My Pleasure, Darling

30: Time for Bad-Assery

Andrea never asks what just happened outside the car. I don't know whether her silence makes me feel better or worse. She just sits in the back, silent as the grave, looking out the window. She shouldn't have to live like this. She shouldn't have to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself, shouldn't have to sit in a car for so long her butt goes numb, she shouldn't have to be cooped up like this.

I realise that I can't afford this kind of sympathy, as we get onto the alternative freeway and the horizon stretches out, taunting us, getting ever-nearer as we are now officially alone on the road. You can see the line of red on that horizon. This is what we must do to keep her alive. She doesn't understand the gravity of it right now, and she probably won't for a very, very long time. She may one day resent us greatly for it. If that happens, it will just have to be a burden I'll bear. It's easier than trying to explain to her how serious the danger is. What the nomads will do if they get their hands on her.

The freeway doesn't immediately devolve into total ruin. Once we passed the Go Back, Turn Around, You Are Leaving Lamyra, Nomad Territories Ahead, Beware signs that dot our path, I for some reason expected the asphalt to dissolve under our wheels immediately. It doesn't.

The surrounds slip quickly, though: Lamyrian forests make way for bare dirt where nothing grows, then tiny grains of sand, as white as snow, that slowly develop their colour to something altogether darker, more foreboding, dirty and red as rust. The bushes and trees thin out and give way to other plants that don't require so much water, that can survive in the barren desert conditions. There are mountains in the distance you can see now, since there are no trees, and their colour is a stark contrast to what is before us.

Eventually, sand is across our path. I had worried that the road would entirely cease to exist, but now that I think about it, that's a bit ridiculous. Nomad Territories were once a single, shimmering country of its own, centuries ago, before the world lost itself to fire and ruin and hate in the suffering before vampires came out of their hiding holes. It had all the infrastructure of Lamyra, possibly even more. And it's not like the nomads never use the roads, it's just that their vehicles are better equipped to cope off-road in the dunes.

Nomad territory is bad enough. Nomad territory in the blazing summer sun is a downright pain. Felix cranks the AC, but I don't know how much it will help. I stare at nothing, thinking carefully about the water we have available. There's got to be at least thirty, maybe forty litres. If we forego any washing, we should have enough to drink by the time we reach Kilea.

There is a sign post in the middle of this abandoned high way. We whip past it so fast in Felix' frenzy that I don't entirely see the details of it, but there is a sinking feeling in my stomach as my mind catches up with the half-second glimpse my eyes got. Not that. Please, let it not be that. My head turns, as if I will be able to see it from the other side.

It's not any official, ancient sign that was here when the territories were still the Kingdom of Oncia – it's one the nomads have placed there. And if I didn't know any better, I'd have said it was a red skull and yellow bones on a white board.

Felix wants to ask what grasped my attention, but he doesn't. I don't volunteer the information. Maybe I'm wrong, and there's no use in upsetting him if I am. Hopefully I am.

Minutes in, I try to return to normal, for Andrea's sake. Kids can feel tension in the air, and it's not fair on her to keep it up for days and nights on end. If she has a meltdown, if she reaches her limit to where she cannot cope with what is going on, we can't stop in the middle of nomad country to comfort her. I read to her, we sing together. Felix joins in now and then, though I can tell he is strained from trying to focus on the road. But soon, I run out of material. How do you entertain a little girl? I'm clueless.