I made a snap impulsive decision. Going to walk outside the city, wander around in the mountains. Maybe, build a cabin or something. I wouldn’t fall under the mans’ long arm. I am a career criminal, not some white collar dandy.

I headed up stairs and grabbed a duffel bag out of the hallway closet. I held it in my hand for a moment before exchanging it with a hunting bag that had straps for guns, waterballs, and machetes. Plus it was weatherproof and vicious and hard to tear. I bought it on an impulse trip before hiking to lake one holiday. To celebrate the success of my store, now it seems it would be of good use to me.

I began packing essentials, boxers, four pairs of shorts rolled up, two jogging pants, two regular pants, and six regular t-shirts. I added a hoodie just in case of cold winter weather. I checked to see the bag WAS half full, after rolling clothes up as tight as possible. I grabbed several packs of soap, opened them, put them in ziplock bags. Squeezed the air out of it, rolled it up and slipped it into the bag.

I turned around after grabbing a tube of toothpaste. I had felt someone coming up the stairs and Jada had walked right through my open door.

I walked out with a bag in hand.

“Yes?”

She looked at the bag for a good minute or so. “Are you preparing for evac?”

I raised an eyebrow after passing her the handgun. I had plenty of better weapons to load up with.

“No.”

I zipped the bag up and headed downstairs. She followed with a weird expression.

“Are you going to leave like that?”

I WAS going to reply when I got this weird message on my phone. I backtracked and picked it up, seeing a number I didn’t recognize. I answered it anyway, it WASn't like I WAS doing much right now.

“Hello?”

“Is this Chase Cross? Father, Mark Cross?”

“Um, yeah. This is Chase Cross, what can I help you with?”

I headed for the basement and Jada followed like a little puppy.

“You might not believe this but this is your mother. I happen to run into a friend of yours, well she said she is your girlfriend. Do you mind sending me a picture? I just wanted to see my son one last time.”

I flipped on the light switch, snapped a picture in passing, walking slowly down, while sending the picture.

“Hey, so why are you following me exactly?” I spoke to Jada after hanging up the phone.

“I wanted to ask where you are trying to go?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere not around a bunch of people. Somewhere the government is not trying to hound people together. I’m sure I’ll have something to come back to after the government fixed this issue and limits the amount of control they have on people's lives.”

Well really, I wanted to flee before they realized I might be infected with something. Or I might be some kind of Metahuman that mutated in a different direction. Turn me into either a lab rat or a soldier for them. Even if that might not happen, the chances of it happening WAS way too highly referenced in movies for me to want to take a chance.

If someone said my logic is sound, well fuck them. They are probably one of those people currently being nom on by zombies at this exact moment.

I snapped in the code to the basement door and walked in.

“So are you planning on bringing anybody because I think I’ll be useful.” She sounded nervous for some odd reason and then I caught an intense thought from her.

She is like me, which would explain why she wore basically nothing in this weather. Even if you ignore the weather outside, the A/C is blowing full blast in here. I started to get slight chill bumps but I had planned on putting on clothes I had in the basement.

“How long have you known you could do something others can’t?” I asked while walking deep into the basement. I flicked the light on, taking a look at the shelves of dried goods, rice and other things edible. I walked past that shelf towards one holding rows of military grade equipment.

“How do you think I made it to your shop? Do I look like someone capable of running all the way from Uni to here?” She waved down at her body.

I knew from earlier how soft she is in certain places.

“So?”

“So, I am saying that I sprinted here, full out running. I WAS only a little out of breath. Just going down a flight of steps would make me a little hot before. Plus I can do this fire thing.”

She held up her hand and flames appeared above her palm.

“This is about all I can do but I figure what if I could do more. I don’t want to be a lab rat and we both know the government is silencing a lot of news. For example, the people they rescue — how come they aren’t calling folks and saying it’s great here or something? You know why? Because the government is splitting up those with the other mutation that makes them like us. Studying them in some kind of weird lab. Probably after chipping them, send them out to fight the scarier zombies.” She said, all in one breath.

“Okay but you are going to follow me? Out there where there is a higher chance of dying if some kind of mutated zombie or animal attacks us?” I asked.

Her eyes walked past me and stared at the assortment of weapons I had. I sighed and realized we both weren’t thinking logically. I tossed the backpack onto a hook then turned to her.

“Okay, but I’m not leaving right now. I wanted to be able to protect myself fully before walking out with weapons cops and the military need hundreds of to take down some mutants.”

She shrugged. “As long as you take me with you.”

I sighed and pushed her out the vault, closing it behind us.