Road Taken

[Pippi]

((Trinity Ashmore continued from “Look, Zeus is a deadbeat. Don’t rely on him for anything.”))

Trinity was not accustomed to sleeping rough. Not in the slightest.

She had spent the majority of her life, since moving from Lynn to Salem, in her family’s compact little single-storey house, and much of that time in the comfort and safety of her own bedroom. Whenever she did leave, it was always to her usual haunts; the same coffee shops, bookstores, and second-hand shops, all within the same, familiar neighbourhood. She hadn’t even considered leaving the city since the move. She’d never stepped foot outside of Massachusetts in her life.

Her room was functional, rather than flashy, but she valued the four walls and the ceiling over her head and the bargain-bin Ikea desk and bed more than most would ever comprehend. The Ashmores had always skirted perilously close to the poverty line. One multiple occasions, when Hilda had been between jobs and seemingly unconcerned with finding work, Trinity had been convinced they had been on the cusp of losing everything. Even the stability they now possessed was a fragile one; cleaning out stables didn’t exactly pay well. Call center work paid even worse. Claudia, now living on her own, couldn’t be expected to bail them out if things went drastically pear-shaped.

And Trinity adored her parents, truly she did. How could she not? They had given her the love and support and help that she had so badly needed, when she had been terrified that there would be no-one in the world that was willing to do so. They cared for her, supported her endeavours and hobbies, showered her in as much love and care and comfort as they possibly could. But she had always thought, and this was a belief that she never ever planned on sharing, that they both lacked some measure of work ethic, that their drive to rise up above ‘stable’ had always been missing. That wasn’t a lifestyle that she could bear to experience; she needed to excel. She had to achieve perfection in everything she put her hand to, so that she would never ever again have to worry that one bad day could put her out on the streets and her life in tatters.

All that hard work, all that fighting for success, and she had still spent the last two nights sleeping in thickets, with her spare clothes wrapped around herself for a scant amount of warmth.

She knew how to read a map; at least, she thought she did. She knew the principle behind it, obviously. In theory, it was something a child could manage without much in the way of a struggle. In practice, though, without knowing the location you were starting from, or the direction you were facing, it was all too easy to begin trekking towards what you thought was your destination, only to find yourself hopelessly off course in a matter of minutes. She had stumbled her way in and out of the forest too many times to count, convinced that this time, she would be leaving these woods with her goal in front of her. Each and every time, she had found herself somewhere different, somewhere wrong. The hot springs, the mining town, the mine itself.

She didn’t need any of that. She needed the shore. One specific section of it in particular.

At least she had the wherewithal, after each frustrating wrong turn and dead end, to force herself to stop, take a breather, peruse the map again, and actively plan out which way she would be moving this time, rather than barrelling on forwards, full steam ahead, trying to brute force her way to her goal without a moment to rest, letting her mind tangle itself into knots in the process. It helped, of course, that she’d been gifted the good fortune of being left to her own devices for the past two days. Oh, she’d seen figures off in the distance, of course, heard the sound of footsteps in the vicinity, laid low while groups had walked on by. But there had been no interactions that she’d been forced to maneuver herself around, thank goodness. It was a drop of good fortune that would run dry eventually, she knew that all too well, but God was she ever grateful for it while it did persist.

She had ignored the announcements, too; another weight off of her back, and an advantage over those who were surely worrying themselves into a frenzy over the names being rolled out. No need to concern yourself, after all, with a collection of half-truths, exaggerations, and out-and-out lies.

Except, of course, things could never be so simple. There had been one name, the previous night, that had given Trinity pause.

Taylor Thorne should have just been a one-off annoyance, an ill-fated encounter for both of them to hurriedly forget about once the dust had settled, and it would have been, if not for Taylor’s clumsy, cack-handed attempt at… mockery? A genuine apology? Her head wanted to say the former, but the rest of her knew that wasn’t true. She’d discovered the gift so soon before they’d left for the trip that she hadn’t been given an opportunity to properly retaliate, react, respond to it in any way. She’d felt something pull at her for a while, a desire to seek them out, to talk and to… understand them.

An opportunity lost, now. The deaths, at least, didn’t lie. Taylor was gone. And Taylor was a loud, weird, pushy, inconvenient annoyance, at best. It should have been, not cause for celebration, but little more than a footnote and a shrug as the world continued to turn.

There was still one can of that fluorescent nightmare energy drink, tucked right into the bottom of Trinity’s personal bag. She had considered taking that moment, as their name faded away into the morning sky, to finally drain it. She’d gone so far as to pull it out of the bag, raise it up to her eye line. The last piece of that stupid, insane gift. The last thing Taylor had done for her.

She’d put it back into the depths of her bag after a few seconds. Wouldn’t do to have something so sickly first thing in the morning. Yeah.

It was interesting, hearing Kitty’s name crop up over and over again. She was the one person Trinity knew to have blood on their hands, after all, but this, well… it was an awful lot of blood for such a tiny, fragile girl. Had the terrorists picked her as their scapegoat, perhaps? If any name was going to grab peoples’ attention, it would be the very first one on the list, wouldn’t it? Unless, of course, her name was the one constant on these announcements, the single killer guilty of all her labeled crimes. It made some measure of sense; folks who were mad enough to hear that she had drawn first blood actively seeking her out, trying to measure out retribution, ending up on the wrong end of a blade.

She would focus on this, for the time being. Not the name on the other side of the coin. And in just a few minutes time, she felt sure she would finally be at her destination. She could smell salt and rot on the air. At fucking last.

The aluminium can jostled slightly, weighing the bag down gently to the left, as Trinity pressed on forwards.

((Trinity Ashmore continued in Recycle))