Run: Day 9

Word Count: 54,027

Summary of Events:

DaNiel felt somewhat badly about the fact that he'd locked Ty out of the car when he'd seen the police officer approaching him, but refused to turn back. Ty, meanwhile, still refused to talk to police, even when an angrier teen they put in the cell with him randomly attacked him and they wanted to ensure he was okay. DaNiel reached Sidney, Nebraska and came to the realisation that he didn't have Ty with him to pay for a motel room, buy food, or fill up the car with gas, all things he wanted to avoid doing so that he wouldn't be recognised . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

DaNiel put his face in his hands and sighed heavily. He needed to go back and get Ty.

But that didn’t solve his problems for tonight. He needed to sleep here and head back in the morning, then spend the night there and come back this way unless the distance between Lincoln and Sidney was short enough that he would be able to come back partway.

Yet he’d need to get Ty out of jail, which wasn’t going to be easy, after all, he didn’t know where exactly Ty was being jailed, and he didn’t even know if he would just be able to break him out and take off.

DaNiel slid his hands over his face, rubbing over the four days’ growth of beard.

Struck by the thought, DaNiel flipped the visor down and looked in the mirror. A thick covering of coarse, curled beard hair covered his face, the moustache over his upper lip, a good coverage of beard over his jaw and up to his lower lip.

When his beard had first started growing when he was in high school he’d resented having to shave regularly, having always preferred a smooth, clean-shaven face; but because Ty hadn’t bought any razors his beard had grown, and even his own brain thought he looked strange and unfamiliar as it beheld his reflection.

Who would know him to be the missing inmate DaNiel Sparling with it on his face?

Only a very shrewd person, or someone who really knew what he looked like — which probably nobody in Nebraska did because all they’d seen was his mug shot for ten or so seconds every evening; that wasn’t the way to get to know a face.

There was only one thing, though, with his beard like it was, his cornrows needed to go — and especially before they became dreadlocks.

Flipping up the visor, DaNiel turned the car around and headed back to the south, right close to the junction with I-80 and pulled into the gas station parking lot. He grabbed the hoodie Ty had gotten him from the backseat and put it on with the hood up — becoming immediately grateful he’d done so when he got out of the car and discovered there was a brisk wind blowing.

Because of the wind he elected against opening the trunk and instead climbed into the backseat, where he folded down part of it and accessed the trunk by that means, searching around in both backpacks until he found the scissors Ty had bought at his request in Ty’s backpack. Perfect.

Hiding the scissors in the pocket on the front of the hoodie, DaNiel flipped up the seat, got out of the car, locked it — with the key safely in his pocket, he double-checked — and headed inside, making sure he looked as cold as possible.

He got a key for the bathroom from the cashier and slipped inside, locking the door before lowering the hood; Mom was going to be disappointed he was cutting them off after all the work she’d done to get them for him in the first place, but they were an identifying feature he had to be rid of.