Chapter 24 - Mars
We've been on the road for a little over an hour, and by my best guess we're somewhere around halfway to the mine.
We had to backtrack once when a wreck blocked both lanes of the highway in a place where we couldn't drive through the ditches.
Thankfully it wasn't too far back to a range road that we could use to cut over and around.
We've slowed to crawl past a few more wrecks since then, but so far, we haven't seen a single moving vehicle that isn't part of our convoy.
That bothers me more with every kilometer.
Alberta is spread out enough that sections of empty roads aren't unusual once you get away from the cities, but this feels different.
No semis, no farm trucks, no families with vehicles packed to the roof trying to get somewhere safer.
There are only abandoned vehicles, long stretches of pavement, and our convoy winding through all of it.
Maybe people are hunkered down at home because the walls of home still feel safer than whatever is happening outside them.
I can understand that, especially after everything we've seen.
The other possibility is that something worse happened while we were busy surviving our own corner of this disaster, and I don't want to spend too much time imagining what that could be.
By the time we left the farm, the final vehicle shuffle had put me alone in the Jeep.
I thought I'd appreciate the quiet after the tension of the last day, but I was wrong.
I'd take Reid talking too much, Jules being an asshole, or even Gage giving directions nobody asked for if it kept me from having this much room inside my own head.
I reach for the stereo again even though I already know what I'm going to get.
FM has been dead since we left the farm, every station nothing but static, while AM lasted a little longer.
For the first twenty minutes, pieces of broadcasts faded in and out between bursts of interference.
A clipped emergency announcement, someone talking about ash, a strained report about highway closures, then half a sentence from a station too far away for me to identify before that signal disappeared too.
Now every frequency gives me the same hiss, and after another pass through the dial I finally snap it off. The sudden quiet should be better, but without the static filling the Jeep my thoughts go exactly where I've been trying to keep them from going.
Luna has been in my head almost every minute since yesterday.
Keeping my distance from her is the right thing to do, and I know that even when every part of me wants the opposite.
Yesterday tore both of us open in ways neither of us expected, and she deserves time to process what she learned without me hovering around her waiting for her to change her mind.
I meant the promise I made to myself in her bedroom.
I'll prove I can stay, prove I can be useful, and prove I deserve a place beside the people I abandoned.
That holds even if the only place Luna ever gives me is as one more friend in the group.
Knowing what I need to do doesn't make it any easier though after spending years missing her from a distance, only to finally get her back within reach, and then force myself not to push for more.
Every instinct I have still turns toward her. I see that cinnamon hair and remember it spread across my pillow. I look at her mouth and know exactly how it feels under mine, which makes keeping my hands to myself a special kind of hell I fully deserve.
The part I wasn't prepared for is seeing her relationships with the guys.
I knew they were close with her. They helped pull her back together after the accident while I was busy running from what I thought I'd done, and they were there for every ugly day I should have been there too.
I'm not stupid enough to resent them for that.
But what I am starting to realize is how little I actually know about what happened between all of them while I was gone.
I saw her at the farm when color climbed straight into her cheeks, Gage had been in a foul mood for the better part of an hour, and Jules looked pleased enough with himself to get punched on principle.
I know my girl. Every version of that blush is familiar to me, and that one had more behind it than embarrassment over some stupid joke between friends.
Something happened, but I don't know whether it happened with Gage or Jules.
Maybe Gage, because the way he watches her has changed, or maybe I'm only finally noticing what was there all along.
Then again, Jules looked so fucking satisfied with himself that I wanted to wipe the grin off his face, and Luna could barely look at either of them without turning pink.
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel until the leather creaks, and the question I've been avoiding digs in harder.
If Luna ends up with one of my friends, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?
Smile and tell them I'm happy while another man touches her the way I remember touching her, then watch her build the life I wanted with somebody I used to call a brother?
For her, I want to believe I could handle it because she deserves whatever makes her happy. Where I'm concerned, I have no fucking idea, and the uncertainty twists through my gut as another thought follows it. Would I even be able to stay with the group if I had to watch that every day?
The answer to that one has to be yes, no matter how much it hurts.
Leaving cannot be my answer again. I already proved what running costs, and if she chooses Gage, Jules, or anyone else, then it's her choice.
Punishing her for it by disappearing isn't something I get to do, even if staying tears me apart.
That's easy enough to promise myself when it's still only a possibility. I don't know what I'll feel if I ever have to see it become real. Before I can dig any deeper into that particular nightmare, the walkie clipped to the dash crackles hard enough to make me jump.
"Rest stop ahead in three klicks," Anders says through the speaker. "We're pulling over for bathroom breaks. Ten minutes to stretch your legs."
Relief loosens my grip on the wheel. I pull the walkie out of the clip and key it.
"Copy."
Voices answer behind me one after another as the message moves back through the convoy. I set the radio back in place and roll my shoulders, flexing stiff fingers that have been strangling the steering wheel for too long.
A few minutes later, Anders signals and turns off the highway.
The rest stop has one of those long parking stretches built for transport trucks.
Normally there would be semis lined end to end, drivers sleeping in their cabs or crossing the lot toward the washrooms. Today there isn't a single truck in sight, and no cars either.
Empty pavement surrounds a squat concrete restroom building and a few picnic tables, and nothing on the whole lot is moving.
Anders pulls to the far end where there's enough room for all the trailers, and the rest of us line up behind him so nobody has to jockey around when we leave.
I park the Jeep and climb out, grateful to straighten my legs while doors open all down the row.
Kids spill out of the neighbors' trucks, half the adults head straight for the restroom building, and Penny races toward a patch of grass with Mikey and Josh chasing after her.
I scan the place for a vending machine, coffee kiosk, or anything else that might contain caffeine, but there's nothing except washrooms, garbage cans, and picnic tables.
After seeing Luna in the middle of that bed with my best friends last night, sleep hadn't been high on the list of things my brain was willing to let me do.
Currently, I'd happily trade something valuable for a cup of coffee.
"Fuck, I need caffeine."
Gage walks over from the motorhome and drops one hand on my shoulder. "You good, man?"
The question still catches me off guard coming from him.
Things between us are better than they were, but better doesn't mean fixed, and after everything I dropped into their lives yesterday I wouldn't blame him for keeping me at arm's length.
I nod and rub both hands over my face before looking back at him.
"Yeah. Tired as hell, though. I'd kill for a coffee right now."
He jerks his chin toward the motorhome.
"I can fix that. Elenor put the Keurig in there. Grab a travel mug from the cupboard above it and make a cup. Pods are in the one beside it."
I stare at him. "There's a Keurig in the apocalypse bus?"
"Motorhome."
"I don't care what you call it. That's the best offer I’ve had all day."
A short laugh breaks through his tired expression. "Go before she decides it needs rationing and starts charging by the cup."
"She'd do it too."
"Absolutely."
I head over and climb the motorhome steps, only to stop just inside when I realize Luna is already there. She's at the small counter checking one of the slow cookers they filled with chili, clamping the lid back into place after giving it a stir.
For one stupid second, seeing her wipes every other thought out of my head. The surprise in her green eyes matches my own, and I stay near the steps instead of moving farther into the narrow space.
"Oh. Sorry. Gage said I could make a coffee. I'll grab it and get out of your way."
"Sure, coffee. Help yourself."
She turns back toward the slow cooker even though the lid is already secure, while I move to the Keurig and keep as much space between us as the little kitchen allows. I pull a mug from the cupboard above it before opening the next one.
Neither of us knows what to say, and that uncertainty fills every inch between us. Luna adjusts the same slow-cooker lid again while I give three boxes of coffee pods far more consideration than any of them deserve, until she finally releases a long breath.
"This isn't going to work, Mars."