Her mother was gone. Ember hadn't been able to see past how much she wanted the woman dead, and, now, she was alone with however much money they had left, nowhere to be, and no idea how to survive. Joan had always done all of that.

Ember was sitting in the library a few days after her leaving, hoping beyond hope that maybe one of the books there could teach her to read. However, when she asked the librarian about things that could help with that task, the lady assumed she asking for a child, which Ember was soon happy for as the section of the library dedicated to “early readers” all had illustrations with simple colors, cartoon characters, and baby animals.

However, Ember was humiliated that once she began trying to use these things clearly marketed to three year olds, she couldn't understand any of it. Tears welled up in her eyes where she was tucked up away in a corner of the library where no one could see a teenaged girl pouring over a children's book.

“Dammit,” she cursed, slamming a hand down against the innocent book. She'd told herself that learning to read would be the key. Once she could read, the world would open up for her. She maintained that belief and now she found it was almost impossible to learn.

'How the world has changed that a goddess can't even survive because of the simple inability to understand tiny symbols on a page?'  She took a deep breath and ran her hands over her face and into her hair.

One of the things Ember learned quickly is that money doesn’t last long at all. She didn’t know how much she started with, but she knew after a couple weeks of rationing herself to a single meal a day and a bus ticket to a city, it was gone. Finances quickly became the root cause of all her anxiety and she constantly thought about money. ‘How am I going to eat? Where will I stay when it gets really cold? How will I afford anything to keep me warm?’

She’d seen a few homeless people along the roads, some of which had boxes stuffed with this pink stuff. She’d gone to touch it at one point and the scraggly man inside grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch that,” he told her. Ember’s lips pursed and she was ready to take the man down for daring to speak to her that way. He may not have known who and what she was, but he soon would— “It’s insulation. You’re far too young and pretty and delicate to be touching it.”

Ember stiffened, offended at being called delicate, but was curious about the nature of what he was talking about. “Insulation?”

“Ya know, the stuff that keeps houses cold in the summer and warm in the winter?”

No. “Why can’t I touch it?”

“It’s spun fiberglass, hun. It’ll make your hands itchy and painful when it gets stuck in there.”

“Then why do you touch it?”

The man chuckled at Ember’s persistent questions. “Well, one, I’m used to it. Two, I’m almost completely covered, and, three, where I’m not covered I’ve got enough callouses that I can’t feel anything. Ya get me?”

Ember wondered if that’s what happened to her mind. It was so calloused that she just couldn’t feel anymore.

Days passed after the money was gone. Ember considered selling some of the things she had, but she knew none of it could be a worth much. It wasn’t until a man approached her one night while she was trying to sleep on a park bench and asked her how much a ride would cost that she realized she needed to do something soon.

Something meaning more killing.

Ember knew she had no qualms about killing those who deserved it, but she knew her mother was the one that always planned the attacks and got them out of the homes without leaving traces of their presence. So, she wasn’t comfortable with the typical home invasion approach.

Instead, she decided after a while of thinking, she would go after drivers. Out on empty roads.

She found that walking a few miles out of the city and holding your thumb out to the side, like the hitchhikers she'd always seen in TV shows and movies, got people to stop. She laughed as she looked down at her first victim as she fished his wallet out of his back pocket. In those shows, the parents would always scold and lecture the child about the dangers of hitchhiking, how the drivers could have been murderers.

She only downside was that rarely did the drivers carry anything but a credit card. Which, wouldn't have mattered, except that credit cards are traceable and she didn't know the pin number for the cards.

So, she learned to not kill to quickly. To slowly start choking the air out of them, ask for their card and pin number and tell them they could survive. They’d give her the information almost immediately. Then she could kill them.

Sometimes she felt a pang of grief as she saw the dead bodies, but knew that there was no proof these people weren’t bad. In fact, she knew by the up-and-down looks they gave her body when the pulled over. And, for the ones that weren’t, well, they had to die. For the greater good and survival of their goddess. There would be mercy for them on the otherside.

Ember wandered up the roadside one night, arms wrapped around herself, shivering. Snow had began to fall and so few cars were venturing out onto the roads. The ones that were zoomed past without so much of a passing glance at Ember.

She tried her hardest to stay warm as she wandered up and down the highway, giving up on someone stopping for her and just wanting to find somewhere that might be warm enough to sleep for the night. Although, she was miles from any city and there was no shelter to be seen.

It felt like hours passed as she shivered in the cold night air, wrapping her jacket tightly around her and waving desperately at any passing car. Until, sometime in the middle of the night, she smelt something.

‘What the hell? Smells like burning.’

She sniffed again and, yes, there was something burning. Which meant fire. Her eyes widened, knowing that’s where she needed to be.

Following her nose, she moved closer and closer as the glorious smell of smoke and wood got stronger. Until, finally, she saw the glimpses of red and yellow and orange through the trees. In a clearing was a campfire bordering on being large enough to be called a bonfire. There was a group of people standing around it as they spoke. Ember couldn’t hear them over the cracking of the fire from the distance

She crept closer, feeling like she was looking at something that she shouldn’t have been, but knew at the same time she needed  to get warm.

She stepped out of the trees slowly, doing her best to hear what was going on so she’d know what she was walking into, but try as she might she couldn’t understand a word.

She crept even closer, not watching where she placed her feet and stepped on a few branches when, suddenly, there was someone grabbing her shoulder.

“Gotcha.”543Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsHWO15Zw4