Marked (Primal Obsessions #2) - Cara Wylde Page 0,7

way.

It was getting colder, though, and the sun was setting. I needed to find a place to spend the night. I’d never been the outdoors-y type, never liked camping, nor did I have what was needed to lie down and sleep in the forest. I didn’t even have the car to use as a temporary shelter. My only hope was to find a cheap motel room for the night, and pray no one asked me any questions.

Perhaps I would have risked it and tried to climb a tree and sleep like a monkey, hanging from a branch, but I couldn’t subject an innocent child to that. I would have to make do and spend my savings earlier than I had anticipated. I would also have to make adjustments for him, I thought as I looked down at the sleeping child. How could he be sleeping right now? He truly did not realize I was not his mom?

I slowed down until I stopped for real and let myself fall to the ground. Children needed food, clothes, toys… I was not a mother. I raised my head to the sky and prayed to God to help guide me, to show me the way, to have mercy on me. The wind ruffled the branches, which gave way with the ease of bird feathers, and a warm light illuminated a path to the north. There was something further up. I hugged the boy tighter and carefully advanced. I prayed for a motel and not some folks’ home, because my faith in people was at a woefully low level nowadays.

My prayers were answered, and I exited the woods right where the motel’s backyard was, with dumpsters and rats and one horribly drunk man. I scrunched my face in disgust and circled the building, but I stopped myself before entering. I had a few spare clothes, so the least I could do was clean up a little and avoid any questioning. I put my bag down, grabbed a few items from it, then nestled the baby on its clean surface. I threw a long skirt over my dirtied jeans, I changed my blouse and used the dirty one to scrounge up more dirt, grime and blood from my face. It was too dark to look into a mirror, so I had to hope I looked tired, but decent enough.

The front desk lady – an elderly woman with long, gray hair trapped in a bun – had a good look at what she assumed to be a mother and her son, and likely took pity on us, because I was sure she “forgot” to charge me extra for the clean towels, and she also threw in a bag of “complimentary snacks”, claiming we looked like we could use the rest and the late meal. I almost burst into tears, unused to such kindness in a long, long time, but the boy began to stir awake, and that gave me an excuse to rush the kind woman and to hide within the four walls of my temporary home.

I was so exhausted after an afternoon of running through the forest, keeping an eye out for the wolves or whatever inhabited these places, and the baby was starting to fuss too, probably hungry and just as tired. I unlocked the door and entered the room – which was on the first floor, – and I was happy to note that the area was clean and pretty spacious, but also that it was close enough to the emergency stairs. I guessed that would be my life from now on – always assessing the situation, always looking for an escape, a plan B, an option. I would never again put all my faith, all my love and all my hopes into one thing or one man. I’d learned my lessons.

While the room didn’t have more than a single-sized bed, a small table with a lonesome chair and a TV straight from the early 90s, it was enough for the night. It wasn’t like I wanted to start rebuilding my life here, like this. I almost wanted to laugh, but not a heartfelt laugh, a hysterical one. “Look at me now,” I thought, “an adult fleeing for my life with a baby that is not mine, headed nowhere, with all my plans and ideas up in the air.”

I carefully placed the child on the bed and went to clean myself a little.

God, I really looked like hot mess central. My make-up was smudged,