ShadowBorne

Chapter Two

The radio went silent and I started the engine again, each word still echoing in my head. 

By midday, every road was a risk. My face would already be on screens and the checkpoints had doubled. I stopped at a gas station off a side road and paid cash without meeting the cashier’s eyes. He didn’t look at me twice, I was just another man passing through.

By nightfall, the state line was behind me. I checked into a cheap motel under a name that had belonged to a man who died in the cell next to mine three years earlier and as I showered and cleaned the blood from my hands, I stared at my reflection longer than necessary.

I looked thinner and older. The lines around my eyes had deepened but the brightness in them hadn’t changed. I slept for four hours with my shoes on and when I woke, the television was already talking about me. 

They showed the prison, the intact fence and the untouched walls and called the escape impossible.

I turned the volume down and sat on the edge of the bed.

I knew better. Nothing was impossible, it was just expensive. It cost time, patience, and the willingness to be alone longer than most people could tolerate.

Taking a deep breath, I picked up the phone and dialed a number I could recite in my sleep. It rang twice.

“Hi, old friend,” I said immediately he picked. “I’m out.”

I heard him inhale sharply. “I knew this day would come.”

“So did I.”

……….

At dawn, I hit the road again. I did not leave the motel because I was afraid, I left because staying would have meant getting comfortable, and comfort was the first thing that killed men like me.

The room was still dark when I locked the door behind me. The hallway smelled faintly of detergent and a television murmured behind one of the doors. Someone laughed too loudly for the hour and I almost screamed “shut up”.

Life continued without knowing it was brushing past a man who had just slipped out of a cage. Outside, the sky was pale and I took in a slow deep breath, testing the air the way I used to test rooms. It felt… refreshing considering how much stale air I had sniffed in prison. For the first time in a while, I wasn't controlled by urgency. All there was was just a quiet parking lot and a row of cars that did not care who I was.

I walked briskily. Mine was at the far end looking old and retched and I slid inside and sat without starting the engine. Rushing turned small errors into permanent ones so I had to be careful. 

When I finally drove off, the tires made no sound worth remembering. I stayed within the limit, stayed in my lane and tried to stay as ordinary as possible. Ordinary was a disguise most people never questioned and I was using it to my best advantage. They looked for panic, haste or guilt and I gave them none of it.

The radio came on when I adjusted the air. A man’s voice filled the car. Surprisingly he wasn't talking about me. He was talking about an anticipated tornado and giving safety measures but that didn't last long as he went ahead to give a recap. 

“This morning authorities confirmed the escape of a high risk inmate from the facility outside Redfield. Law enforcement agencies across multiple states are now involved in the search.”

“Now that's more like it.” I whispered and turned the volume down. I wanted to hear how they shaped it and judging by how they described me, I had come to an understanding that monsters were easier to explain than men. I wondered which photograph they had chosen. There was one they always favored. It was taken years ago with bad lighting and it captured my hollow eyes. 

The first checkpoint appeared after sunrise. A short line of cars stood, engines humming impatiently. An officer moved between vehicles, young and alert and when he reached me, I wind down the window.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning.”

“Where are you headed?”

“North.”

“Reason.”

“Work.”

He studied my face just long enough to decide I was not worth remembering and then he waved me on. Taking a deep breath, I wind up and drove off. The towns thinned and the trees closed in. I stopped once for fuel and made sure I didn't leave any clue because memories gave anchor. 

At a rest stop, I washed my hands and changed my shirt. It was more of a habit than a necessity. I saw a man who stayed at a spot for too long and another man stood at the sink. I caught him looking twice and he looked away immediately. Was I being monitored? 

As I watched him walk away, I decided he wasn't threatening enough. I pulled over a mile into the stateside  and shut off the engine. Every sound registered and fear stayed distant like something learned and no longer useful.

I was beginning to feel too tired but it wasn't time to stop yet. A diner television looped the footage. There I was again but I wasn't too bothered as it was a small village and the man in that mugshot looked a lot better than my present state. I ate standing and left before the coffee finished brewing.

I took smaller roads. Routes that bent and doubled back. Predictability was a language I refused to speak. At a roadside store, I bought a paper map and memorized it in sections. My finger traced paths my mind would later erase.

By evening, I checked into another motel under an entirely different name. The clerk barely looked at me and I wondered if they hadn't seen the news over here. In the room, I sat on the bed fully dressed and the silence pressed in. I picked up the map again and in the middle of figuring it out,  my phone buzzed. I stared at the screen in surprise. No one knew anything about this line. This phone was not supposed to ring, or was it…

Only one number in the world could reach it.

“You always hated silence,” the voice said when I picked. “Even inside.”

My hand tightened around the receiver. I didn’t move or try to speak as I didn't know what to say. “I hear you’re out,” he continued, casually.  “It took twenty minutes to confirm.”

I waited. My pulse didn’t spike, but I counted slowly in my head. “I know you crossed Redfield before sunrise and the state line by midmorning. But what I don't understand is why you are heading Northbound, that's not where I am.”

The accuracy and precision made my jaw stiffen. No one knew that.

“How did you find me?” I finally asked.

His soft familiar laugh followed.  “I never stopped knowing where you were. I just didn’t need you until now.”

I let the silence stretch and the room felt smaller. My eyes traced the edge of the window frame to the crack in the ceiling. Calculating and waiting.

“You watched them lock me away, watched me disappear into a sentence that was never mine. And now… you need me?”

“I was teaching you something,” he said smoothly. 

“And now?”

“And now, you’ve made noise.”

I crossed to the window and pulled the curtain back a little. The parking lot below was empty and quiet. Nothing had changed or looked abnormal down there. 

“You could have waited,” he said. “I would have come for you clean.”

“Coming clean is something you have never been good at” I shot back, voice low, almost as if I was talking to myself.

“The Redfield file is open again,” he said, deliberately ignoring my comment. “Not the escape, the night itself.”

“That case is dead.”

“Nope, it was postponed. Along with you.”

I didn’t argue, I only listened. Every word was a move in a game I didn’t fully understand yet. The less talking I did, the better for me. 

“You have forty-eight hours,” he said. “After that, people who don’t remember you will start asking questions they shouldn’t. If I were you, I’d find my way back.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You won’t go back to prison,” he said, sounding cold and flat. “You’ll simply stop existing.”

The line went dead and I held the phone a moment longer, tracing the cord with my thumb. There were no words left to say and no anger needed to leak from my mouth. I sank into the chair and the escape replayed itself in my mind. It wasn't luck, it was a decision I made alone. And now… whatever he wanted from me, I would give nothing until I chose.

I slid my hand into my pocket, fingers curling around the edge of the map. Every route, every shadow and every backroad I had memorized now had a new weight.

I wasn’t running anymore.