It took less than two minutes for him to come back with two bulging duffle bags and one smaller leather bag. When he placed the larger bags in the trunk and the smaller one in front of his feet in the passenger seat, Malia asked him what was in the bags.
"This one has medicine made from medicinal herbs I made myself along with dried herbs, and the duffle bags have money in them." He said as he pointed first at the leather bag and then jerking his thumb toward the back to the trunk.
"How much money's in them? " "Malia asked, putting the key into the ignition slot to turn the car on.
"I think... 2 million in each bag?" He said, nonchalant. At that information, Malia proceeded to let go of her car keys and turn in her seat to look at the boy with a dead stare. He looked back at her, tilting his head slightly to show his confusion.
"You have 4 million dollars in cash and you didn't think to use it?!" Malia enunciated, staring right through his soul in an attempt to decipher the boy's thoughts.
"On what should I have used it on? I had everything I needed in the forest." was his reasoning.
"A shower, for one! " She almost shouted, turning her car back on and continuing down the long stretch of road again, mentally shaking her head. Are all men just stupid?! She decided to change the subject.
"I don't know your name yet. Mine's Malia. Malia Tate." She introduced herself, spotting a road sign saying the ramp that led to the expressway was just up ahead.
"Thomas Hale. Are you bonded or were you taken into another family?" Thomas, as he was now known, inquired (I know my use of vocabulary might be all over the place, but I'm trying hard here).
"I was adopted—taken in, like you said. You go by 'Hale'?" she asked, having expected Corinne to give him her name, whatever it is...or was.
It hadn't really hit her yet: that Corinne was dead. Malia didn't know that he was telling the truth and that she really was dead, because to Malia, Corinne seemed the type to try her hardest in her endeavors to get what she wants, no matter the obstacles that come. If she was anything, she was adaptable. So hearing that she was dead was surreal to her.
"Mom always told me my last name was Hale, so it stayed that way. Is it supposed to be something else?" Thomas wondered innocently.
"No, just curious." Malia said. "How old are you, by the way? Do you know your birthday?" She didn't know how Thomas' life was like with Corinne, so she wanted to know as much as she could about him without overwhelming him. She was more than willing to be patient if it meant he didn't get hostile in the small car.
"Does it matter? "Thomas said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. Malia could tell his guard was coming up and she didn't know why. She had only asked his age and birthday, right? They were on the expressway now, hundreds of cars passing them or coming up beside them as Malia joined the throng of mundane mayhem that was called "traffic." (Too poetic? Or is the word "dramatic"?)
"Just thought it'd be nice to know, to get to, you know, know you better. How about I tell you mine? My birthday's on November 28 and I'm 21 years old. Now you go."
She tried a different approach. If he was going to be paranoid, then she would just have to be as open as possible, even if it wasn't totally fair. He stayed quiet for a good ten minutes as he contemplated telling her his birthday and age. Malia guessed that he had been taught to be careful of what he told strangers, and to never reveal too much or there'd be trouble. He had already told her his name, though—maybe that's why he was hesitating now, because he realized he was being too open to an essentially-stranger. In the end, he answered her question, tensing up as if he were raising the highest walls.
"I'm 21, too, and my birthday's the same as yours." He was looking out the window when he said this, so he didn't see the look of surprise on Malia's face. He did, however, feel the car swerving wildly immediately after, causing him to throw out his hands onto the dashboard and passenger door, simultaneously activating and puncturing both air bags. Malia finally got the car back under control while Thomas detangled his claws from the cloth of the airbags. They kept getting caught in the fabric and when one severely jagged one nearly broke off from tugging too hard, he switched to carefully detangling the rest until he was free. As he did this, Malia apologized over and over again, sorry that she had lost control and had scared him. The first thing Thomas said after the panic had subsided was: "These things are deathtraps." This made Malia giggle a bit, her giggles turning into small laughs while still staying focused on the road in front of her.
"Why did you move like that?" Thomas asked, pushing the ruined mechanisms to one side.
"You said your birthday was the same as mine and you're the same age as me, so... that means we're twins. Wow, I'm a twin! I wonder if I'm the older or younger twin. Is there a way to check that?" Malia rambled, reaching toward the radio to turn it on, getting nothing but static at first as she fiddled with the knobs.
"You're older." Thomas immediately answered, his gaze shifting toward the radio for a moment before going back to look at all the cars passing by. Malia wondered briefly if the cars passing by reminded him of a pack of wolves running through the woods. From the little she knew about him and how wild he looked, she could imagine him thinking something like that.
"How're you sure of that?" Malia questioned. He looked at her like she had just said something stupid.
"Your scent tells wolves a lot about you. For example: you like sweet things cause there's an overwhelming smell of syrup all over you—I tried it once a long time ago, didn't really like it; your last heat was exactly five months ago; I smell gunpowder too, but it's a year or so old, possibly more; the last think you ate was definitely something containing meat and something sharp, chives I think; and you're older than me by a few minutes—I say about ten to fifteen minutes, maximum."
She blinked a few times when he was done with his assessment. Everything he had said was correct: her love of sweets, the hamburger she had hours ago, even her heat having passed—that was an odd one to the point of being creepy, but still.
The gunpowder, though...where would I have... Malia tried to recall when she would have gotten near the substance since she doesn't use it. If that was a year or so ago, was that when that girl from class invited me to a shooting range so that we'd get to know each other? Malia's general impression of that girl was that she was a little weird, but strangely enough, they were on good terms as classmates and class partners, whenever they were assigned together.
"You really don't know how to ide—what's that noise?" Thomas suddenly asked, looking at the car radio. A rock song came up, and the fast pace of the drums and electric guitar were blasting through the speakers. Way to change the subject. Malia glanced down at the radio before returning her gaze to the open road.
"It's music. Please tell me you've at least heard of—"
"I know what music is!" Thomas replied, indignant. "But this—" gesturing to the radio "—is not music. I'm sorry, but I'm not listening to garbage for the rest of this death race." He started flipping through radio stations, listening for a moment to one station before switching to the next one. This continued for five minutes until a song came on—slow, country-style music sounded, Thomas sighing and laying back into the seat. Malia looked at the radio first, then at Thomas, and then back at the radio.
"This is your definition of music?" Malia was horrified, face morphed in disturbance, looking back at the road. "This..." She waved to the music apparatus. "Country shit?"
"'Country shi'—how dare you! I will have you know that is Jim Croce you're listening to right now!" Thomas was turned in his seat, his entire body was facing Malia, part of his left leg raised and on the seat, his face donning an affronted look. Malia saw him in her peripheral vision, thinking of how bizarre he was. He didn't seem to stay in one manner of being, instead switching the same as when he was messing with the radio—from one to the other according to how he was feeling. She was having some trouble keeping up with his changes, but she was strangely amused with the one he was in now. And she wanted to see how long she could keep him there.
"Oh I'm sorry—am I supposed to know who that is?" Malia said, feigning innocence.
"The fact that you don't know who he is shows that you have no taste in music." Thomas deadpanned.
"I'm the one with no taste?! You're the one stuck in the 1800s! The 'noise' we were hearing before was actually from a band called Iron Maiden! Flawless drums, a rockin' guitar, and killer vocals—now that's music!" Malia argued, slapping her hand on the steering wheel.
"So music is rubbing two bunches of dry leaves together? Because that's what your 'music' really sounds like. Maybe there's something wrong with your hearing; I have medicine that can help with that." Thomas argued back, reaching toward his feet as if he were really going to fish out one of his medicine packets from his bag.
Irked, Malia started defending the band and Thomas defended his favorite artist, the music debate commencing their little road trip, with Jim Croce as the commentator and Don McLean's "American Pie" following after.
EDIT (9/10/2022): I'm currently taking writing courses for university, and one of the lectures talked about points of view, and that third-person omniscient has to be used carefully—that it was a novice writer's mistake to switch to different character's points-of-view in a single paragraph, much less a whole chapter. So I'll be trying to fix that, not just in this chapter but in all the others where I switch point-of-view too much.