Heat shimmered over the hood and turned the cracked stripes on the highway into snakes.
Sera kept the wheel steady with two fingers and let the truck eat asphalt. Weeds grew tall from the center seam and slapped the undercarriage every hundred yards. The windshield wore a spider of cracks in the top left corner that caught the sun and threw little stars into her eyes.
She narrowed her eyes and rolled her shoulders once. Everything held.
She had decided to take the truck that the General's man had left behind after his unexpected death. None of them wanted to leave something so valuable behind, not when there was no guarantee that the other two vehicles would hold up on the trip to O City in Region O.
Luci occupied the bench beside her like a furry mountain, his chin on the window frame, and his nose taking in the world as if it had messages only he knew about.
