.

"How long have I been out?" I said groggily, wincing after touching the still stinging marks. However long I'd been down, it had to have been a while. The shots had healed almost completely from what I could feel.

"Longer than seven hours."

"Seven hours!? What the ffffuck?" I slurred numbly, pushing past Wolf to where Laura was driving in the front, "Where the ffffuck are we?"

Her eyes were locked onto the road, even as I fumbled my way into the passenger's seat, "Southern California. Just outside of San Diego. Please put on your safety belt."

Wait, what? We weren't in San Francisco anymore? Sure enough, I turned to look out the window and hadn't the faintest idea of my surroundings. That woke me up and properly reattached all the synapses in my brain.

So we were a third of a day away from my house. This was not good, "Laura, stop the van."

Request denied, "I cannot," She said resolutely.

My parents were going to kill me when they found out how far away I was. I couldn't think of an excuse for why I would be away so long to save my life. If I started heading back now, by the time I got back I could just brush it all off, "Why? Mom and Dad are gonna kick my ass later."

Just like that, any semblance of calm that Laura had left evaporated into thin air, "Because she has found me. Because she has seen you with me!" Her eyes were wild as she looked my way, "I told you to leave! But you did not! And now she knows we are together, and she will not stop, Bellamy!"

It was jarring to see her like that. And while it was nice to know that she had more emotional range than mild displeasure, it wasn't the time. She was the only one that had any idea of what was going on, "Alright, Laura. I need you to calm down. It's just the three of us right now. Tell me what's going on?"

It took a few moments for her to settle back down, but eventually she did compose herself and get me up to speed, "Kimura. The Facility," A grim expression crossed my face, "They have come. I knew they would. I always knew," She said more to herself than to me, "No, I cannot allow you to return to your home while they are there. She promised she would kill everyone I ever came into contact with. They did not know who you were. They would find out, and they would attack your family."

Which would be bad. Thankfully no one ever dropped my name, as far as I know anyway, "...So do you have a plan, or are we just running away forever?" I replied facetiously.

Laura shook her head in the negative, "We will not be able to run forever," I noticed she never said that she wouldn't have been willing to, "I am surprised that we were able to make it this far without being intercepted. We must find somewhere to stage a counterattack."

I looked around at our current situation, namely the fact that we were in San Diego, "And we had to drive eight hours to do it?"

Laura rationalized her thinking for me, "You were injured. And it would be unwise to continue fighting against them in San Francisco. If that is where they were deployed, they would have strategies, support, and more," She looked over at me as though I were a fool, "Why do you think the police never intervened?"

That was a tremendously good point. Armed men on the street in broad daylight, a gunfight not too far from one of the most famous streets in the city, and I didn't hear a single siren. So there went my future point of taking this to the cops. These people really were powerful then.

Alright. I needed to think. But first, I needed to know what I was dealing with from the perspective of someone who spent her life inside of it, "I think you need to fill me in more. On everything."

"I do not think this is the time," Laura replied far too quickly.

She didn't like that idea. Not one bit. And I understood, but now wasn't the time for sensitivity and understanding, "I think it's exactly the time. In fact, I don't think there's going to be a better time," She didn't respond, trying to occupy herself with driving instead of talking to me. I knew she was listening though, "Laura, we did it your way. I know you never want to talk about the things that happened, but right now it's right in our face. I can't just look past it after it put two rounds in me."

It sucked to force the issue. I didn't want to. Putting terrible things behind you sometimes had to be necessary to move forward. But when those terrible things were trying to grab onto your neck from behind, you had to turn around to try and shrug it off.

Laura was hesitant at first. Hesitant for a while, actually. I didn't expect her to go for it in the end, but eventually... "It will take time to tell you what you need to know."

We weren't using that as an excuse. I didn't care how long it took to tell. I would listen from beginning to end, as long as she was willing to talk, "How long until we get where we're going?" I asked, turning back to the A.I. hanging out in the back of the van, "Wolf, where are we going?"

"The border between the United States and Mexico. Estimated time to arrival at the current rate of speed is 47 minutes."

I didn't bother voicing my next, obvious question. Laura knew what it would be, "I will explain along with everything else," She promised, knowing I would want answers.

"No rush on that one," I told her, "Not like it matters at this point," We were basically already there. It would have been more trouble to turn around and go home than to finish going wherever the van was taking us.

I'd told my dad I was going to stay out of trouble. At least I didn't make any promises that I'd have to break.