Chasing Freedom

XXVII

First, this work is NOT abandoned. I plan on finishing this (about 10 or so more chapters, maybe more, maybe less), but the burnout is real and regular updates are hard. To anyone sticking with the story, thank you! 

Second, trigger warning for the second half of the chapter. Nothing graphic, but read with caution.

In the end, Mira remained feverish and ill for three days in passing waves. Myles was in full mother-hen mode the entire time, never more than a couple of feet from her when she was home. He brought her food. Ran her a bath when the fever spiked. The only time he left his house was when she slept. Which, thanks to the tea side effects wasn't something within her control most of the time.

Now, as she drove Myles' sedan through the sloping hills, she wasn't feeling at her best, but the worst was behind her. Still, there was one part of this all, however, that nagged at her insistently: she'd never bled. Mira waited, expecting each day to be the day she started her cycle. Only for it never to happen.

She chalked it down to just another thing she would never understand about herself. Maybe being in this pack had affected her more biology than she could have guessed. With her history, it wasn't as if she could rule it out.

Re-adjusting her seatbelt, she glanced to the passenger seat. When she'd left Myles' after lunch and gotten into the car, she'd simply begun driving, with no destination in mind. After the last few days, she simply needed to get out. Good thing, because she was officially lost. And she had no phone signal either. At some point, she'd passed through a set of unfamiliar gates, guarded by sentry who had opened them upon catching sight of the car. From there, she'd been turning with the line of the thinning trees to evade the densest forestry. She'd end up in a more suburban area.

Eventually.

For now, she was simply enjoying the drive for what it was, with the windows rolled down and the breeze passing through the car. Down the mountain, the weather was near balmy compared to what she'd become used to. Here there was no snow, although it was clear that rain had come through in the last week or so from the dew dripping from the trees and the mud by the side of the paved roads. Every few kilometres the trees would clear and open a window to the valley and buildings below.

Reaching a cross-intersection, Mira considered her options. There still was no signage to go off, unfortunately. Right veered up again to a dirt road, ruling out that option. Left the road bent and thinned significantly, a shadow in the distance that she could only assume was the canopy. Doubling checking no one was coming, she followed the road on. Not that she needed to, given she'd yet to see another car in close range.

The route she was only clearly wasn't the one well travelled.

Any later in the day, that might have worried her. This had been her life growing up, after all: taking the obscure paths to avoid being seen. She was no stranger to these environments and knew how to stay safe and be prepared for all conditions. This time, she was in a car and not on foot. It made navigating her way out easy.

Or easier.

After being coddled within a pack for months, her survival skills weren't all they used to be.

Humming an old lullaby under her breath, she kept driving with the scenery and animal calls, keeping her grounded.

*

Nearly an hour later, she slowed the car to a stop. On the outskirts of suburbia, where the forest rose high above, she'd found a clearing. There was no one around, despite the swing set/sandbox combo towards the right of the clearing and the ample parking spaces marked up in paint. An old half-sloping timber sign declared, "Hastings Water Park" around colourful graffiti, although she saw no water.