I test three, but settle on a sturdy, black beetle of a machine—flat rack in the back, and four fat, knobbed tires on the bottom. Of my options, this seemed the most rugged, the most able to handle the real wild, instead of some toy to speed around a field in.

I step down and pay for the all-terrain four-wheeler. Transaction complete, the teenage salesman returns with two wheel-width metal ramps under his arm. I stare.

"So you can load it into your truck," he explains.

"That's okay," I answer.

He cocks an eyebrow.

"I live right down the road," I say, nodding vaguely at the horizon. "I'll just get it down there."

"It ain't street legal," he warns me as he stuffs the receipt into the front pocket of my new backpack. "And don't you have a truck in the parking lot?"

"I'll be all right," I assure him. "Help me move my stuff over, would you?" I nod at the motorized shopping cart, three legged donkey to my new war horse.

The teenager lifts the bags and places them on the metal bars at the rear of my new ride; elastic straps are employed to tie everything down. The walking sticks stretch out dangerously, almost doubling the width of the machine. The salesman shrugs helplessly at this.

"You want that strapped down?" he asks, pointing at Morgan's black duffel bag, which I'm still wearing around one shoulder.

"No, thank you," I tell him, as the last strap is tightened and I climb on the machine. "I'll hold on to this one."

I twist the key, and the black Honda rumbles to life. The needle on the fuel gauge rises; it's nearly a full tank.

"That's your throttle and brake," the teenager says, pointing at the grip and accompanying lever. "And you shift gears right here." Yellow buttons scored with plus and minus signs rest near the right handle. "Turn four-wheel drive on with this button."

I lift my broken leg with both hands, holding myself by the thigh, and work to push it into the footwell. It doesn't quite fit—the cast won't let me bend my knee, so the best I can do is leave my foot hanging from the edge.

"Maybe need to wait until you get that thing off," he says helpfully.

As though that's an option. "I'll be fine."

My hand finds the throttle and twists. I roll forward jerkily, hitting the gas too hard then releasing it in shock. I try again, rolling a few more feet across the parking lot.

I find my pace. With the press of a button, it shifts to second: the display reads 25 mph and rising. Hot wind shoots through my hair; I turn to the right, curving around the parking lot to my truck.

No stopping now. I fly past, toward the large, unkempt field behind the store. A line of trees fills the horizon.

No real plan. Just want to keep living until I have to die.

I quite like living. I like living with a bag of money and no name even more. But when I die, which could be soon, that'll be fine too. Just an end. Everyone has to end.

The wheels leave the parking lot and I bounce over the grass. I jump high over knotted ground; my broken leg is jarred as I crash down. The sensation goes right to the core of my nervous system, direct line to my spine. The pain hits deep and fades slow, leaving me gasping.

Just a little reminder I exist.

I slow down, climbing rather than flying over the humps. There is no evenness to the soil; it crests and dips like waves, and for a moment I think of Kayla's final journey into the gulf.

Seems like the gulf is all that's been consistent these past few weeks. The void where shadows are lost and ghosts emerge free.

My four-wheeler rolls slow; I can really only use the first two gears without hurting myself. The land is more forest than swamp, with only the occasional wet patch. When a wheel slips in the mud, my heart catches in my throat—but the all-terrain vehicle is ruthless, and a press of my four-wheel drive button always leads one of the fat, knobbed tires to grip solid ground, pulling me out.

This place makes it clear I'm an intruder. Most of my life has been spent in cultured environments—but this isn't tame, it isn't manicured. My presence is a violation, and the wild reacts.

A horde of tiny locust-like creatures skitter from a small bush as it scrapes the underside of the buggy, an explosion of buzzing black forms jetting in each direction. I shield my eyes with the crook of my arm and feel them knock against my legs.

When I bend back a tree branch to pass, a mockingbird chases me, furious as it flutters near enough that I can feel the pressure of its wings in my ears.

I soon watch for these dangers automatically, eyes constantly moving, always searching for the next threat, the next gleam of water that must be dodged. With my mind focused like this, the hours slip by unnoticed. Time doesn't matter—but what does matter is light, and the shade of the sky paints my experience. As the colors deepen, I know I'm further from my pursuers.

At times, I come to patches of impregnable thicket, or muddy pools whose depth are impossible to gauge. When I reach these obstacles, I turn, sometimes back-tracking for what feels too long, longer than it could possibly have taken to become trapped.

I don't know exactly where I'm going, except that when the option arises to pick a more cultivated landscaped, I don't take it. I drive deeper into the trees, into the wet. My only thought is to separate myself from civilization.

They have names, and labels, and crimes someone named Sean Reilly is responsible for. Things he didn't actually even do, which is beside the point. Ahead of me, though, in this raw Florida swamp, is a world that doesn't care about those labels. A place past names, for a nameless boy.