Page 52 of The Wolf and the Monarch

“You have cash, right?” Benji asked, glancing towards Sawyer for a moment.

Sawyer unzipped the backpack that Cole had packed him and began to dig through it. There were some changes of clothes, granola bars and at the very bottom, an envelope. He pulled it out and opened it up. A small stack of green bills were inside. “Yeah… We’re good.”

“Good. I don’t want to spend all your money but–”

“It’s fine, Benji. I don’t have a lot anyway. Less than a grand, probably. But that should get us to where we have to go.”

“And then some.”

Sawyer huffed. “Good.”

Benji’s gaze shifted towards the side of the road, glancing at the road sign. “Looks like there’s a rest stop in thirty five miles. We’ll stop there.” He looked back to Sawyer for a moment. “You…might want to change. I don’t think they’d want to provide service to someone in your state…” Meaning the blood.

Not that Benji was much better. His shirt was coated in it and when they were getting into the car, he was hit in the leg by one of the stray bullets. It wasn’t deep though, mostly a graze. But it still bled a decent amount before it finally calmed down.

“Oh, yeah. True.” Sawyer turned around to the backseat, as if he was going to crawl back there to change but he quickly turned back and frowned deeply. “Is it okay if I change up here?”

Benji’s brow raised before he shrugged. “Yeah, it’s cool. I think we’re past the point of modesty, honestly,” he chuckled, “You helped me piss. Several times.”

Sawyer wobbled his head back and forth. “Fair enough.”

“I’ll uh…keep my eyes on the road though.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing that anyway?” His brow raised as he unbuttoned his bloody jeans and unzipped them.

“Touché.”

Benji did what he said, though. He did keep his eyes on the road and only on the road. He couldn’t really do much about his peripheral vision, however. That just happened naturally. He saw him pull his shirt from his torso and tossed it into the backseat before he pulled his jeans off. When Sawyer leaned over to look in his bag for a shirt, Benji noticed the bandages across his shoulders. He felt the frown tugging at his lips. “How do those feel?” He asked.

“Fine, I guess,” Sawyer said, “I mean, they’re sore but that’s part of healing. Cole had done a good cleaning on them the other day so that's good.”

He just nodded his head. He didn’t really know what else to say about it. He just wanted to make sure he was okay. “And your hand?”

Sawyer released a breath. “I’m sure it’s fucked for the rest of my life. I can’t move a few of my fingers but I can’t complain. I’m lucky to be able to move any of them. But I really do need to get to a doctor to…I don’t know. Sew it back together? Skin graft? I don’t actually know how it’ll work.”

“Right,” he sighed. “I know the safehouse guy has medics on standby so I can ask him if he can get one for us.”

Sawyer pulled his shirt over his head and slipped the jeans on awkwardly. “That would be nice,” he answered sincerely, buttoning his now clean jeans. “How are you feeling?”

That was a good question. How did Benji feel? He chewed on his lower lip for a moment before he dragged his tongue across it and shrugged. “Uh…I don’t know. Physically? Alright, I guess. Now that the adrenaline has died down, I feel like I'm getting over the flu. The hole in my mouth is annoying and the bullet wound–”

“What?!” Sawyer suddenly exclaimed, turning his entire body towards Benji.

He looked at him, “It’s nothing.”

“You got shot?!”

“Really, it’s nothing. It’s just a graze. It stopped bleeding eventually.”

Sawyer sighed while he rubbed his eyes with his wrist. “I’m sure you’ll need stitches.”

“Probably, but that’s a later Benji problem,” he smiled. “But besides those issues, I’m okay, I guess. I just…feel odd. In general.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I kinda get that.”

Benji figured he would. The whole situation was just weird. Not that most situations in his life weren’t weird, but that one had to take the cake. “I know it’s not over. It’s really just the beginning. But it just felt…really easy.”

“Yeah, I know. I thought the same thing. But that fire was massive… I’m sure Milo is busy taking care of that. Plus, he probably has to talk to the cops about everything. Our operation wasn’t exactly legal, I don’t think. So, honestly, Cole setting that fire probably bought us more time than our original plan did.”