Her feet were dragging, her toes felt like they were going to fall off and she was certain if she looked at them they would look like raisins considering how soaked they were from her earlier drenching. Lyra Bates was only a week into being seventeen; she had left home with nothing more than a book bag which thankfully was water proof. Her ribs still ached and sometimes if she breathed too deep she had a sharp pain. She was through crying, she had done enough of that since the morning she left home which was nearly two days go now. It had taken two different after school jobs and extra work to save up some money so she at least had something to use for food.<br/><br/>She had been planning to run from her father for over a year, the only thing she regretted was that she didnâ€™t finish high school, she was so close. All she needed was one more quarter and she would have graduated with at least a C average. The fear was that she wouldnâ€™t live that long. As much as she would have liked to finish school she was aware of things getting worse with her father.<br/><br/>In the beginning she had excused her fatherâ€™s outburst by telling herself that he was just drinking too much and had been hurting. When it grew worse she had simply taken it without saying anything but over the last year she had found that it was not just bruises he was leaving on her. His hands had begun to go places where she wasnâ€™t the least bit comfortable with it. He had begun calling her things that made her ill and made her question herself and other things around her.<br/><br/>She had no friends, no other family she could go to local but she did have an aunt in Rhode Island if she could get there. Of course, she lived in Oregon which meant days of travel and she had no way of calling her to make certain she could stay. Still, her aunt Nora was her only hope.<br/><br/>It didnâ€™t matter that currently her feet felt frozen, she had left a truck stop back a few miles and the rain had come down in a rush and soaked her. Even though the rain had stopped within half an hour, it made her travels rough. More than that, it made her shiver. Of course, with the heat of the day everything managed to dry accept her shoes which were still working on it.<br/><br/>Thing was, she hadnâ€™t even made it out of the state yet walking as she was and she didnâ€™t know how long the money she had with her would hold her out. She had considered trying to work day labor jobs when she got too low on cash.<br/><br/>As it was at the truck stop she had showered and changed into her jean shorts and a dark gray and black t-shirt with the words â€˜protect animal life, stop killing needlesslyâ€™ on it in bold red and green lettering. She had owned several activist shirts as her mother had called them before she died five years earlier. With her hair drawn back in a lazy pony tail, she turned deciding to do something against all the warnings she had heard.<br/><br/>It had always been said, hitchhiking was dangerous. There were many horror stories about what could happen to her, death wasnâ€™t the worst horror story she had heard. For Lyra there could be worse things than death, the things that could happen before that end. Still, she had to decide whether she would rather take the risk of those horror stories being true or passing out on the side of the highway.<br/><br/>To Lyra there was only one sure thing, she would pass out within the next couple of hours if she kept walking. So, she was going to take the risk. Turning so she was backing up as she walked, she drew in a deep breath and stuck out her thumb. There was no way to deny that even with being in shorts and the t-shirt she looked innocent. Her lips were lifted in a hopeful smile as she watched vehicles pass.<br/><br/>The more people kept going the smile began to slip. To try to bolster her own spirits she began to sing to herself, one of her favorite songs was sung by Idina Menzel. The song I Stand had often been playing in her mind when she lay on the floor after her fatherâ€™s cruelty had ended for a few hours and she kept hoping one day she would have the power to follow the creed the song made her feel she should have. Lyra knew better than to believe she had a perfect voice but she was proud that she at least sang mostly on key. Singing to herself she realized if she survived this trek she really did stand for the power to change like the song said.<br/><br/>This realization allowed her smile to widen and took her mind away from how her feet felt for the moment as she retained her smile and once more put her thumb out with more fervor.