Trisk sat with her shoulder against the open door, her legs stretched out before the edge. She’d braided her hair back, and the stray strands tickled her neck. It was cold now that the sun was down, but the air was decidedly fresher at the edge, and she could ignore for a moment the awful truth being played out in the dark boxcar behind her.
A pale light still lingered in the sky, washing out all but the strongest stars. The steady click-click, click-click had long ago retreated to a background noise, but the feel of it vibrated through her like a massive heartbeat. They were traveling through spacious fields of cultivation, and Trisk pulled her blanket closer against the damp rising from the night-cooled earth.
A racking cough drew her attention to the shadowed end of the boxcar. Daniel had helped the boys, both between the ages of six and ten, to build a makeshift hearth on the floor of the car out of a huge glass bowl. The slat-wood box the bowl had come in was currently being burned within it, the fitful flames lighting the tired, blister-marked faces surrounding it. Hunger and cold had pushed them into becoming thieves as they searched for something to eat. That Quen might be huddled alone somewhere gnawed at her, and she played with her necklace, missing him.
The back of her head seemed to itch, and she turned to see that Kal was watching her from his far corner. Eyes narrowed, she let go of the worked gold and looked away before he mistook her glance as interest. He’d been there from almost the very moment they’d pulled themselves into the moving car, settling his pristine black slacks on a piece of cardboard to try to keep himself clean. He’d slept most of the day while the sun was high, but she figured his traditional elven sleep pattern was more about avoiding any questions she might ask rather than the opportunity to slip from a human schedule to the elves’ natural crepuscular rhythm. Pixies were the same way. Trisk couldn’t believe he’d blame Rick and the vampires, but there was enough possibility of it being true to make her keep her mouth shut. Sa’han Ulbrine could decide.
Vampires were known to be bat-shit crazy, especially the older ones, and the younger went along with them as if their word was God’s. Besides, it had been hammered into Trisk from an early age that her opinion held very little weight, even with the facts to back it up. Sa’han Ulbrine had the clout to make a difference, while her words would be dismissed as those of a crackpot.
The harsh ripping of cardboard pulled her attention back to the paper fire. Daniel was using his short lab knife to open up one of the more promising boxes. His brown trousers and soft tweed vest made him look almost frumpy compared to Kal’s sharper image, and she smiled when he pushed his glasses back up his nose and brushed his blond hair back, making room for the two boys when they clustered close to pull out the packing paper and see what was inside. A little girl with dark hair was right in the thick of it, her arm clutched around a hard plastic doll with white hair, an impossibly thin waist, and an equally impossibly big chest.
The girl watched the boys pull out the paper stuffing as if it were Christmas. But then her expression fell. “Oh no,” her high voice rose in complaint when it turned out to be another cheap decorative knickknack piece of glass.
“That’s okay, April,” Daniel said, his hand consolingly atop her head as the boys began enthusiastically dismantling the box. “It just means more paper for the fire.”
Nodding, April looked to the edge of the light where they had stacked a row of boxes to give the sickest some privacy. Behind it, someone was crying.
Uneasy, Trisk drew her long sweater coat close. Apart from her, Kal, and Daniel, all but two of the adults in the car were showing signs of the virus, and she was proud of Daniel’s bravery as he made sure those who were sick were being tended and that the kids were distracted.
The scuff of a shoe brought her attention back to Kal, and she pulled her knees to her chest, startled when he sat down beside her with a heavy sigh, casually dangling his feet out of the car.
“Do you think he told them the toxin is coming from a tomato?” he asked softly, and she looked past him to the cluster of people. One of the men was vomiting out the far side of the car, his wife standing beside him, her arm over his back as she silently wept. Daniel was doggedly trying to keep the kids distracted, but Trisk was sure their bright voices as they played with the fire were only an act so they could pretend nothing was wrong for a few hours more.
She shrugged, feeling her throat close at the pain she could do nothing to stop.
Kal scooted closer. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think any of them will be alive tomorrow.”