Goodbyes are always so awkward.

Where do I begin?

I feel like I’ve become the bearer of bad news or something. My five or six posts here have been nothing but dealing with whatever it was Elaine currently couldn’t, and I guess now she really isn’t able to cover my ass.

That’s right. She’s dead.

Went down in a blaze of fucking glory, though, so good on her. Know what they say about mother bears and their cubs? Yeah, that’s a pretty solid analogy for what just went down. Think she might’ve  managed to get one of the guy’s balls at some point, and judging by the way he screamed I’m guessing Elaine brought more than just her favourite hunting knife with her.

Actually, I guess I’m not being entirely honest. This all went down earlier today, and after finally managing to (sort of) console Em and pass her off– hell, I’m not exactly taking this well myself – I'm off again.

Why post now, then? Well, I’d be damned if I could have managed a post that wasn’t shit, Elaine’s dead, Em’s safe, we’re in some unspecified location I’m not going to mention for fear of that crazy bastard Angmar destroying the warehouse he was holding Em hostage in followed by a few ramblings about I’m not a father what the fuck am I supposed to do with a kid.

Well, at least one of those issues has been sorted out: Em’s off to live with Ben. A permanent home’ll be good for her. Safe.  Safer than she’d be with me, anyway, which isn’t too difficult to achieve.

As for me, blogging isn’t really my thing. There’s something about loudly announcing my plans, feelings and actions for the world to see that I don’t find appealing or particularly smart.

Maybe that’s just me, though.

Anybody who I want to contact me has my details, and everybody else… well, you people'll find a way, I'm sure.

Elaine, though I got my goodbyes out of the way before we went into the warehouse, I’ll state it again: thank you for everything.

She’s got one more post she wants me to put up. Emily’s already in more responsible hands than mine and, well, I’m off to do my own thing.

As for the research? Rich and I are still getting things together. Figure we’ll post it on the original blog. We’ll see. At any rate, neither of us’ll be around the blogosphere anymore.

I guess that’s the end of that. Best of luck. God knows we all need it.

Encounter

I really want to know how the crap people keep finding me! I'm not exactly light on the stealth. Though I guess these days all she'd need to do would be follow those police reports I mentioned...

In any case, I got a present today. Out in the middle of the street, in the middle of town. Ryuu found me. As I mention, I've no idea how. But she did. I didn't even recognize her until she was walking away-there is video of her on the blog, but it's been a while and I wasn't expecting her, of all people. Not after all the fighting between Mitch and I.
I suppose that's why she did show up, though. Walked right up to us in a parking lot, clutching Mitch's washer necklace. I whirled, shifting to get ready for a fight, but all she did was shift it in her hand to grab it by a specific one.
"You were wrong. On all counts." She told me quietly, handing me the necklace. I took it, noticing the dried blood remaining on the thing. When I looked up to ask what the fuck was going on, she shook her head. "I'm so sorry."
Ryuu then bolted, leaving me to shout. "I'm sorry too!" back after her.

After a lot of thought, I've put it on.  I can't do the same for my own kills, it would require a much longer chain and be heavy enough to probably cause issues. But it feels... right. Respectful, somehow. I mean. I hated Mitch for what she did to Star. For how she attacked me, even when I was trying to make some sort of peace. But probably most...
Mostly because her situation terrified me because I've never really been more than one bad day from where she is. All it would take would be one misstep, letting him have even the slightest foothold in my mind. And then I'd be stuck, just like Michelle.
We had so much in common. In our fight for independence, we lost so many people we cared about. I was always so scared of looking in the mirror to see what peered back at me. I fight so hard, I have been this whole time. To not just survive, just barely keeping out of slender's grasp, but to /live/. To regain what he's stolen, as Cam helped me to do, and reclaim my feelings, my personality, and to regain the ability to function like a real person.
But he calls. And he'll never, ever stop, and eventually he'll find a way in. And then it's only a matter of time. Watching Mitch and Spencer go down...
I can't deny that anymore.

I've arranged to give custody of Emily to a friend. Someone she already knows and adores. It's not safe for her to be with me, I was stupid to ever think otherwise.

A Trap

We're still on Angmar's trail. He's surprisingly clever about keeping under the radar-we don't know he's been to a place until afterward, when we find the police reports of break-ins in abandoned houses or warehouses, sometimes stores...  And it's easy to tell when it's them-his habit of painting everything possible in a dizzying array of colors in at least one room... well, it's distinctive.
Em's color blind. Completely color blind. Well, with a kid as bright as her I guess it was inevitable for her to lose something else along the way. So the colors... if you paint the room all green, for example, it all looks the same, to her. Hard to see /anything/. It's just all gray. As she mentioned. Didn't take us long to figure that one out. What's perhaps cruel is the way he used lots of different colors to paint designs to confuse and disorient her.
I'm guessing he still has connections with other proxies, someone had to do all this painting and I doubt it was him.

Elliott and I... we've been watching his movements, tracking them, trying to figure out what his pattern is so that we can do more than just follow him-that won't do us any good as far as helping her. No luck so far. Starting to think he's just moving at random.
We've started checking out the places he kept her, looking for any clues at all.

But apparently that's what he was expecting. The police had already been in and out of this warehouse, we weren't expecting any surprises-if there was a trap, the cops would've already set it off.
That's what we /thought/, anyway
We thought wrong. Well, he was one of Star's.
When we were in the latest place, I opened the door to the closet he'd kept Em in(painted up in hellish patterns of red, floor to ceiling), and was greeted by a very large mallet swinging down from the ceiling and nailing me square in the chest. I went flying back into the wall, presumably smacking my head again as I was out for almost an hour-Elliott was in the process of calling in help when I woke up.

I'm fine now, for the record. My new freaky gifts seem to be taking pretty good care of me. Normally I'd be bothered, but right now I'm just glad to be able to keep going.

Too Fucking Quiet

Exactly what the title says. Other than the incident with Lori, it's been quiet. Peaceful. No hint of Angmar, no more interference from slendershit, though of course he continues to lurk outside the window constantly. It loses some of it's teeth when he's done that constantly for months, though. What he does to me otherwise... well, that hardly matters so much as making sure Em is safe.

Her burn has healed up nicely, though of course she's scarring up. Those burns always do. And she's recovering from the LSD-she's had one flashback, but we dealt with it, and it was when the two of us were in the car together, so we didn't have to deal with other people asking questions.
That's something that's terrified me ever since I heard the story of Lily.

But for now, just... quiet. Peaceful. It's been good for both of us, but I can't help but be nervous about when it ends.

Expanded Version

Em's finally calming down, and we're at the doctor's right now, so I have some time while he looks her over to type this from my phone while I linger in case I'm needed/wanted.

Late last night, after I'd put Emily to bed, I heard someone outside our hotel room. After checking to make sure Em was secure, I went to investigate and found... something rather surprising. Lori was outside, wearing a mask made out of bones and with another long bone in a holster on her hip

She wouldn't respond to me, just pulled two lollipops wrapped in paper. One had my name, one had Em's.
On the reverse side of the paper were notes. Both of ours were friendly and sweet, though obviously rambly and crazy. Her handwriting was gone-sketchy and changing in ten different places, and messier than Em's.

I tried to talk to her some, and we managed to have a vague sort of conversation via charades. As it turns out, she can't talk, because of some kind of head injury. She's definitely working for slendershit (When I asked, she just flashed me this insanely pleased smile). And when I asked if she'd dosed the candy she just flashed me a heart.

So when she left I checked to make sure Em was still asleep, stashed the candy in my suitcase and went to rinse my face and try to calm the fuck down. When I came /out/ of the bathroom, I find Emily awake and eating my lollipop. I took it away, but the damage was done. She spent most of the past day freaking the fuck out.

The doctor says that it shouldn't have any particularly awful side effects-at least, no more so than it could potentially for anyone else. Apparently it's no more toxic to children, just far more difficult to manage. I got lucky that she came out of it at all. With the shit that she's seen... the potential for a bad trip was phenomenally high. I think I kept her out of the worst of it.

Now comes the wait to see if she starts having flashbacks.

Quick Update

No time to talk. LSD is not good for six year olds. Lori's not dead, she's drugging candy, and as it turns out it's nearly impossible to keep candy from a genius level six year old.

I'll post more when I can.

Never Watching That Again

So, yesterday TMV and David got married, as a lot of you saw. I'd intended to stick with them for a few more days, enjoy their company, spend some time with David. Unfortunately, that's all out the window now. On the bright side, I know who my stalker is.

So, story time, I guess. Though I certainly don't have the fucking perfect memory (or tape recorder) of some of you fucks, so I'll be summarizing the dialogue except for the important bits that I do remember.
Derek, Em, and I were settling down to watch a movie. Princess and the Frog, actually, it's Emily's favorite.  And we're being lazy fucks, so we order in for pizza because that's an easy thing to do when you're sitting on your ass all night.
But it's not the pizza guy who shows up. It's Angmar. Fucking Angmar, of all the damn... well, of course, now it all makes sense. I knew that Star had left him behind to watch me, he announced it on the blog. I'd forgotten about him after, since we never heard from him and honestly considering we were friends I'd kind of figured Star would reassign him or something.
As it turns out, Star gave him the orders to not harm me (he 'wanted me for himself'), but left him to keep an eye on me. It's almost sweet, he was trying to make sure I was alright, I guess. But when Star defected... Well, Angmar wasn't too pleased. Decided it was his job to kill me and bring his boss back to the fold.
He told me all of this at the top of his lungs, gesturing with that fucking sword of his and acting like he was in fucking Lord of the Rings or something. Talking about honor and sacred duty and  'Stand forth and defend yourself'. All that bullshit.
Because other than pushing Derek aside to get in the door, he refused to touch any of us until I agreed to fight him in 'a duel'. And he spent enough time trying to get Derek to just stand the fuck aside so he didn't have to hit him that I could hide Emily before Angmar could see her.
Fucker thinks he's a knight or some shit.
So, remembering last time, where he was retardedly bad, I agreed to fight him.  As it turns out, he's been practicing. Good for him, he needed it. And at this point, he's not half bad with that sword. Got in a good swipe on me, anyway. Though  he wouldn't have lasted too much longer, he still needs a lot of practice before a great honking sword like that can stand up to me. I get inside his guard and he doesn't know how to stop me.
But then we had a visit from slendershit. And honestly, even Angmar froze in his fucking tracks when the lights started flickering and the movie spazzed out and froze on the image of a fucking operator symbol on the wall. (Which, yeah, that's a thing in the movie, I checked. Pause it at 19 seconds-you may have to crank up the resolution. Someone at Disney is a real cunt)
And then he showed up in the middle of the room. Just for a couple moments, then he was gone. So I yell at Derek to go check on Emily, terrified that slendershit fucking took her, and try to get Angmar to get lost.
Unfortunately, running away is not knightly or something. He insisted on holding his ground. Derek came out with Em-we figured it'd be better to stick close.
And then slender showed back up and all hell really broke loose. Angmar started eyeing Em, looking like he wanted to make a break for her to impress his master. Emily starts trying her damndest to get out of Derek's grip, yelling about how she wants to see her parents again. I'm trying to fight Angmar to keep him distracted, and all the while slender's yelling at me to stand down and kneel.
Em lands a lucky shot with her squirming-judging by the noise Derek made she got a nut shot- and darts straight for slender.
He picks her up, wraps a tentacle around her, picks her up, and just stares. The sudden silence is enough to make my blood run cold. I lunge for Em, Angmar lunges for me, and Derek dives at him and takes him down. I lost track of what happened with Angmar and Derek because I'm yelling and screaming and tugging, trying anything I can think of to try to get Emily back.
And then I decide to try something that ended badly last time. I sliced his fucking tentacle off. Emily falls, he bitchslaps me across the room /again/, and...
Then I woke up a few minutes later with Derek peering at me in obvious concern. Another concussion, I'd passed the fuck out. He lets me know that Angmar ran off and Emily's still here, she's gonna be fine, and he helps me totter over to talk to her.
As it turns out, that tentacle that was wrapped so snugly around her left a niiice burn. Wrapped all the way around her chest. She's, quite understandably, in a fair bit of pain, but there's not much more I can do that Derek hasn't yet-he got her set up with ice, and had her distracted eating some chips, since we couldn't exactly trust the pizza Angmar brought.
I needed to talk to her before we could do anything else. She'd just tried to willingly give herself up to slender.
Luckily, I have a very smart girl. She knew exactly what I wanted to talk about.

"I'm sorry. I just thought... The Man says that if I go with him, everything will be good again and I can see everyone and people will stop dying. And. What if that's true? You worked with him. And David. And Rachael. And Joel. What if he's telling the truth and all the bad stuff goes away when you go with him?"

Cue my heart fucking breaking. I'd tried to shelter her from the stories of terrible things that happen when you work for him, tried to shield her from all the terrible stories. But she'd seen a lot(and David can't keep his mouth shut around her). She knew suffering. And her six year old mind saw a strong, comforting authority figure who promised to take it away. Because he can be comforting, most of you know this. If he wants you, if he's trying to charm you to him, he makes everything in the world that hurts just... float away.

"No, Em. He's lying. He hurts you worse if you're his. That's what happened to all of us. That's why we stopped." I tactically avoided the subject of David, I didn't want to confuse her. "I know it's tempting, but all he does is hurt people."

"I just don't want anyone else to die." Emily starts crying quietly.

Derek pipes up then. "Well, we don't want you to die either."

After that, I put her in the shower with the water running cold to help with the burns and sat down to talk to Derek until I could walk in a straight line again.

A few things were very clear to me then.

Firstly, I'm definitely healing way faster than I used to, I didn't even have a fucking headache by the time we went to bed that night.

Most importantly... I've let Emily down in a big way. I let my own pain and grief distract me. I was selfish, and did what was best for me, not for her. Running around to see my friends, trying to hide from the reality of our situation and of my own guilt. I've tried hard to stay busy, distracted, so that I didn't have to face the world.

No more. Emily deserves better.  From now on she is my only focus. Everything I do will be what is best for /her/, and I will dedicate my time to being there for her.

And so, first thing this morning, the two of us left Derek, TMV, and David, and set off on our own way. I've done what I can, I still have some of the supplies Lori gave me back in Austin, so I can treat the burn. It's nothing I haven't dealt with before.

Another Friend I'll Probably Never Hear the End Of

So, with his encouragement, and out of a desire to stay honest with you lot, I'm going to just flat out say it. The Daniel I went to see has been given another name by "Joseph"- Moriarty

For obvious reasons, I wasn't even really allowed to know much of anything, and a lot of what I do know about his organization I don't agree with, but the two of us have gotten friendly and he wanted to make his pitch in person.

Upon making sure that Elliott and Em would be as safe as they could be, the three of us met him at one of his (apparently numerous) headquarters-a unassuming mid-sized skyscraper in a mid-sized city. We had a lot of fun, whatever I think of his practices, and I consider him a good man, if exceptionally misguided.
Again, not that I at all agree with his practices-as much as part of me wanted to see Fakestar taken out, I certainly don't support fucking killsquads.

He asked me to talk about his agenda, I think he's worried about what he's going to be taken as, considering his reputation with the killsquads and all. I'm not going to be a vehicle for his shit, but I will tell you that if you are a runner and he does offer you something, he's serious, and he definitely doesn't want to hurt you. Whatever his fucked up methods, he wants to help runners.

I like him as a person, I loathe what he's doing.  It's an unfortunate split, but not exactly one I'm not familiar with.

In any case, we're long gone now. Elliott's still  buried in his research, Em's still far too smart for her own good, and I'm still a dumbass.

Going Through the Motions

Showing Emily Buffy the Vampire Slayer may not have been my absolutely best idea to keep her occupied. She's fallen in love with it, and has seriously asked me if anyone's tried staking slendershit. 'Just in case'.
At least she's smart enough to understand it's just fiction, I was half worried she'd start trying to convince me to call a Slayer to take care of him.
Not that that surprises me, the kid is a fucking genius. I don't just mean she's kind of bright, I mean she's six years old and she's already gotten past the point where my fourth grade educated ass can actually help her with her work.
It's interesting. I can't help but wonder what she would've been if she'd had a chance to grow up normally, go to school and all. She's fucking ridiculously smart, she would've been a damn rocket scientist or grown up to cure fucking cancer or something. And now she'll be lucky if she lives past her next birthday.

In other news, Spencer came by today. For... about half an hour. It was good seeing him, wish he could've stayed longer, pretty much all the same shit I've said the other couple times he's made it out to see me.

Also, heading off to see another friend, I'll tell you more about that when it's happened.

We're Going to Disney World!

Or rather, we did. Met up with Rachael today-she suggested it as a good opportunity to do something for Em, and as the poor kid certainly needs all the cheering up she can get, it struck me as a good idea.

One day, spent in the Magic Kingdom, with a six year old. We spent all day running about, trying to see and do everything. Emily, of course, took to Rach like she's taken to all of my friends she's met-enthusiastically and loudly.

Would've been a nice, peaceful day, except for two fucking things.
The first happened around 2 or so, we'd just done fucking Splash Mountain, and Emily wanted the picture. For those of you who don't know, at the top of the big fuckoff hill at the end of Splash Mountain, there's a camera set up to take your picture right before you go over. They sell the pictures at the exit of the ride.
Em wanted a copy, so we went to get it-and got a little more than we bargained for.

The entire right side of the picture was distorted all to hell. Looks like slendershit was nearby. And worse, when I got the copy of the picture (figured maybe it was just the monitor since they didn't seem bothered by it), it came with a threatening note.

"Mock me all you want, but I won't just watch forever."

Still a little trite, and yes the 'o's were all replaced with operator symbols, but the fact that they could slip the note /into/ the frame with the picture means this isn't just some idiot amateur. The fact that only our picture was distorted... Well, that means he showed up just for us. How nice.

The other thing was the chat I had with Rach, while Elliott and Em watched the fireworks. She'd been... wobbly, for lack of a better term, all day. Looked a little glassy eyed, was a little slow to react to things. Barely noticeable, especially considering how bright and happy she seemed, playing with Em and seeing us. It's such a fucking radical change from the quiet, demure, sad proxy I stayed with back in August.

But I was right. Something's wrong. She's pretty badly injured. Been shot a couple times, and has a burn on her arm from the New Years party. I only got to see her arm, but that, at least, was infected enough to look really bad. I'm fucking worried about her.

Nothing I can do, though. I offered the little help I can give, and she told me not to worry, she has a plan. So, hopefully that works out.

As for us? We're long gone by now. Gotta keep fucking moving, after all.

Forgetting Something?

Still don't know what that fucking note was about. I figure it's some moronic proxy just trying to psych us out. Because obviously we're rookies who are going to get spooked by random notes, not like we've been at this for a while and seen all kinds of horrific things.
Oh no, these notes are /so scary/.

And yeah, notes. There's been a couple more. On our hotel room door and on the windshield-they don't seem to be able to catch us anywhere else. Stupid shit. "Look around" and "Father's watching".

Urgh, I know he's watching, I hardly sleep for the amount of watching he does, shut up about it already.

On the bright side, that lottery ticket won us a few hundred bucks, so that's a nice bit of cash-it'll pay for our rooms for a few days.

Otherwise... things are pretty calm. I've gotten more or less back to normal, we have our routine, Emily seems to be doing pretty well. Elliott's... well, he's him. He's doing just fine. Bitching about being back in the US, but he's just giving me shit for the fuck of it. It's easier to be somewhere where at least one of us legally exists and isn't risking being booted from the country because I didn't have a visa.

So, that's us. Just running. Dealing with some moronic shithead of a proxy.  And winning the lottery.

So, we've left Benjamin's place. It was nice to stay in one place for a bit, but it's a bit of a relief to be on the move. Means I'm less likely to bring doom down upon poor Benjamin, at least. Em's got a bunch of new books, courtesy of our former host, and so she's pretty pleased, even if she did do everything but burst into tears in an attempt to get us to stay.

But travel is essential, considering we're high priority targets. So we keep going.

And we keep going. And I try to cut back on the drinking some, now that we're moving and Emily can't be so easily kept in the dark.

At least I have good news tonight, right?

A Chat With Our Host

I don't want to talk about it. After the other night, I ended up sitting down with him and asking the sort of questions I wasn't sure I'd get a chance to ask.
The transcript is here, and the fucker didn't leave /anything/ out. Even the stuff I would've preferred to keep quiet.
I'd be rather pissed, except it's kind of nice having him concerned enough to do this crap.

For those of you concerned enough to wonder, yes I'm still miserable, no I'm not going to do anything drastic, and yes I've got the drinking under control, thank you. Also, despite what it sounds like, I'm not deliberately starving myself, I just have no fucking appetite.

I'm fine, really. Just fine.

Holidays are Fucking Exhauasting

Just posting briefly to say that we've made it to Benjamin's place. The stockings are hung, presents are under the tree, Em's happily asleep in her room after watching Christmas movies till I wanted to scream.

I've never been a big fan of the holidays, but it's nice to see her smiling properly again.

Benjamin's a good host, if you wanna hear about the mundane bullshit, just follow the link to his blog. I'm gonna go fill some stockings, then crash.

Maybe then I won't have to think about everyone that's not here with us.

More Visits

Something I'd almost forgotten staying still for so long is that Running is dull. A long string of crappy hotel rooms and driving across frozen wastes-because we decided to stay in Canada for a bit instead of risking a border crossing again this soon. It doesn't exactly make much difference, my own preference for warm weather aside. And Elliott seems happier to be back in his own country.

That said, we're almost back to the US now. We're going to be spending Christmas with Benjamin, so Vermontward we go. Again. For a Southern girl like me I spend a damn lot of time in that state. I figure it's a good idea to give poor Em a real Christmas after everything. At least one of us ought to be happy.

In the meantime, we stopped to see David today. It was really good to see him, whatever else he might have done to people, whatever people might think of him, he's practically family, and he's done nothing but try to help me since we met. My hands aren't exactly clean, who the fuck am I to say who is and isn't worth my affection and respect? Anyone who spends the amount of time he does worrying about me and trying to help me is alright in my book.
Plus, Em absolutely fucking adores him, I can tell it did her some good to see him again. She needs to know that not everyone she knew and cared about is gone.

Otherwise, things are quiet. Quiet enough for me to get all philosophical about the Solstice. Yeah, this is going to be one of those posts, shut up and fucking deal with it.

A year ago a bunch of misguided, delusional morons got together with mediocre weaponry and halloween masks and thought they would be able to take down slendershit. The idea wasn't that they'd be able to kill him-from what I understand they all thought they were going to die. Or at least were aware that it was likely.
They thought that by bringing the Stalked together to tell stories about it, we could work together to end this once and for all.

They weren't stupid because they thought it would work, fuck no! As far as I'm concerned it was a brilliant fucking plan, one that was more likely to work than anything anyone's come up with before or since. No, they were delusional morons for thinking that people would remember to tell their stories. Apparently. Look around. Except for a select few, no one bothered to remember. No one bothered to finish the job. A story was never chosen, and those who died at the solstice died in vain, because all of us let them down.

And yet? Because of what they did, look at us now. The bloggers are uniting. Coming together again and again, really interacting. No longer are the Stalked scared children hiding alone in the dark. Whatever happens to us, whatever tragedies befall us individually, we are a community. No longer does each new death go quietly and unmourned. No more do we shiver in silence. We are united, moreso every day, and that is what makes us strong. Maybe one day we'll truly be united enough to end slendershit once and for all.

In the meantime? Lets take today to remember everyone we've lost.

Zero, Amelia, and everyone else that died in the Solstice. Jeff, Nessa, Maduin, Jean, Fizzbomb, and everyone who was left behind to pick up the slack. I salute you all. Your efforts for the Solstice failed because we let you down, but it's because of you we have hope for the future.

Cam, Emma, Star, Konaa, Michael, Josh, Joel, Lucas, Jennifer, Levi, and Adam. I'll never forget any of you. I loved you all like family. I wish I'd been able to save you.

Doing This Shit Out of Order

Right. I owe you all one hell of a post. I'd intended to go through and write about everything that happened since... since I last posted something actually informative. But honestly, I don't really want to write about the time I spent curled up in my bed, not moving for days at a time. I don't want to relive it, and it's really none of your business, you fuckers. The important part is Friday. Last Friday when Elliott came to me and told me that we needed to get out of there, the forest was going too far. To be honest, I'd hardly noticed anything strange, barely looked out the window.
But again, not the point.
The point is, we were in the middle of discussing the need to get out of there-and had just decided to leave first thing in the morning-when a certain redheaded bastard made his appearance. Just leaning nonchalantly against the wall like he had a right to be there. The rotten cunt.
I made the mistake of challenging him. Thought that perhaps out of the forest he'd stand and fight, but no. Instead of facing me like a man he used his Loop bullshit to threaten Elliott. They talked for a bit. In French. All I could understand was some swearing, something about Richard, and something about Harper. Then he threatened Em. In English, so I could understand.
I told Elliott to get out and check on her, which he did. I continued to challenge him, he continued to be a smug, cheating twat. And then he made a mistake. Decided he'd try to get under my skin. Didn't fucking work though, did it? The fucking lying bastard is going to meet his match one of these days and I sincerely hope I'm the one who gets to do the honors. The things he said and did... Well, I will see him pay, one way or another.

Right. On to less ominous business. We're on the road again. Met up with Richard again last night. I didn't stick around to see what happened. He made it pretty clear he didn't want me there. More travelling ahead, I think there's one more place Elliott wants to go.

Just a Little Note

I've been a bit busy to update-there's a lot to do getting a place this large set up, a lot of little things that need to be taken care of-and that take a lot longer with injured ribs like this.

Lis, Tia, and Blake arrived Wednesday. It's been good to have them, and the impromptu birthday celebrations the other night were fun. I have been very glad to have a chance to spend time with Lis in person, and it's been fun getting to know Tia and Blake.
They've settled in pretty well, and I'm really glad to have them all.

Nemo last night as well, bringing with him three rather special folks. Levi, Jennifer, and Emily Johnson. Now, these three don't have a blog, but they do keep tabs on them as much as they can. Mostly, they just focus on running.
They are probably the only family of runners that I've heard of (except perhaps for the ill fated Delmonts, but they weren't running all together). These guys are smart, all three of them. When Emily started seeing slendershit, they did the standard police thing, but when it wasn't working, they did some research. Found the blogs, started reading, figured out what was going on.
They weren't going to let their daughter go. So they packed her up, piled into their minivan, and started running. That was... mid August.
They've held it together pretty well, all things considered, but they were running low on funds to pay for food and such even before the van broke down. They hid out in an abandoned house and tried to set it up to be as safe as possible and sent me a distress call-they found the post about Hope, and how I promised to get people here if I needed to, and just went for it. They didn't really have many options left.
About an hour later Nemo emailed me asking if I needed anyone brought to Hope. Seemed perfect. Worked out pretty damn well. The kid's crazy about him from what I can tell, anyway.
I'm just glad I could help them. Em's such a sweet kid, I can already tell. And Jennifer and Levi? They're just... so devoted to her, it's beautiful.