The RV had been a mistake for the most part. An accident. Savannah never met to buy it, much less start up a cross country road trip with no destination.

But, she conceded, having no destination truly had it’s perks. It gave her the illusion of no deadlines, no late dues, and all the more reason to enjoy the drive. The radio played loud, the entire cabin rumbled under her fingertips and she spent the days driving any which direction. She stopped at a dinner for lunch, trying the local foods from barbecue pork sandwiches to charburgers topped with salted fries. She had never had pasty, but she and a little old man talked over steaming plates and Savannah thought they weren’t bad.

She listened to stories about prohibition in New York, a gay couples struggles in Kentucky, in Kansas she consoled a boy who did not want to farm corn for the rest of his life and in Arizona she stared at the desert sky watching for aliens with a woman in her forties. There were all sorts of interesting things to be heard, different people and different lives. She filled up a notebook and had to start another one. Savannah expected South Carolina to be something similar.

It wasn’t.

Of all the places she had been South Carolina was clearly the only one with a sense of self preservation. People stayed away from her RV, merely giving the tan and purple paint job a bothered look. Savannah enjoyed the quiet time, going through her surplus of notes like a miner.

But like all the other times, the mine was the barren except for some pebbles and a broken shovel someone else had left behind. She had collected over twenty stories from people all up and down the east coast. She had pictures she had taken and planned to use, plots scribbled out on poster boards, sticky notes of names and dates and research topics. But Savannah stared at it like it was a foreign language, written by an alien from across the galaxy.

She was back to where she had been the night before. And the night before that. And the night before that.

“We left early.”

Savannah shoulders tensed and her head swung up to the back of the cabin. The RV was small, but she still managed to forget about her “roommate” all the time. Savannah made such a mess of the living area with her notes and research and books, and jackets that she discarded when she got frustrated and needed to pace the rut in the carpeted floor, that she often forgot she shared the area with another human being, which was fair because she lived in the front area while her roommate lived in the back area.

“Sorry,” Savannah huffed, “I didn’t mean to wake you, Ranch.”

Ranch didn’t appear to be bothered one way or another. She spoke like she was stating facts, reading them off a chalkboard or presenting a slideshow. Savannah had known her for a long time, but even after living in close quarters with the girl for three months she still had trouble navigating the hidden undertones of her voice.

“I was already awake.” She responded. “What happened?”

“I needed to buy more plates.”

Ranch nodded as if that made sense. It was mid afternoon, not too late for lunch, but neither of them appeared to have much of an appetite. Savannah had been snacking on saltwater taffy she had gotten from the boardwalk in New Jersey since she had kicked Isaac out of her RV.

Ranch was just taller than Savannah, maybe half an inch or so. She was lean, with a pale face and blank expression that often reminded Savannah of a person in a permanent vegetative state. When they were in ninth grade Ranch had cut her hair to a pixie cut and maintained it since. In her flannels and jeans and headphones wrapped around her neck constantly, she could easily be mistaken for a guy.

Savannah often wondered if that was what she was going for.

Ranch was never drunk enough to willingly answer right or wrong.

“We need to restock on toiletries.” Ranch said, “Do you want me to go?”

“Is that your way of telling me my taste in plate designs needs work?”

Ranch grabbed her bag from the counter sending a pile of paper with bored doodles fluttering to the ground. Neither of the girls paid it any mind. Instead Savannah smiled wryly, grabbed her own bag from the passenger’s seat.

“Any luck?” Ranch asked as she stepped out of the RV. South Carolina exhaled with the heat of the the fading summer. The humid air tasted a little like oranges to Savannah.

“Any luck?” She repeated. Her tone was exasperated, strained, and demeaning. She allowed frustration to wash over her features, “If I had any luck, we would have stopped in Raleigh rather than Charleston.”

“Don’t forget to lock the RV.”

“I think we need a name for it.”

“What?”

It was one of the rare moments where a bit of emotion slipped into Ranch’s tone. Her facade fell, but Savannah had just a second to catch the raise in her eyebrows, before her facade was cemented back into place.

“A Name,” Savannah repeated, ”For my RV.”

Ranch looked back at it, taking in the huge purple and tan rectangle on wheels. She had the same look on her face that she had gotten when Savannah had first suggested they become roommates in it. A mixture of confusion and disbelief, under a brick wall of boredom.

“Call it the Brick.”

“Why the f-- hang on,” Savannah whipped back to the RV. She flounced up to the door once again, reaching up to the sign and giving a quick tug. The sign whined in a sharp protest, peeling off the Velcro like a bandaid. She merely sighed slightly and stuffed the sign in her purse, and turned back to her companion.

“The Brick? Really?” She huffed, “That sounds like a bad superhero name. Behold! The Brick!” She waved a hand flippantly in the air.

“The power to throw bricks at people,” Ranch agreed.

“Do they just come out of his hands?”

“Who said it was a guy?”

“The Brick is a girl?”

Savannah lead the way into the Super Walmart where she had been accepting free parking for the past hour. The conversation went back and forth between them, but to neither’s surprise, Ranch’s comments were few and far between Savannah explosively long tirades. It wasn’t that Savannah continually cut her off-- though that was a huge fear of the hers-- it was just that Ranch maximized the effectiveness of short phrases. She could say things in half a sentence that Savannah took a whole conversation to get to. She placed emphasis on her body language, shoulders rolling back when she was interested, eyebrows raising when she was in disagreement, a twitch of her lips when she thought Savannah made a particularly stupid comment. A blink and one could miss a very important part of the conversation.

However, superheroes were one of Savannah’s passions, and Ranch had probably heard this conversation enough times to recite it back to her. Sometimes Savannah wondered if she routed the conversations intentionally back to this point if only to raise her moral.

“I should make a shrine to him.” She said completely serious as she picked up plastic green plates.

“No.” Ranch plucked the plates from her hands and replaced them with a cheaper set.

“Why not? Stan Lee is a god.” Savannah whined, “We can’t get this set, Ran. It doesn’t have any green.”

Ranch accepted both these comments with silence as she scanned the other rows of plates. Her lips were curled in a slight almost undetectable smile. Savannah consider that a win, but eagerly awaited the day when she actually laughed.

What would someone like Ranch’s laugh be like? Savannah watched her flit through the plastic plates for a design that would not embarrass the either of them when Savannah had visitors.

“If it doesn’t have any green, then you won’t be as sad when you give them out as souvenirs to runaways.”

Savannah leaned against the shelves opposite her eyes training on a woman down the aisle who was comparing prices on spatulas. The sound of harsh vibrating distracted her from replying. Savannah rummaged through her bag, cursing under her breath, before she revealed an obsolete phone with a slide keyboard.

Savannah scowled at the caller ID and denied it with barely an hesitation.

“I’m not sure he was a runaway.” She said to Ranch.

“His clothes were three days old, and his shoes were falling apart.”

“How would you know--”

“I told you I was already awake.”

Savannah huffed, “I think he was just...wandering. Not a runaway. To be a runaway, don’t you have to be running from something?”

Ranch pursed her lips as Savannah dropped her phone back into her bag. Neither of them said anything for a moment, the air tense with the feeling that both of them were about to tread across a lake of thin ice. Isaac Phobis couldn’t be a Runaway. It took one to know one.

“These?” Ranch held up a set of ten white plastic plates with green ivy embroidered on the lips. Savannah considered them.

“Yeah, I like them.” She plucked them from her hands and smiled. “What if we name the RV “Miles”? Get it, like driving miles?”

Ranch very visibly rolled her eyes and steered their cart towards the checkout.

“Hey I’m serious.” Savannah laughed.

“No.

“It’s perfect.” She turned to the cashier, an older woman with crows feet around her eyes and a thin scowl that seemed to dampen the area around her. “Excuse me, Ms….Edna? Would you name an RV, Miles?”

“Miles was the name of my fourth ex husband.” Edna replied without taste, as she swiped a bottle of body wash under the barcode scanner. Her gnarled hands threw the bottle in a plastic bag without much ceremony, and proceeded to do the same with all the rest of their items in increasing increments of anger.

Ranch gave Savannah a pointed look as she fumbled for words.

“You’re right.” She finally managed, “Miles is a dumb name.” She turned back to Ranch, “We’re not naming the RV Miles.”

Ranch tossed a King sized skittles pack on the conveyer belt, “You’re paying.”

In the parking lot, Savannah stopped to check her phone again squinting against the glare of the sun. Ranch paused only long enough to make sure she wasn’t going to get herself hit by a car, before she continued on towards the giant vehicle in the back of the lot. Savannah sighed with irritation and denied the call without answering. Almost immediately her phone hummed with a text message.

Savannah ignored it.

When she looked up, Ranch was only a couple steps ahead of her, both plastic bags in one hand. She was frowning deeply.

“What’s up?” Savannah shifted her weight between her feet nervously. Her phone slipped back into her bag, easily forgotten with the unease of her companion.

“You locked the RV, right?” Ranch asked. She raised one hand to fiddle with her headphones, the other twisted around the handles of the Walmart brand as if she could turn shampoo and deodorant into viable weapons.

Savannah frowned now too, “I thought I did.” She dug out her keys and clicked the lock button. The RV’s lights flashed, and honked. “Hm, I guess not.”

Ranch gave her a bland, unimpressed look. “I reminded you to lock it.”

“I guess we have to go see who invited themselves in.” Savannah stepped forward but Ranch threw her hand out to stop her.

“No, stay here.”

Before Savannah could protest the other girl darted forward, much like a lynx in the afternoon light. Her feet made barely a sound on the asphalt. Ranch might have the upperhand in surprise with her light feet and quick reactions, but the burning worry in Savannah’s stomach was hard to ignore. Ranch was not a bodybuilder, or a weightlifter, or a even a sports player. To be honest the only thing hard core about her was her taste in music, which was loud and metal and hard to think through.

She cursed under her breath and raced after the other girl. It was her RV after all, and it was her mistake in not locking it. Ranch glanced back at her, a fleeting look of irritation washing over her expression. Savannah didn’t have time to comment on it.

The other girl pointed towards the regular entrance, where Savannah usually came and went through and the door with the clearly absent sign on it. Savannah wordlessly glanced at it, then looked back to find Ranch had silently thrown herself up the ladder on the back of the RV, her feet like light taps.

“How--”

Ranch stopped and glared down at her with a stern look.

Savannah huffed and shook her wrists out. Then she turned towards the entrance door and quietly made her way up to them. Ranch shadowed her movements, with about as much noise as an actual shadow. She stopped at the emergency exit on the ceiling of the vehicle that she had rigged to be as much an entrance for her as the front door was for Savannah. It prevented her from interrupting the meetings that were held over easily baked RV meals. Savannah glanced up and took a deep breath, the type of breath that came with letting go of any type of fear.

When she made eye contact with her roommate she had a gaze full of only trust. Trust that the other girl knew what she was doing, trust that if anything turned dangerous Ranch would stop it, trust that they would stand together with whatever they came to face, like all the times before that.

Savannah reached for the doorknob and she opened it.

It wasn’t obvious that someone had been in the RV. Savannah’s eyes skirted over everything, mentally checking to see if everything was where she remembered leaving it. Jacket yes, notebook yes, cups? Savannah frowned but relented that maybe she had left that cup out. She moved around carefully, but if there was an intruder, they were doing a very good job of hiding in between the books on her makeshift bookshelf.

Ranch pulled aside the curtain that separated the living spaces. Her brow was creased which could mean she was worried, or annoyed, or hungry. Savannah reasoned that the intruder hadn’t been sleeping in her bed.

“Maybe we were seeing things?” Savannah suggested, “I mean, I have been eating nothing but saltwater taffy for the past two days. I can’t vouch that you have anything more healthy in your stash. We should go out for dinner tonight, what do you say?”

Ranch looked at her, dropping the plastic bag that held the replacement plates and a bag of bagels. Savannah figured that was as much of a response as she was getting. She grinned anyway.

“What do you think? South Carolina has got to have a Golden Corral or something. Or do you want to check for a local restaurant?”

Savannah unpacked the plates, naming out restaurants that she knew Ranch had a chance of liking. It had been a while since they had eaten together. She could probably persuade the other girl to loosen up slightly and maybe even get a small smile or two. It would be good for both of them.

Savannah picked a cabinet at random, the empty one under the tiny sink, as the new location for the plates. Ranch raised her eyebrows, as the pick, her mouth open to offer a rare critic on cementing a place for their kitchen utensils---

That was when something condensed, small, and vaguely humanoid shaped tumbled out of the previously empty cabinet and splayed across the miniature kitchen floor.

(2672)