by L. B. Carter
And he was leaving.
At least that meant Ace wouldn’t have to compete with another dominant personality from there on out.
Nor nodded.
Sirena watched him closely, concern contorting her small face, but she didn’t move to physically or verbally comfort him.
“Don’t think you’re doing this because I need a big strong man to accompany me. I won’t swoon,” Jen informed Reed with a raised brow.
He grinned down at her. “I’d never dream of it. I think of it more as escorting you.” The sarcasm was back, suggesting that nerves might in fact be hiding beneath the tough exterior he showed his younger sibling. Ace frowned at the quick change. “I just don’t want you to miss me.”
“Miss annoying me, more like. And don’t expect any payment for these escort services. No cash.” She gave an exaggerated apologetic pout that made her bottom lip jut out grotesquely.
Reed’s smile widened predatorily. “So you’ll accept my services then? I take payment in many forms.”
Nor made a weird noise. “And you both yelled at u—”
“They’re coming.” Henley’s hoarse whisper was intense enough to cut off Nor and his eye-roll, her slack face whipping around to stare at the crops, seeing and hearing something the rest of them hadn’t.
Ace still couldn’t detect it, but he trusted her. She hadn’t been wrong before. “Okay, now problem solved. Let’s go.”
Feet started toward the old rusted truck, kicking up a small dirt storm in their haste that instigated a few coughing fits, none as violent as Mrs. Juarez’s.
“One more thing.”
Ace’s eyes narrowed on the one person who hadn’t moved from the porch—even Reed and Jen had stepped down to see them off.
For the first time, Lindy looked apologetic, twisting the baseball bat in her hands. “The truck has no gas.”
Chapter Nine
Whether this truck was faster than the team could’ve moved without it was questionable. Forget the fuel that Henley had MacGyvered with the help of some of the Juarez’s stocks of corn ears, several precious bottles of drinking water that they tried to recapture during the evaporation processes, which had been hurried along with the aid of a few small cornstalk fires since the sun had long set, dotted around the open dirt area in front of the house to avoid catching the neighboring fields aflame.
Diesel engines could run on vegetable oil, and it seemed to be puttering on decently with corn oil, heated with the little electric furnace she’d slapped together with destroyed drone parts in the trunk of the truck and funneled into the tank from there.
Her mentor would not give her points for its fabrication, but everyone in the crew was simply grateful for the idea. Jen had very much enjoyed helping by knocking another drone out of the sky with a bat while the others assisted Henley.
Henley was more worried the truck would fall apart with the next bump, the suspension worn down, leaving them stranded more in the middle of nowhere than they were before. At least they had left behind the dirt track. Still, even the slightest divot in the white cement road sent her airborne.
Likely, she would have been abandoned, flying out of the truck bed as soon as they had departed, if Buster hadn’t placed a hand across her waist like a seatbelt, his fingers gripping the rusted rim tightly. She wasn’t sure if he was worried about her safety, didn’t want to lose what he had spent so much effort extracting from BSTU, or if he was simply holding on to better secure his own seat against the truck cab. It was additionally considerable that he might actually be nervous about their status.
Facing backward as they were, without hindrance of a roof, they would easily notice the drones approaching if more tailed them. The third was either toast at the hand of Jen’s baseball-professional-worthy swings by now, still searching the crop fields, or simply hadn’t caught up to them yet. The rumbling start of their truck they had thought would entice a chase, but nothing followed, and they’d departed merely watching Reed and Jen, bat in hand, and the old house shrinking into the distance like a weird version of that depressing painting of the farmer and his wife. Though Henley could no longer hear anything but the roar of their old, decrepit corn-powered transport, the skies were clear to the eye.
Her blinks were getting longer and longer. She hadn’t slept at all since her nap on that boat, and tiredness was dragging her heavily like a physical weight. She’d pulled all-nighters before to get projects done in time for deadlines. None of them had involved so much exercise. Their newly defined group had only been on the move for a few hours at least.
She was leery to close her eyes—unless Ace could cover the watch. He was likely more tired than she, not having stolen—almost literally—some sleep in Boston and having run a lot further than she. She also suspected, even with her years of absence from the university gym, that the Bus was more out of shape.
“See anything?” she checked with Buster, raising her voice to be heard.
He squinted upward. “No glasses. Can’t see much,” he admitted. He didn’t need to speak as loud, his deep pitch vibrating right into her ear.
Well, a little more pressure on Henley to be their watch, then. He hadn’t been incredibly observant when the drones had first appeared anyway. Figured, for a guy who didn’t even notice the people around him usually. He had probably been calculating something in his mind at the time—how long it would take them to reach their destination—his destination, he’d called it, which was a little disconcerting now that he had revealed the ultimate destination was her family.
One set of her fingers were wrapped around her hair over her shoulder, preventing it from flinging around in the wind so she could see.
The sunrise straight ahead turned the horizon into a mixture of pinks and oranges that faded into blue and darker violet farther from the peeking star. This dawn wasn’t as picturesque as the previous day’s over the Boston harbor with abandoned farmhouses and an alternating checkerboard of brown crops and barren earth, all bereft.
Life always adapts to find a way. She had told Buster her favorite saying. What she hadn’t added was that she wanted to be the catalyst to aid in the Earth’s recovery, its adaptation.
It had been thrilling improving upon herself, empowering; she had replaced a handicap with an advantage. Since then, she lusted after that feeling. It was one way her mentor always instigated her efforts in the tech lab: “With your modification, life will no longer be threatened by this aspect of global warming.” Now that she had almost completed her project though, she realized he had manipulated her like clay—not actually lied because what he said was true. Her tech was going to be useful.
But it wasn’t going to save her life or her sister’s if she couldn’t get back home in time to stop her signing the same contract Henley foolishly had. The scholarship and a chance to be one of the elite few admitted to university with the opportunity for a degree… that was a strong lure.
“It’s a new day,” she pointed out, daring for a moment to lift the hand that was also clutching the rusted trailer side next to Buster’s to point out the sunrise.
That momentary lapse in security meant she was tossed on the next bump, flung across Buster’s lap. The arm he’d had across her middle was squashed between them, pressing on her glass wounds.
“Sorry,” she yelled, trying to push herself upright, her hair dancing every which way in the turbulence whipping around the truck as it barreled through the hot air. She let it flail, returning both hands this time to grab the wall, some of the rust flaking off under her grip. Buster would have to be their cursory watch. She was embarrassedly conscious of the fact that it was the second time she had been sprawled on top of his body.
She had just gotten situated when Buster slid the arm that had previously been braced in front of her behind, crossing her shoulder blades. She thought he was just going to settle it there to avoid being bent upon her future tumble. Instead, he put a warm hand on her bicep and then used his other hand to lift her leg
s, sliding her butt over one of his thighs and onto the corrugated flooring of the truck bed. He wrapped both arms around her middle and his heavy boots over her shins, his calves pinning her extended legs to the floor. It pressed her a little painfully into the ridges of the flooring. At the same time, the new position locked her in place, his heavy weight being her anchor.
Henley used both free hands to scoop up her hair, twist it and grasp it tightly in one hand again. “Thank you,” she said over her shoulder.
Her voice was evidently too quiet for him to hear because he brought his chin forward to rest on her shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he said, showing that he could at least guess what she had said. Was she so predictable? Or was it a compliment that he presumed her politeness?
When he leaned back, he slid her ponytail out of her fist, dropping it down her back and pulling her tighter against him to trap it between their bodies. Her back warmed against his chest as if he were the furnace instead of the metal box by their right feet. He wasn’t as squishy as she thought he’d be under his baggy clothes. He had run pretty fast…
A knock sounded on the window behind them. Henley leaned forward so Buster could tip to the side. The little middle section of window slid open with a grating screech and then clunk. It might not be closing again. It was unlikely the air conditioning worked inside anyway.
“Doing okay back there?” The voice was male—Nor.
Henley couldn’t see him, trying frantically to capture her renegade hair once more.
“Perfect.” Buster’s voice was like chocolate in her ear. Smooth and dark. Not the powdered kind.
“Yep, fine.” Henley said, not sure about how perfect it was. She felt a little squirmy in their current stance. Finally, her hair was under control. She peered around the Bus’ considerable shoulder, leaning against him to twist without withdrawing her legs from under his.
It was actually Sirena whose delicate face filled the little gap, wide eyes darting back and forth between Buster and Henley, their color currently a dark green on the inside, light turquoise on the outside, her lips clamped shut.
“No tails?” Nor asked from Sirena’s right, slightly obscured by the dirt tinting the part of the window that couldn’t open.
“None.”
“Yet,” Henley added fairly. “Everything okay in there? Truck gages reading okay?”
“Si,” Lindy called out above its chugging. “Not far now.”
“To the coast?” Henley was surprised—their speed was not impressive.
“Si, the seaway bridge.”
Oh. Henley let go of the excitement that had clenched her stomach. She had forgotten that Jen said there was now a whole sea forcing a schism between her and her family at the Pacific. Sea, not ocean.
“I will drop you there. I do not cross. It is a very busy bridge. You can find other help,” Lindy continued.
“And what are you going to do?” Henley inquired.
“Hopefully go back to my brother, right?” Nor said encouragingly.
“After I collect water.”
“Saltwater?” Sirena burst out, turning away from Henley and Buster at last. “For what?”
Henley could hear the shrug in Lindy’s voice even though she was still yelling. “Plumbing, cleaning, filtering into pure water.”
“You have a filter?” Henley was surprised.
“Evaporation.” Lindy’s answer was dry, disgruntled—as expected.
Repeated evaporation and distillation only got rid of so much brine. Interestingly, scientists had been working on that problem for ages with filters. The two substances were very hard to separate when mixed, intertwined.
Henley felt a little like that, overlapped as she was with Bus at the moment.
She wished she’d thought to steal some of the tech when she left BSTU and bring it with them. “I will get a filter to you when all this is over,” she vowed their reluctant aide.
“Gracias.”
“De nada.”
“Habla Espaniol?”
“Un poco. We had a Spaniard in my lab. Mostly I know the swears. He wasn’t very good at welding, no matter how often I tried to show him.” She smiled fondly. Was she actually missing her colleagues?
“You said the bridge is a major hub,” Bus said, returning them to the reason Lindy was driving them. Henley wondered if he was ever not thinking about his mission. “Are there businesses, stores? Or just traffic?”
There was a silence, presumably as Lindy thought since Sirena was looking toward their driver. “I cannot remember, I don’t usually get too close to the bridge itself. I think a few small stores for provisions. Mostly traffic.”
“Provisions? How long is this bridge?” Nor sounded discouraged.
“Over two hundred miles, I heard a fisherman there say last time.”
“Two—” Henley balked, unable to fathom the amount of civil engineering that went into constructing such a causeway without losing integrity, especially if it sustained heavy traffic as Lindy said.
She felt Ace grow stiff against her.
“That is one of the narrowest parts of the seaway.”
Nor let out a whistle at Lindy’s news.
Lindy kindly gave them more information. “It is why this area was selected for the bridge location. You have to drive much farther north to Canada to find another crossing. It widens to the south. Mi familia, we took a boat up to get here.”
“Fisherman?” Sirena was interested. “What kind of boat did you—?”
“Then you need to drop us well ahead of the bridge,” Buster superseded, deterring any fascinated, friendly small talk.
“Fine with me.” They were no loss to Lindy, who would be happy to be rid of them and get back to her family, water supplies in tow.
“Wait.” Nor pushed Sirena into the dashboard to wedge his head in the little gap, making eye contact with Buster.
His irises were startlingly blue. Henley found herself falling a little into their depths. She could see why Sirena had caved last night. He was pretty cute.
“You want us to walk the two hundred miles across the bridge?” he asked incredulous.
“Barnacles,” Sirena breathed, pushing Nor back into his place so she could see.
The two had some of the brightest eyes Henley had seen. She was stuck with lame brown; even Buster’s eyes were deep in their darkness like a black hole.
“I am not spending that long on a bridge,” Sirena informed Buster, a brave assertion.
Henley leaned sideways further to look up at Buster. He had a tick in his jaw muscle, indicating he was starting to get annoyed with their resistance again.
In this instance, she agreed. “That’s too long to be out in the open with no easy evacuation route.”
Full crew mutiny.
The look Buster gave her was almost disappointed. Had she overlooked something? She wracked her brain, trying to think if she had missed some significant detail that enabled another option. Without having seen their upcoming obstacle, it was likely. Buster hadn’t seen it either, though.
“Obviously.”
Oh. Henley dropped her gaze from his. He was disappointed that she hadn’t considered he might already be aware of that concern. She had belittled his intelligence by explaining the issue to him. She closed her mouth.
Buster pulled a little away from her. “Henley is going to steal us another car,” he announced.
Discomfort was easy to redirect into rage. “Oh, I am, am I? You’re telling me what to do again? Making me break more laws?”
“Here we go again,” Sirena sighed and started to pull the window closed.
“We’ll check back in when we’re close. I trust whatever decision you come to,” Nor told them through the crack.
“Good luck.” Sirena got the window all the way closed and turned around, settling comfortably back in her seat, Nor turning to her.
Henley was sure the good luck was for Buster. He’d need it. She had felt like he was just starting to treat her like
an equal in all this. Clearly, his superiority complex was strong enough to diminish her value even after she’d proved useful in identifying the drones, telling Lindy, who could more comfortably negotiate the crop fields, how to decommission them, generating fuel and jumping several cars already this trip. What more did a girl have to do to gain some recognition for her efforts? What did she expect from a misogynistic, antisocial, narcissistic computer geek? She’d been around enough of those to know they didn’t value women’s input or really anyone’s but their own, for that matter.
Ditching the argument, Henley swung back around, scooting as far from Buster as she could while remaining pinned in his embrace. She shut her eyes against the harsh glare of the sun, now higher in the sky, whose rays were reflecting as intended off the white cement, a marginal effort to increase the Earth’s albedo and decrease its temperature. Henley felt hot though as she began to plan.
As soon as they were dropped among heavy traffic, she was splitting.
◆◆◆
Lindy had been right; there were hundreds of people at the little town, if one could call it that, outside the bridge.
Henley was still walking a little strangely after so long in the truck bed, trying to keep up with Buster’s long strides. They weren’t in sync as they had been ambling down the gravel drive among fireflies under the moonlight.
The sun was hot, and the bodies crowded around them were stifling. The only benefit was that they easily blended into the mass after Lindy drove off, her rickety old truck turning a few heads, enabling them to slip into anonymity without ado. Everyone was moving about quickly, mostly concerned with their own errands, groups trying not to lose track of each other.