Ashley Cooper's Arc

Chapter 31 of 37

Ashley drove until the tank ran low. She reached a town she had never seen. No one here knew her name or her arm. She parked outside the only hotel and sat with her bone hand on the wheel. She had a fresh start, but she knew no one. Not a single face. She could not fall in love with an empty street. She gave herself a name for this place. Becca. She went inside. The lobby smelled of tea. Behind the desk stood a large woman in a bright orange robe stitched with foxes. Fake fox ears sat in her black hair. She was folding towels and singing to herself. When she saw Ashley, she stopped and smiled wide. "A new face," the woman said. "Good. This town needs new faces." She set down the towels. "I'm Miko. I run this place." "Becca," Ashley said. The lie came out smooth. Miko slid a key across the desk. Her chest strained the fox robe as she leaned. Ashley's eyes dropped there before she could stop them. She felt her face go hot. She looked away fast, at the towels, at the wall, at anything. Miko caught it. She did not frown. She laughed, soft and warm. "You're staring, Becca." "Sorry," Ashley said. Her whole neck burned. "I didn't mean to." "Most people stare at something on me," Miko said. She touched a fox ear. "Usually these. You stared lower." She grinned. "I don't mind. Better than the people who stare and hate what they see." Ashley gripped the key. The words hit her chest. She had spent years being the thing people stared at and hated. She reached for the counter to steady herself, and her sleeve pulled back. Bone showed at her wrist. White knuckles, no skin. Miko looked at it. She did not gasp. She did not step back. She reached out and turned Ashley's hand over, gentle, like she was checking a coin. "Bones," Miko said. "Huh. I've seen a man with a stone foot. Never a whole arm like this." She let go. "It suits you." Ashley stood there. No one had ever said that. Not Tyler. Not Mike. Only this stranger in fox ears, in a town with no name she knew. "You're not scared of it," Ashley said. "Should I be?" Miko went back to her towels. "You want dinner? The kitchen's mine after seven. I cook for the guests I like." Ashley's heart pounded. She had walked into this town alone, sure she knew no one, sure no one could ever want her. In one hour, that was gone. Here was a woman who saw her bone arm and smiled. A woman she wanted to keep talking to. "Yeah," Ashley said. "I'd like dinner." Miko winked. "Seven, Becca." Ashley climbed the stairs with the key warm in her bone hand. She was still a stranger here. But she was no longer alone. She had met someone. And that someone had not run.