Bonus: AU Chapter 1
Saph’s ass hurt, and her arms felt stiff as boards. Her shoulders ached from having to hold them up for so long, and her eyes burned from the sun reflecting off the road and into her vision, from driving into the sunset on the last stretch. Driving fifteen hours cross-country on a motorcycle will do that to a girl, she supposed. All the better to avoid being found, though. If Amy and Emmie found her now she’d be impressed more than anything.
The rat had been thorough. The two women had given her a credit card with plenty of funds for her to get through college with, but she couldn’t risk using it and being tracked down so far from them. Instead, she’d hit up ten different ATMs in Fellton before hitting the road, racking up a total of $20,000 in cash to fuel her bike, and herself. Once she’d maxed it out, she tossed it into a river.
Tiffany was asleep on the bed in the motel. She’d made a big stink about the cleanliness of the place. The carpet was damp in spots, she insisted on going out and buying a blacklight at the smoke shop across the street until Saph convinced her that sleep was more important than knowledge.
Saph did hit up the smoke shop, though. She could really use something to calm her nerves after the day she’d had. Pre-rolls were $20 for a dozen, so she went ahead and got herself squared away for the next few weeks. She already had a lighter on hand in her jacket, so that saved her about a buck fifty. She never went anywhere unprepared.
Her knuckles were still sore after earlier, and a little bloody. She wasn’t even sure what happened. The confrontation with Rudy was a blur. She knew she had a mean right hook, but… how could she have brought herself to use it on the lynx, and knock her out? Emotions were high after her expulsion, sure, but… Rudy didn’t deserve that. At least she’d called 911 before ditching the house through the back door of the coffee shop. The lynx would be well taken care of. Amy could afford it, health insurance or no.
That whole ‘family’ should have known better than to trust her. They’d gotten her to admit she was trans, got her to finish her GED, got her on hormones, and even enrolled her in a fucking ivy league college, and for what? So she could work it off in their shitty little coffee shop until she got caught cheating and was expelled? Idiots. At least she had her name change, and enough estrogen to last her another six months.
At least she convinced Tiffany to come with her. She wasn’t sure if she could handle being along again. The fennec fox and her had a rocky start, but after getting assigned a group project they’d started to see eye to eye. A year later, and the two were best friends. Pipsqueak seemed to come to her every week with some bullshit about her dad sending her a shitty letter, or some news about one of her sisters getting married. Saph was supposed to be the fox’s plus one next month.
Now though… she was on some cross country road trip to go see the girl’s high school crush. What a let down. Here she thought she might actually have a shot.
“Whatever…” She took one last puff on the joint before flicking it off into the filthy drainage canal behind the motel, and slipping inside. Soon she’d be back to normal: alone.
As is tradition, more problems were presenting themselves. Two stooges were lingering in the window to her motel room as she came back around the corner. She really needed Tiffany to find some less auspicious clothes to wear when they were out in seedy areas like this, it was just going to keep drawing attention, and the folks around this part of the country were already bird supremacists. Mammals like them wouldn’t even be able to turn to the cops, should they be robbed.
It’s a good thing she always comes prepared. She reached into her coat, and firmly grasped her sawed off double barrel. Shooting someone here would basically require her to hit the road immediately, and she was in no state to do that. Hopefully a bluff would be more than enough.
She loaded a couple of shells in and snapped the barrel closed to get their attention. “Hey, greaseballs. Step away from the fucking window.” As the eagle and kingfisher whipped around she already had the barrel raised. “I’ve had a hell of a day. Bad enough that burying a couple of bodies in the desert won’t really make it all that much worse, so I’d recommend stepping away. Slowly.”
“Now hold on, varmint.” The eagle drawled at her with a sneer. “Mighty bold o’ you to assume we’re the thieves here, knowing what you probably get up to.”
Her eyes narrowed at ‘varmint’. She’d heard it enough times to normally brush it off, but today was not the day for that. “I don’t want to hear excuses. Just step away from the window, and we can have a nice, relaxing night. Doesn’t that sound nice? Though, I guess you’d be pretty relaxed full of lead in a shallow grave.”
The kingfisher guffaws. “Tranny like you don’t have the balls for it. Probably snipped ‘em off anyway.”
Yeah. Fuck it. It was that kind of night.
She pulled the trigger.
Tiffany seemed in shock the entire night as they continued riding through the desert. The last thing she expected was to be woken up by two gunshots, and then asked to hide a couple of bodies.
No matter how much Saph insisted that the shotgun was unregistered, and that they’d be fine since they paid for the motel in cash, that wasn’t what was bothering her.
It was that she found the whole experience… exciting. Saph had never seemed hotter to her before. The girl had killed two men just for calling her a slur, and threatening to break into their room. The fox had always wished she had the kind of confidence just to correct people who misgendered her, and now… she was wish someone who truly didn’t give a shit. Sure, the behavior was concerning, but… damn if she didn’t wish she could have the same confidence.
The most confident she’d ever managed to be was bullying Saph, and… it didn’t feel right anymore. She was just punching down on another transfem for not passing like she did. The more time passed the more she felt like a traitor. She was no better than the men who got up on TV and accused trans women of being rapists and abusers. Was she actually worse?
Either way, she was impressed that Saph managed to drive another ten hours before finally making camp inside the entrance to an old spillway in the desert. That made twenty five hours of driving, half of them while high. She didn’t expect to go anywhere for a couple of days, at least.
That said, she was also starting to notice some odd trends with the rat. She wasn’t acting like herself, sometimes. Her memory had been patchy lately, she sounded like a different person sometimes when she was stressed, or relaxed. What if she had multiple personality syndrome or something? Isn’t that something she should see a doctor for?
Saph had managed to get to sleep almost immediately after making camp, comfortably sprawled out on the ground and using her own jacket as a pillow. It almost made Tiffany jealous. She struggled to sleep in a bed that wasn’t exactly the right levels of soft or firm, and with a pillow that wasn’t fluffy enough, but the rat could just lie down anywhere and get eight hours.
In hindsight, though, Tiffany had slept perfectly well leaning against her friend’s back all night.
The thought brought a flush to her cheeks. Something about the rat’s musty scent had made her feel safe enough to sleep, even when traveling eighty miles an hour down the highway after covering up a murder. God… that’s really what it was, wasn’t it? A murder. A double homicide. Oh god, she’d even covered it up. She was complicit. Her heartbeat began to pound. And she found it… sexy? What was wrong with her?
She needed to contact Amy, or Fatima, or anyone. This was spiraling out of control. After making sure Saph was asleep, she climbed out of the storm drain and checked around the horizon. There was a town, probably a half mile off. Where there was a town, there would probably be a payphone, or at least a phone she could borrow. She checked her pockets for the business card that Fatima had given her when offering her a job. Good. It was there.
She began her long march, through the heat. At least her clothes wouldn’t look as fancy after getting this much dust on them, maybe. Might help keep her and Saph from getting robbed in the future.
“Nah, nah. I’m telling you.” Saph grumbled over her plate of fries. Her burger was already long gone, and her milkshake good and empty. “CDs and tapes are way better. Why the fuck would you ever want to just… pay someone to give you a ‘license’ to play your music, that they can take away at any time, when you could just own it. You can even make copies and share it that way. Just think about it!”
“I don’t know… I mean, my MP3 is pretty convenient, and I do have copies of the songs saved on here. They can’t just get taken away.” The fox shrugged. She hadn’t really been able to touch her food. She was too anxious to have an appetite.
“Yeah, but you have to plug it into a computer and goo to their website to change the saved songs out, don’t you? They can’t take away what you’ve got downloaded, but you can’t guarantee that you’ll have your whole library.” She stuffed another fistfull of fries down her gullet and flagged down the waitress again for a refill on her cola. “Plus, you can’t bring your whole fucking computer on the road, and who knows how long we’ll be out here.”
“I guess. Sounds like a lot of work to start on it, though. I don’t even have my old cassette or CD player anymore.” Tiffany shrugged and pushed her corn dogs across the table to the rat. “Just… finish my food. I’m not hungry.”
“You sure?” Saph actually looked concerned at the refusal. “We haven’t had anything to eat since…” She had gone back to being more soft spoken and worried, rather than the brash and loud version Tiffany knew so well.
“Yeah, I know.” Tiffany shut her eyes and slammed her head on the table. “What were- what were you thinking? I- we could get in so much trouble, do you even know? I’m pretty sure this state still has the death penalty.”
“So we push through and reach one that doesn’t.” Saph shrugged, but pushed the corn dogs back. “You’ve gotta put something in you, though. It’s been nearly a day since you ate.”
“How can you be worried about me when you’re-” Tiffany groaned. “You’ve been acting weird, Saph. Not like yourself. Hell, you’re doing it right now. How much of last night do you even remember?”
“Uh-” The rat scratched at her cheek and glanced out the window. “I don’t- look. I was high, and tired. I’m pretty sure I greened out is all. I do it all the time.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Saph…” The fox glanced up at the rat and rested her chin on the table instead. “What’s your plan? We can’t just- just-”
“My plan is to reunite you with your high school sweet heart and… I dunno. Hang around. Hit the road again?” She gestured vaguely to the air. “I’m not one for plans, I guess…” She whispered. “I can try and think of something if it makes you feel better.”
“Please. I think you need a therapist or something.” Tiffany picked up one of the now-cold corn dogs and gave it a nibble. “I know you didn’t like the one Amy took you to, but-”
“He didn’t actually listen to us, he just kept trying to fit us into a box to check off.” Saph shook her head fervently. “I don’t think therapy is for me.”
Wait. Us? Tiffany blinked at the woman in surprise. Did she know too? “Right… please, just try another one, or two. My old… my old therapist wasn’t great either, but he did at least get me on the right medication.”
“As if I need more drugs in my body. It’s already a pain in the ass to do the weekly injections, you want me to start taking pills too?” The rat threw her hands up and stood. “Whatever, I gotta take a shit. If some fucker says anything about me being in the lady’s room I’m starting a fight.”