With both of Lizzie's boyfriends finally gone, only one of them had a small chance of coming back. If left to roam another day, Dale had nowhere else to go.

As the days went by, it became clear that not even Leo's charm could make Dale endearing to the dreaded Ramiros. Maybe it wasn't enough to save himself.

Lizzie enjoyed her newfound freedom by doing nothing, exactly as intended. It would be short-term, anyway. Spread on the bed, not even bothering to put on something to watch.

A knock on The Lair's door, at almost midnight, scared her a lot less than it should have. It wasn't Dale, he would've entered. Lizzie found her way through the maze of junk and untied the door latch.

"Sorry about the time."

Cartel Lawyer was there, alive and well. Not well, as he was even more tired. Dressed in black, same hoodie, different jeans. The abs tank top he used to have, hidden underneath, had been replaced by a loose t-shirt, to Lizzie's regret. He looked down at her pink dress, the same she had on when he left her, days before.

"Forgot something?" Lizzie was not trying to be confrontational, but she had no clue what he could be after. Her first theory had been dismissed when he slept in the car.

"I wanted to say thanks for telling me where the money was."

Yeah, that was not it either. Lizzie smiled skeptically. "You're welcome." Her eyes wandered over his backpack.

"I'm leaving the country," he said. For a second, she had the fantasy he was moving in with her like he had told Dale. "Sometimes the best fight is running away."

"You are going to run?" Lizzie moved out of his way, going to sit on her bed. "...Where?"

"In Canada. Bought a small property there when I was twenty. Had big plans... to have a way out when the money stopped coming. I have citizenship, the one thing my dad left me," he glossed over that information, clearly not bothered by old wounds. "It's somewhere rural and nothing is built on it, so it was cheap. One road trip later, I had an escape."

He entered, then sat on the only chair, after moving the ashtray on the table, secured on the wall with screws that looked stolen from a crane. "I hope it's still mine," he laughed, "I haven't been since. Paid my taxes online."

"You're gonna run from the Cartel?" Lizzie did not find that plan very good. It required work.

"Cartel?" He laughed. "Who said the word 'cartel'? Johnny Ramiro and his brother run a small-time drug operation down in Radford. Dale's stupidity was an unexpected gift to them. Once he started boasting about that money, he was theirs. Even now, all they would've done would've been monthly visits, beating him up. And me too, preventing me from keeping any kind of normal job. I got fired," he looked down, disappointed. Like a man who really needed that last paycheck.

"No, there's no one after me," he stared somewhere on the wall, where moldy stains invited a cloud shape guessing game. "I just wanna start over. Clean slate."

Lizzie waited to see what role he had designed for her in that plan.

"Which brings me to a deal that I think will interest you," he said, "If you also want to run."

Lizzie had to say it again, "Run? Run where?"

"Anywhere but here?"

Finally something that made sense.

"We hitch your trailer to my car, and we go to Canada. You see a place on the way you like, you come back there, if not, you move on. I'll leave you my car when we get there, so after you drop me off you can go wherever. Far from Dale," he assured her. So he was alive.

"He always finds me," Lizzie realized she was considering it. Hot Convict also noticed but let it slide. His voice became more confident.

"There are ways we can go around that. We go through Vegas," he said, and Lizzie thought she was hearing things - because it sounded like he was going to propose. "And we change your last name. More countries to run to, for you."

Lizzie's brain blanked at the suggestion. Soon though, the prospect of so easily hiding her identity, without having to fill that one form at some city hall, mildly entertained her. To have a five-minute Elvis-driven ceremony and some pretty pictures sounded fun. When Dale found her, he would be livid.

"What would be my new last name?"

He threw a passport over the table. A square with a face so whitened that it didn't' even look his. Leonard Ursu. A strange name. Elizabeth Ursu. She could be Lizzie Ursu.

"But wait, what do I bring to the table?" Lizzie pointed out, "You could just go alone."

"Yeah, I'm having trouble with that. I have zero dollars, I haven't eaten since yesterday. No gas. No money to stay at motels. I was thinking your trailer might help. It gives me a place to wash, at least. I can sleep in the car."

There was something about his constant insistence to sleep in the car that made Lizzie want to get him in her bed.

"I have some money saved up from my stripping days," Lizzie said, unsure why she mentioned that, making his eyebrows poke her again. "Just like you, I set up an account, first job I had. About a thousand dollars left. We can buy gas on that card."

Maybe she could outrun Dale. She continued, "Three hundred bucks in that drawer, for expenses. We split the money we got left when we get there. You can sleep here. The bed is big." It wasn't, for him, but it was better than a backseat. Lizzie could not leave the man to sleep out in the cold when she would have let anyone who insisted sleep anywhere they wanted. He just never did. "We can watch some movies."

He looked at the end of the bed wall where a small monitor was set, Lizzie's sole connection to the outside world.

"Can I use your shower?" he got up knowing it was his now, too.

Lizzie handwaved her agreement.