11. Road 102

Mid-morning, with the heat already beginning to press everything down, they lapped water from the edge of the river. Their paws sunk into the mud and it squished between their toes, cool and pleasant in the shade of scrubby trees.

Stiles couldn't make the full wolf shift without Derek calling him into it, but he figured it would get easier after his first full moon. He worried about that, that he'd flip like the other new wolves and want to hunt and kill, forcing Derek to restrain him somehow. Derek wasn't worried though, telling him that accepting what he was and having already shifted voluntarily, Stiles would have a better handle than the others had. They would get out somewhere and just run and Stiles would find his anchor. Stiles thought he might already know what his anchor would be: loyalty, to the pack, to his alpha, to himself.

He missed magic, but not as much as he might have thought. Being Were filled up the same spaces inside, the flood of information from his senses kept his scatterbrain constantly occupied so he felt more focused than not. Plus he just felt good. No more aches, no more sore muscles, no more sprained ankle, no more _knife wound_ – everything had knitted together and was strong once more thanks to werewolf healing. Stiles loved that.

Four feet took them up the river in a ground eating lope and their dark coats hid them from the patrols watching the quarantine zone for escaping humans.

It did feel surreal to realize he wasn't one of the humans any longer, but he was still himself and that was what mattered.

Derek licked his muzzle and trotted ahead after they both drank. The rank smell of the water weeds and mud along the verge made Stiles wrinkle his muzzle and sneeze several times. Derek stopped at the top of the embankment, silhouetted against the night sky, ears pricked and eyes glinting. Stiles sneezed again before bouncing his way up to Derek's side.

On the west side of the river, they had followed it north until it crossed under the high arch of the Elkhorn Bridge, passing a roadhouse that stood in its concrete shadow. Withering cornfields stretched on the other side of the scatter of buildings. Stiles figured it must have catered to boaters because no one driving the freeway would have pulled off to find it if they didn't know about it. Despite its isolation, it had been thoroughly looted already and neither of them felt like cutting their feet up snooping through the bar where shattered bottles covered the floor in glass.

They caught a couple of rats among the cornrows instead and filled their bellies, though Stiles pretended they were really pork. It didn't work exactly, but luckily a wolf's palate found rat meat relatively tasty. Besides, Stiles would never ever forget or give up mocking Derek over the sight of him with a pink rat tail dangling from between his fangs. Comedy god damn gold and what cell phone cameras were invented for; Stiles missed technology so much already.

They followed a frontage road on under the bridge and when it turned west. It paralleled a causeway stretched across acres of rice fields. No one had cleared it yet and detritus of wrecked vehicles from the Crash blocked all the lanes except where the speeding cars and trucks had broken through the railings and nosedived down into the flooded fields. A red Kenworth … hauling chrome-sided refrigerated container trailers dangled half off, jack-knifed and pinned by two more semis painted with the Swift logo.

All was still in the muggy heat, though, and flocks of white egrets stalked through standing water and bright green rice shoots.

The tarmac of the frontage road was wicked hot under paw pads, so they loped along the verge between the ditch and the pavement and Stiles cursed shitheads who tossed out bottles to break, even though his feet healed within a couple of strides.

The road took them straight into Woodland, but they instinctively swerved north away from the town when they picked up the sounds of a military presence. Instead, they followed another county road through the fly-speck town of Knight's Landing, resting in the shade of a tree-filled cemetery on the outskirts through the worst of the afternoon heat before stretching their legs and running as far as Robbins, another tiny farm town. With every mile they traveled north, the scent of smoke became more noticeable. Robbins was flat and forlorn, but somehow better than Knight's Landing, which had given Stiles the heeby-jeebies as bad as Catavińa had, worse than Crow's Landing with its spiteful witches and pissed off Mormons.

Robbins didn't put Stiles hackles up at least, though they could only sense a few people still hanging on there. It proved worthwhile to shift back to human form and scrounge clothes and shoes, though, because they found an old Ford truck that yielded to Stiles' mad hot-wiring skills.

Despite Stiles being the one to get it running, Derek ended up driving as the sun started to lower in the west. The powdery, faded to flat, pale blue exterior took on a greenish cast in the dirty orange light as Derek steered them onto the main road. They both cranked the windows down despite the acrid hint of smoke hanging in the air.

It was startling to see a human figure in the backyard of an outlying house, someone wearing a floppy hat and watering a fenced garden. The person straightened up and watched the old pick-up as they rolled by and when they didn't slow, raised a hand and waved. Stiles leaned out the window and waved back enthusiastically, shouting, "Stay safe!" at the top of his lungs.

"You're insane," Derek remarked once Stiles had himself all the way back in the cab. He put his foot down and shifted into a higher gear, getting them up to sixty-seven miles an hour.

Stiles ignored him in favor of pulling things from under the seat.

"Ha!" He cackled in glee as his poking through the odds and ends yielded a box of cassette tapes for the antique player under the old AM/FM radio that the truck boasted. He pawed through the cassettes – he could totally use that pun all the time now, he _owned_ it – mocking the owner's taste in music until he found the truest treasure of all. "Oh my God. Nothing, no, nothing could be better than this. Not even the Golden Earring tape. Not even the AC/DC."

Derek side-eyed him. "What are you babbling about?"

Stiles plucked the cassette out and shoved it into the player, just praying the thing still worked. "Wait for it," he commanded. He kept his hand closed around the yellowing plastic case so Derek couldn't read it and fast forwarded to the right track. Giggles kept bubbling from him.

"You're not high, so why do you sound so much like an idiot?" Derek shook his head. "At least stoners have an excuse."

"Fun sucker." Stiles let his finger up on the fast forward, caught a couple notes and pressed again. The song would be at the end of the tape. He'd forgotten – if he'd ever known – the annoyance of tapes. He tried it again and grinned as the second to last song ended in a hiss of magnetic static. Another giggle slipped out.

The guitar riff started up and Stiles cranked the volume as high as his newly sensitive ears could bear. Derek jerked and the truck swerved as he looked at Stiles, who just cackled and lalala-ed along with the song. He held up the cassette case with Best of Blue Öyster Cult on the cover. Derek muttered, "Jesus," punctuating it with a loud huff.

"Classic, dude, classic," Stiles declared. "Even if we got the Bleed instead of Captain Trips."

"Just so you know, we are not going to Kansas or Denver," Derek stated. A smile quirked up the corners of his lips, though.

"That's fine, as long as you don't start wanting to go to Vegas," Stiles agreed. "I think I'll take the Crash over Randall Flagg, too." He sprawled back on the bench seat and started singing along, picking at a patch of gray duct tape that had transferred itself from the split seat to his scavenged khakis. _"She had become like they are … She had taken his hand."_

Derek managed to surprise him when he began singing along too a moment later, harmonizing with Stiles through the chorus of _Don't Fear (the Reaper)_.

Stiles reached over and took Derek's hand in his.