Featherless Bird

The truck was relatively old, smelling like beer and cigarettes and Carolyn couldn't help but think of what Wade did in his spare time. He got in after her, huffing as he threw a shovel in the back. He turned on the truck and it made a soft purring sound as the headlights illuminated the forest, making a ray of sight before them.

"Before we go, I have to tell you something." Carolyn looked at him frightfully, scared that he had changed his mind and that he would kick her out. "If you do anything to try and get noticed, I'll kill you right there." The girl nodded shakily. She didn't know how he'd do it, but knew he was capable to, one way or another.

He nodded back to her before pressing on the gas peddle and slowly making his way on the snow where you could see the outline of a small man-made road. The silence was awkward, and after a while Wade put the music on. It was some pop song that was playing, but Carolyn couldn't care less. It was music and that's all that mattered. After a while she got the hang of the repetitive chorus and started singing along softly while looking outside.
"You're not half bad." Wade said when the song finished. Carolyn blushed; she didn't think he could hear her over the music.

"Thanks." She whispered almost inaudibly as the finally reached a real paved road and made their way wherever they were going.
The rest of the drive went by silently as they listened to the teenager screaming out his angst, which was apparently called music. Carolyn decided not to comment on that. She saw other cars driving along the road too and couldn't help but feel nostalgic. They all had lives; they were probably going home to wife and kids after a long day at work, or going to hang out with some friends.

It was a painful reminder that even though her life had stopped, the Earth kept turning and people went around like nothing happened. Though, when she thought about it, stuff like this had been happening for centuries, and some people cared, but others didn't even give it a second glance as they switched off the news. Carolyn's distaste in human beings just became more profound as she thought of that. She shook her head and Wade looked at her questionably but she just remained quiet.

They finally arrived at a small drug-store after almost twenty minutes of driving. Carolyn calculated in her head how long it would take to walk there, and the result wasn't as positive as she had hoped, not to mention Mother Nature coming into the scenario also. The girl was a bit disappointed though, she hadn't seen any sign on the way there, or on the store, that could help her decipher the mystery that was their location.

"Here we go. Now, we're going in there, we're getting the jam and then we're getting out." Carolyn nodded, not too sure whether to smile or to be afraid of Wade at the moment. They made their way into the drug-store which was pretty empty at the hour. There was a teenager working at the cash, yawning and looking at his watch. From what the girl could see there was only an old woman, a man that looked thoroughly confused as he stood in the 'ladies' isle, and a small family of four shopping. Carolyn couldn't help but feel just a tad disappointed. She had wished, however unlikely it may seem, that a police officer would've been there and that he would have been capable of saving her. But that didn't seem like it would be happening, so she just walked in front of Wade to the food isle and looked to the sky as he searched for his favorite flavor. Suddenly, Carolyn had a sort of embarrassing epiphany. She didn't know for sure, but she was almost certain that her 'time of month' was coming up soon. She blushed at the thought that she would have to ask Wade to go buy her some tampons but she didn't have much of a choice.
“Um, Wade?”
“Yeah?” He replied, still looking through the jams.
“Um, you know since I’m a girl and all, I well, kind of have some needs if you get what I mean.” The blush on her cheeks was probably looking like an inferno, and she glared when she saw that Wade had a grin on his face.
“Alright then, tell me exactly what you need.” Carolyn swore that her glare could've melted ice as they burned through the man standing in front of her.
“I need tampons, okay?!”
After the embarrassing moment of picking out her necessities while Wade had a huge smirk on his face, they went to the cash and paid for their items as the boy looked at them strangely.

That’s when Carolyn thought about it, they must’ve looked like a couple. She was wearing his clothes after all and he was paying for her stuff, plus when the boy had given her a small suggestive look, Wade had given him a look that would’ve frozen Hell over. He didn't want to meet her gaze again, which was something Carolyn desperately wanted. Maybe if he had looked at her more carefully he would've recognized her, or at least seen the fear in her eyes so that he could at least make assumptions.
“Here you go.” The boy said, handing Carolyn’s bag with almost shaking hands. She gave him a small smile before walking out with Wade.
“Was that really necessary?” she asked. Wade gave her a sideways glance while getting in the car.
“What?”
“That boy was shaking. You scared him half to death.”
“What did I do?” Carolyn gave him a stern look that a mother would give her child.
“You gave that boy a glare that probably scarred him for life. If that was me, I probably would’ve started crying.” Wade rolled his eyes, probably thinking that she was over-exaggerating. He had no idea how scary he could be at times.

The drive went by slowly, maybe because the snow just wouldn’t stop coming down, or maybe it was because Carolyn had mistakenly let out that when they got home she wanted to borrow another comic. The second she had said it, the air had caught in her throat by the shock and Wade had taken his eyes off of the road, an unreadable expression on his face.
‘Home’, such a small word but with so much meaning for different people. Some would say that it would represent where they lived, some would say it was where family was, or where you felt most welcomed. Some would say that there was no such thing as a home, but those were hugely bitter people. Carolyn didn’t know how the house that she had been living in for a couple of weeks had turned into her ‘home’ while her apartment in London had never been considered home even after a bit more than a year of living there.
She didn't understand it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know the reason either.
She didn't know what to think of it, so the minute they got to the house, she asked Wade for the comic and installed herself in her room to try and go into the wonderful fantasy world where none of the characters had these types of things to think about. Or maybe they did, Carolyn thought as she flipped the pages, but the writers just didn't want to write it down because it would surely turn down readers. All they wanted was to read about someone invincible, that through thick and thin they could manage to pull through it.
Carolyn smirked sardonically; people always looked up at fictional characters because they were too afraid to look to where their own twisted thoughts were headed.
And that's the moment where Carolyn understood why Wade loved to read comics so much.