Daniel jiggled on his feet, his attention going from the restroom door back to her. “I’ll go with you,” he said, eyes pinched in worry as she came around the front of the truck and headed in.
“Ah . . .” Quen stood beside the truck, fingers pressed into his forehead as he looked at the pump. “Either of you know how to turn this thing on?”
Daniel jerked to a stop. “You don’t know how to pump gas?”
“I don’t, actually,” Quen said.
Trisk touched Daniel’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure the pump is on.”
Nodding, Daniel returned to the truck, and Trisk went inside. “Hello?” she called, smiling when a kid came out from the back. He was about fourteen, dressed in overalls and tatty sneakers. “Are you open?” she asked, and he nodded, seeming nervous as he looked past her to the two men managing the pump.
“I’m not allowed to pump gas,” he said, voice cracking. “I’m the only one here, though.”
“I think they have it,” she said, glancing at a bucket of melted ice and bottles of Coke. “I’ll take three,” she said.
“Sure.” The kid looked relieved to be doing something as he carefully rang up the bottles, waiting to total it out until he knew how much gas they took.
“Are you okay?” she finally asked, and his eyes darted nervously up at her.
“I was supposed to go home two hours ago,” he said, fidgeting. “But Amos went home sick, and Evan never came in. I don’t have a key to lock up.”
Her smile froze. How did it get here so fast? “Well, that’s good for us, then,” she said. “Otherwise, we’d have to wait until morning to fill up.”
He smelled faintly of redwood, and the wooden nickel he had on a cord around his neck was probably an amulet. He was a witch, and a knot of worry in her eased. He, at least, would be spared. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” she asked, and he shook his head, attention flicking behind her as Daniel came in.
“I can walk home, but if I leave the shop open, Amos will tan my hide.”
If he survives, she thought as Daniel looked at the wet bottles on the counter. “We filled both tanks. It came out to seven sixty,” he said. “You want to get some coffee at the diner?”
“And maybe something to eat,” she said as the kid punched it in.
“Nine dollars and three cents with the soda,” he said, and Daniel reached for his wallet.
“I’ve got this if you want to use the restroom.”
“I’ll wait for the diner’s,” she said. “You don’t happen to have a phone, do you?” she asked the kid, now carefully counting out the change.
“Next to the restroom,” he said, and Trisk gave Daniel a touch on his arm before going to find it. She didn’t want to look like the chicken crying, “The sky is falling!” but Sa’han Ulbrine needed to know. Warn people.
Her sneakers were eerily silent on the old cement as she looked around the side of the building for the public phone. The light was out above it, but she could see well enough, and after spotting Quen reclined against the side of the truck, she dropped in a dime.
She knew his number by heart, and she turned, looking up and down the quiet street as the phone rang. The neon hummed over the bowling alley, but the lot was empty. Two cars and a semi lingered at the diner, but apart from that, no one was around. Eerie, she thought.
“Hello?” a nasal woman’s voice said when the connection finally went through, and Trisk pressed the receiver tighter against her ear.
“I’d like to talk to Sa’han Ulbrine, please. It’s an emergency. I’m calling long-distance. It’s—Dr. Felecia Cambri,” she added, hating the name but not wanting any misconception that might get her brushed off.
“Just a moment, please. I’ll see if he’s available. He might have left for the weekend.”
“Please,” Trisk blurted out. “It’s an emergency, and I need to talk to him.”
“I’ll see if I can find him,” the woman said again, and then there was a sharp click as the receiver was put down. The phone dinged for her attention, and she dropped in another dime. Daniel came out with the dripping sodas, and she turned her back on him, hoping he’d go to the truck.
She caught herself before she chewed on a fingernail, making a fist instead as she waited. The town looked empty, but it was hard to know if this was normal for a Friday night or if sick people were becoming sicker.
As she watched, a family pulled into the diner. Three kids boiled out of the long station wagon, then the dad, followed by the mom with a toddler in hand and another on her hip, cajoling the kids to behave. It looked like a slice of Americana, but she was betting they were Weres by the way the kids ranged out and back, the father watching the near area for trouble and the mother doing the same on the horizon. Though belonging as much as anyone else on the continent, they stuck out in a way they never had before, the slight differences telling with no humans to blur the lines.
Trisk’s brow furrowed when the kids found the door to the diner locked. Her voice loud, the mother corralled them all back in the wagon while they decided what to do.