Alex went into the rest stop to see if there was anything fast and tasty he could bring back for everyone. Lori had come back and not-so-subtly hinted at wanting some donuts. Once she mentioned it, I wanted some too. Even a cheap donut was hard to mess up, so I was really hoping that Alex could find some in there, or find anything appropriately unhealthy. It gave him a chance to stretch his legs after driving for so long too, which was only fair. He tried to stretch on the side of the car, thinking we wouldn’t see him do it.
“Sorry that I don’t have my license,” I said. It didn’t feel right that only those two had to drive such a long way.
“Nah, it’s better that you practice with your Anomaly anyway. Leave the driving to us.” Lori smiled at me. She put her arms above her head and stretched, making her back pop a few times. “I thought I was going to die in there.”
“Leader or not, when nature calls, it calls” I said. “Anomalies can’t fix a full bladder. Scratch that, there’s probably one that can. I don’t want to think about that one.”
I liked the little rest spot. It was like the rest stops that I saw in movies, but instead of being a dreary and rundown place where teenagers got murdered or kidnapped to get murdered, it was up to date. The winter scenery was beautiful, so it had to be stunning in the summer. The trees around me had a bit more color on them despite the chill biting at every living thing around, and a gentle fog rolling over them gave them a cozy look in the sunlight.
“Well, actually-”
“Nope, like I said, don’t want to know,” I said, putting my hands up and cutting her off. “Whatever it is, good for them. Let’s just leave it at that.”
I thought about repeating what I did to those hockey pucks in training to a nearby tree branch to get some practice in. When two more cars pulled in the parking lot, I decided against it. Secrecy wasn’t outrighted demanded of us or anything, but when I thought about the social situation, getting caught like that would have been beyond stupid. I felt really great after three hours of practice, though. I was eager for some more and Lori picked up on it.
“Dang, you’re ready to go, aren’t you?”
“I want to get better with my power. If Alex is the only one who can really fight with an ability, that’s a problem.” I cringed after I realized that I insulted her fighting capability. “Not saying that you can’t do anything, but Alex is definitely suited for actual fighting.”
Lori brushed it off with a laugh and a wave. “None taken. I think once we get back to Luna, I’m going to learn how to use a gun. Shelly is smart for having one and it really got me considering it after I was held at gunpoint. Alex is the only one of us three that can punch his way out of something, and it’s not always the right way to go about it, but McLeod is a lot of punch himself. We need every advantage we can get. I’m not a boy who breaks six feet either, so I especially need every advantage I can get.”
“Shelly absolutely knows how to use hers.” I nodded in agreement, both at the idea of Lori having better defense for herself, and my sister’s own ability to use a firearm. “You should ask her for some help. You’re both similar sizes, she’s only a few years older than you, and she likes you. She won’t admit it, but I bet she’d like to have a girlfriend to bond with, especially over guns.”
She tried in vain to keep from beaming at the chance. I was pretty sure that she was better socially than she gave herself credit for, but her shortage of friends probably made the prospect of making a new one better, even if their relationship did start off rocky. Lori was so earnest about trying to get more people in her life that I really hoped she could nab Alex. It was so disappointing that I couldn’t be a better wingman for her.
“Hey! I got two dozen!” We looked up to see Alex walking toward us with two large boxes from a donut chain. I could already feel the pains in my stomach from how much fried dough and sugar there was.
“Two dozen?” I whispered to Lori. “It’s not a school field trip. Is Luna paying for this?”
“Yeah, so shut up and let me enjoy,” she replied, elbowing me gently in the side. “If you don’t want any, I’ll eat them all.”
Alex brought the boxes up to us and Lori was very eager to open them. She picked out three that she liked and wolfed down the first two, leaving pink icing all over her face. Lori and I laughed while Alex just sighed like a grumpy dad. He handed her some napkins and climbed into the seat I previously occupied. Right before he closed the door, he called back to us, “You’re up, short stuff. I’m going to take a nap.”
Lori blushed at what he called her, awkwardly shuffling her feet. She took the driver’s seat while I slid on the passenger’s seat. I made sure that Alex had an ample amount of leg room while Lori adjusted the seat to better accommodate her height. She was all smiles with her feet being unable to touch the pedals for the longest time. I was about to say something, but she stopped me, still smiling wide. “I would not say anything about my height, so I hope you were about to offer me another donut.”
Wisely keeping my mouth shut, I handed her a fourth donut at her recommendation. Behind me, Alex hit some buttons, and a thin layer of a glass-like material rose between the front seats and the back. Any sound that he made was silenced, and I assumed it was the same his way. That was awesome for a nap. The material was hardly noticeable too, and if I hadn’t seen it gone up, I probably wouldn’t be aware of it. “Will that make it hard to drive?”
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Lori checked all her mirrors and the divider before shaking her head. “Shouldn’t. If it was dangerous, I don’t think Luna would have let it be installed in one of their vehicles. I wonder how it works if we tried to recline...”
We hit the road again and I thought that more practice would be good. For my next go around, I made two shields that covered both hands and wrists. If I focused really hard, I could get both of them to stretch about halfway up my forearm. The coverage area didn’t excite me, but being able to make and maintain separate barriers did. Deciding that being able to cover my entire body in a protective energy was as good a start as any, I put most of my concentration into just maintaining both.
Beads of sweat formed on my brow after only a few minutes. Having to split my attention for both of them was way more exhausting than I thought it was going to be. The annoying tingle in my head returned while the barriers wavered in stability. Not eager to see what might happen if I let one go from overexertion, I slowly willed away the left one.
The relief was felt immediately and the right barrier stopped wavering, though I went ahead and shut that one down too. I was still a long way off from making a full-body shield, but this was a start. If nothing else, if I needed to thrust my hands into fire or something similar, being able to hold two barriers for a few minutes might prevent serious harm. I rubbed the base of my skull to see if I could feel anything different with my fingers, but there was nothing out of the ordinary on the outside. I checked my nose again to make sure I wasn’t bleeding again. Thankfully, my hand came away dry.
“How long is this trip?” I asked. I took a long drink from my water bottle and lowered the temperature of the AC on my side. I slid my seat forward a bit so I could recline it some and relax. “I’ve never really done a road trip before.”
“I think it should be about seventeen hours from our starting point to the first set of caves I want to check out,” Lori said. She looked at her phone that was displaying a GPS application with an estimated time. “Eh, we took twenty minutes longer to get to Pennsylvania than I hoped. The stop didn’t help. We should be getting into Scranton soon.”
“Wait, we’re in Pennsylvania?” I asked. “When did that happen?”
“New York’s not that big, and it’s not like we had to go through Manhattan through rush hour.” Lori checked the GPS one more time and swiped her phone a couple times, but she did make sure that there weren’t any cars right next to her. “Hm, at least this doesn’t have us going through Pittsburgh.” She let the bit about Pittsburgh hang in the air, like she was waiting for someone else to comment on it. Her knuckles were white from her grip on the steering wheel, so whatever she was thinking, they weren’t happy thoughts.
“Do you want to stop in Pittsburgh?” I asked, trying to figure out what she wanted to do.
“I don’t even know if they’re letting people in,” she replied. It was a good point. Even if they wanted to, I wasn’t sure how well they’d be able to prevent entry into a city-sized area that soon after a colossal attack. Sure, they could legally prevent it, but there was no way to really stop people from getting in. “I don’t want to go...but I think we should go if we can.”
“I don’t really disagree with you,” I admitted. It was a terrifying idea to visit a city that had been completely wiped out. It still felt like I needed to. I hadn’t really been exposed to the extent of what McLeod and his guys could do, so it would make for a firsthand reality check. Plus, it felt appropriate to pay my respects to those who perished, since my powers made me feel connected to the whole thing. “Yeah, I think we should try to go.”
“I just wish we had been more prepared,” Lori said, quietly enough that I thought she might’ve been talking to herself. “We’ve been so sheltered from the true horrors of everything that I’m still having trouble coming to grips with it. Rory is someone I’ll never get back, and I know that, but I still think that he’ll just pop in with a funny joke one day. It’s as if my brain hasn’t quite recognized he’s gone.
“And that’s when I feel myself getting angry, Ethan. Every day I get so upset that I want to punch a wall, cry into a pillow, or both. I’ve always been a little on the moody side because I let everyone’s feelings that I can sense get to me, but I’ve never felt this kind of rage before. It scares me, and I want you to keep an eye on me. I trust your judgment and your heart to make up for mine when they fail.”
I was having trouble finding the words to respond. I could tell she had anger spikes, especially when she saw that black-armored knight. Even though I had trouble relating, since the closest trauma I could compare hers to was watching my parents get killed, I nodded. Where she felt anger was probably where I felt guilt. I looked out the window and saw a sign that told me the next three exits would put us in Scranton. “Does Alex know about how upset you get?”
Lori shook her head with a sad smile on her face. “Nope, and I don’t want him to. I want to show him that I can make the right choices to keep him safe. If he knows about how I can be hindered because of my feelings like that...” I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. Lori frowned and I thought that she was legitimately upset at me. Thankfully, she did pause to give me a chance to explain myself.
“I’m sorry, but it’s just a fun thought to me. He’s so stoic and well-suited for physical combat that it was a nice image in my head. Well, stoic when he isn’t losing to Rosie in a sparring match.”
She did a quick look in the rearview mirror to make sure he was asleep and hadn’t lowered the divider. “Of course you’d want to protect someone you...have feelings for. If I could make it so he never had to face an ounce of danger or hardship, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Aw, that’s just about the most tender thing you’ve ever said,” I teased, which did pull her a bit out of her depressed state. I took a look behind me at the handsome guy, and he did seem to look more vulnerable than I was expecting. Maybe that was just because he was asleep. “Looks aside, I’m still not sure I get the appeal.”
“He really is a good guy,” Lori insisted. “I know that he stresses easy and isn’t the best at expressing how he feels. I think that’s why I noticed him to begin with. All the emotions I could see and take in, I sort of craved the stability and calm he puts out, you know?” She smirked at me. “But now that you’ve ruined the mood, you can sit there in silence for a bit. Pittsburgh is a few hours away.”