Concealed Intentions: Day 8

Word Count: 48,004

Summary of Events:

Nadia, injured by her father in his upset at her spending time with Vitaly, told Vitaly, who was concerned and urged her to go to the hospital, even offering her a ride, which she accepted. Borden had a bit of a spat with Ty and was so upset by it his supervisor sent him home for the day, where he found another old friend, Dane, whom he asked about things related to Honour's kidnapping and — thanks to Dane's penchant for talking — was able to actually find out where Honour was, leading him to plot how best to get there; ruling out flying because he wasn't licensed himself — meaning other people would see him with Honour — and ruling out driving because his car was unreliable . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

On foot, without question, would be the longest way to go; the question was: how long?

Well, on average a person travelled four and a half kilometres an hour; over three hundred and seventy five kilometres that worked out to eighty three hours, which — saying he walked twelve hours a day — worked out to nearly a week.

Borden couldn’t really say he had a week, nor did he have the almost twelve days it would take if he were to follow the highway’s route.

If that was how he wasn’t going to get noticed, though, that was how he wasn’t going to get noticed.

Now if he was going to do this he needed to act fast. It was possible — considering how loose-lipped Dane was — that Grady and his fellow gangsters were going to find out that Borden knew, and because he wasn’t a gangster, they would assuredly be inclined to take him out so that he didn’t inadvertently share the knowledge uninentionally given to him with the police or something.

He needed to tell his probation officer . . . something. He couldn’t tell his probation officer the truth because then he’d be in serious trouble. He was going to need to come up with something that his probation officer would excuse, allowing him to go away for about three weeks without having to report.

Then he was going to need the scantest amount of supplies possible to survive on, as well as to nourish a little girl for half the distance. A waterproof backpack would be a good idea in case he had to swim one of the lakes or something.

There’d also be the matter of alerting the grocery store that he was going to be away, likely for the same reason that he would tell his probation officer.

Then he would have to set off, following highways and encountering civilisation as little as possible; the last thing he wanted was for people to know the truth of what he was doing, or to suspect him of being Honour’s abductor — nor did he want them to be able to tell the gangsters where he’d gone should the gangsters start asking.

Already Borden feared he would be too late. Even if Honour wasn’t in danger of being killed, but was merely being used as bait to lure her father into a death trap, that didn’t mean that she hadn’t already been victimised by her captors in despicable ways.

Although he couldn’t guarantee what Honour might have already suffered, Borden was resolved to not let her suffer any more. She deserved the loving, caring family she had in Todd and Isabel, not to be used and abused by men who thought with their hormones.

She also deserved to not be exposed to drugs and their devastating effects at such a young age. Sure, she’d probably learn about drugs someday, but the further that day was from the present, the better, even Borden himself hadn’t known about drugs when he was seven.