One - Polaris

Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.
 - H. P. Lovecraft, "Polaris"

She showered at four-thirty in the morning. She was used to being up by this hour. She hardly slept any more. And it was early enough that she knew her companion for the night wouldn't get up and bother her.

She knew the type. He wouldn't wake even if she had screamed in his ear. The sound of the pathetic drizzle of water that was her shower thudding against the cheap plastic of the stall floor stood no chance.

She preferred it that way. He was there only as a source of money and physical companionship. Finding him and bringing him back to the hotel had been automatic, like setting up the cameras over the doors had been. It was a matter of protection, nothing more. She didn't want anything more. Not from him.

She turned off the shower and stepped out, drying herself as she went.

A moment later, she collected her clothes and went to stand in front of the mirror. She didn't look at it. It was simply the only area in the room with light. Instead, she looked at the battered leather wallet in her hands.

The inspection had a military, professional air to it. Open main pocket, count bills. Insert the handful of bills looted from her companion's funds, double-check new total. Check driver's license, make sure it's the one that matches the name you're using. Withdraw credit card, commit information to memory. Check contents of back pocket, make sure that all the pictures are still there.

She stopped to look at them for a moment. Then she sighed and, very slowly, raised her gaze to the mirror.

The Christie Waterman in the pictures was... softer. She had hair, for one thing. She had cut off all of her hair not long after the photographs were taken. It was easier to keep clean that way, and cheaper, since she didn't have to pay for shampoo. She was also thinner now. Skeletal. The product of months of running her body ragged with caffeine and energy pills. Her hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and protruding ribs gave her the appearance of someone on the edge of starvation. It wasn't too far from the truth.

She looked down to the photographs again. There were three other people there with the old Christie: a tall, burly-looking man with a soft face, a hunched, scowling old man in a tattered gray suit who leaned heavily on a cane, and a thin, brown-haired young man who was the only one with a smile that looked as though it might have been genuine.

The smile disappeared back into the back pocket of her wallet a moment later, along with the rest of those present. She tossed it away, onto the bed behind her, and lifted her head to glare into the mirror as if she wanted to put her fist through it.

She didn't. Instead, she dressed in the dark, retrieved her possessions, and didn't bother to lock the door behind her when she left.

The atlas in the car had a route outlined on it in permanent marker, leading towards a small town in Indiana. Next to it was the phrase "SEWARD 4108 E. HOLLY", circled several times.

Under it was the word "SAFE".

She set off.