Voyage (Powerless Nation #2) (19 page)

It had all seemed a lot more doable when she was trying to convince her mom to make the trip. Now that she was faced with going alone, she didn’t think she could do it. 

Additionally, Sena wasn’t sure Claire and Ted really wanted her around. Once they got home they would focus on getting back to normal life with their daughter and they wouldn’t want another mouth to feed, let alone another difficult teen.

To be honest, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be with them either. She couldn’t help blaming them a little for her mom’s death. Songyee had thought Sena would be better off with them. Would she still have killed herself if she didn’t think Sena had somewhere else to go? If only Claire hadn’t hugged her in front of Songyee, and begged her to come.

Sena’s anger at Claire boiled up. How did she think it would make Songyee feel, to see someone trying to take away her own daughter right in front of her? And what did Claire have to offer her anyway? A bed in the barn? A second fiddle role to her own daughter? Claire had said they didn’t get along. Would anyone welcome Sena when her presence would likely only make that relationship more complicated?

She decided her best option was to stay in the Clark home for the winter. She’d stash the food and water somewhere people wouldn’t think to look for them, and then see if she could make the house more secure. If someone broke in she would hide until they left.

Sena sighed and thought about how much work it was going to be to move all the food and find hiding places for it. She decided she deserved one day to recuperate from her ordeal. There was a stack of library books on her desk upstairs and she longed to lose herself in a story and forget about her problems, if only for an afternoon.

Five minutes later, she was curled up on her bed with a book, a bag of chips and a can of warm soda. She’d also found a working flashlight for when it got dark. 

She just wanted one normal day. Was that too much to ask? She would get back to the business of survival tomorrow.

It wasn’t until Sena awoke at dusk from a long nap that she realized she’d made a big mistake. A normal day in her post-EMP world meant a constant fight for survival while never relaxing her vigilance. She had tried to justify a fantasy world of naps and library books back into existence, but it was turning out to be a normal day for her after all.

She could hear someone in the house.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

F
OOTSTEPS
SOUNDED
AT
THE
bottom of the stairs, and she knew they’d find her soon. She sat up, heart pounding, and eyes darting all around her room. Where could she hide? The closet was probably her best bet, but it was so obvious.

Why had she been so careless? Planning for a break-in should have been the first thing she did. Now she was going to lose all of her supplies, and maybe her life if she didn’t hurry up and get her act together.

She gingerly stepped toward the closet, praying the floor wouldn’t creak, when a voice right outside her door practically made her lose control of her bladder.

“Sena, are you up here?”

Kade
?

Sena’s legs turned to flan and she wasn’t sure they’d hold her up any more. She sat down quickly on the bed, which squeaked loudly.

“Is that you, Sena?” asked Kade, opening the door and pointing a flashlight right in her face.

She blocked the bright beam and complained, “Put that down, it’s not dark yet. You’re wasting batteries.”

The blinding light was gone and Kade had her in a tight bear hug. “She’s up here!” he hollered, right next to her ear.

Before she knew it, she was being passed from one hug to another. It was kind of nice, though she was sorry not to see Danny and Lydia. “Did they really go to Seattle?”

Ted nodded. “We tried to talk them out of it, but there was no changing Lydia’s mind. Thank goodness you’re safe. You don’t know what kind of a scare you gave us.”

“You think you were scared,” said Sena. Her heart was still racing. “Try having someone break into your house.” 

“We thought you were dead,” said Kade.

“What? How come?”

“Maybe it was because the last place we saw you was a smoldering pile of rubble when we stopped by this afternoon.”

“Oh, right.” For a few minutes Sena had forgotten about the fire and Conley. And her mother. 

Sorrow washed over her again. The bed creaked as Claire sat next to her, and Sena looked across into her eyes.

“Did anyone make it out besides you?” Claire asked gently.

Sena shook her head and let her hair hide her face.

“Why did it blow up, anyway?” said Kade. “Some kind of bomb? Was it the Koreans again? I’ve been thinking about them and I don’t think they were just terrorists. I think they were it. You know. The guys behind all this.”

Ted said, “Not now. Save your conspiracy theories for when we’re back on the road.”

“Are we stopping here for the night?”

Sena was surprised to see Ted and Kade interacting normally. Even respectfully. She wondered what had happened at Kade’s house and why he was here with Claire and Ted.

Ted looked at Claire, who nodded. “I think that would be a good idea. We can load up the bikes tomorrow, and be on our way. Do you have a bike here, Sena?”

Sena felt a familiar warmth in her cheeks as frustration at being taken for granted brought hot tears to her eyes. She almost gave one of her typical, self-effacing responses but then her anger bubbled to the surface.

“Why does everyone assume I’ll do what you tell me to do? Did you ever think maybe I have my own plans and they don’t include going with you or outfitting your expedition?”

Claire's voice was soothing. “No one is going to steal your food or make you come with us. Just think it over tonight and you can decide in the morning.”

Sena was itching for a fight and didn’t check the words that spilled freely from her lips. “Why do you want me? So in case things don’t work out with your real daughter you can use me as a backup?” She got a wicked satisfaction from Claire's flinch. “Well, maybe I don’t want another failure of a mother in my life, if that’s all right with you.”

“That’s enough,” said Ted, in a tight voice.

Claire gave him a slight shake of her head and stood up. “We’ll see you in the morning. I hope you’ll decide to come with us.” She sounded worn out. “I’m not that great of a mom, you’re right about that.”

Everyone filed out and left Sena to punch her pillow and try to figure out why she always screwed everything up.

A little while later there was a knock on her door. It was Kade.

“Hey listen,” he said, leaning awkwardly on the door frame of her room, “I wanted to say I’m sorry I was such a jerk.”

“Which time?” asked Sena.

“I know I deserve that,” he said. “All of them, I guess.”

“Why are you being so nice all of a sudden? In fact, why are you here? I thought you’d be with your family.”

“They split,” he said. “We stopped by my house and they were gone. No note or anything, they just packed up all the food and took off I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sena.

Kade shrugged. “We weren’t that close anyway. Ted’s been more of a dad to me than my old man ever was. It took my family abandoning me before I could see it.”

Sena could hear the hurt in Kade’s voice.

“Ted agreed to let bygones be bygones and give me another chance. I guess we’ll see how it goes. So far so good.” He took a deep breath. “We stopped by Charity’s house too, did you hear?”

Sena shook her head. “Were they home?”

“Yep. Hardest thing I ever had to do,” Kade said. “I don’t really want to talk about it, but I thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks for doing that.”

“I told her I would, you know? It was the least I could do.”

“Well, I’d better get to bed.” There was a pause and then Kade said, “There was one more thing I wanted to tell you. I was lying when I said you were a like a stranger to me. It’s actually the opposite. You’re like family. I’ll miss you if you don’t come with us tomorrow.”

And with that, he turned and went out of her room.

Sena laid back down on her bed. She had a lot to think about.

The next morning she found Claire and Ted in the kitchen eating cold instant oatmeal and poring over a map. “I guess I’ll come with you,” she said.

She’d thought long and hard about her options the previous night, and after experiencing what it would be like to have someone break into her house she decided she didn’t want to spend the winter alone. Though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt a closeness with Ted, Claire and Kade that she didn’t want to give up. 

Despite that, she was still angry at Claire and resented her for her mom’s death. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but it was better than thinking it was all her own fault.

“How did you guys find me here anyway? I didn’t think anyone had this address.”

“It was in your mom’s address book. We found it in the glove box of a car parked behind the house.”

Claire was about to say something else, but Sena never found out what it was because at that moment an engine roared to life and Kade whooped and hollered from the garage.

The Clarks’ six-year-old Toyota Highlander still worked! They quickly turned it off and discussed how it might change their plans. They had hundreds of extremely difficult miles ahead of them, and with a working car they might be able to make the journey in a day or two, saving themselves weeks or even months of travel.

The excitement was contagious and Sena found herself smiling as they loaded food, water and camping gear into the back of the vehicle. They tied the bikes to the roof of the car in a tangled heap in case they ran out of gas and couldn’t get any more.

Sena ran upstairs with a plastic garbage bag and thought about what to take. She filled the bag with toiletries and first aid supplies, and then stopped in the doorway of her room. 

Sunlight fell across the bed, reminding her of the many Sunday mornings she’d tried to sleep in but Tessa and Jamie had different plans. They had jumped on her, giggling, and insisted she’d come downstairs and cook pancakes for them.

Sena sighed, knowing she’d probably never be back in this house again. What would life be like in Lookout Falls? Would she ever fit into a family again?

She gathered a few changes of clothes and looked around one last time. She didn’t have much, so there wasn’t much to take. She saw a copy of her favorite book,
A Wrinkle in Time,
on her desk and grabbed that too. The worn copy belonged to her, not the library, and she couldn’t leave it behind. 

Before she left, she snapped a photo of her room. Even though she knew it was unlikely she’d be able to develop the film any time soon, somehow it made her feel better about leaving.

On her way downstairs, she stopped in Ross and Jodie’s room and took a good pair of hiking boots out of Jodie’s closet and a couple of flannel shirts and some thermal underwear.

In the garage, everyone was waiting while Ted looked around with a flashlight for the manual release for the garage door.

“It would be just our luck if we found a working car and then couldn’t get it out of the garage,” said Kade.

With a loud squeak, the door rolled up and light streamed in.

“All right troops, let’s hit the road,” said Ted, and with high spirits, they headed for Highway 20.

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
HE
DRIVE
WAS
A
lot easier than any of them had been expecting. A couple of months had passed since the EMP, so previous travelers had done most of the hard work of clearing stalled and abandoned vehicles from the roadway. Although they had to detour off road sometimes for a semi or long-forgotten car accident, the Highlander managed it without difficulty.

They saw other travelers occasionally; most were in cars or trucks too, while a few rode bikes or walked.

As they neared the mountains, rain beat down on the windshield, and they no longer saw any foot traffic. If people lived in the towns they passed, they weren’t outside. The small communities felt like ghost towns. 

Dull gray clouds blocked the view of the mountains, and the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers lulled Sena to sleep. She didn’t awaken until a few hours later when they slowed to a stop next to several vehicles on the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Sena.

“We’re getting low on gas,” said Ted.

Sena looked out the window at the desolate stretch of road. “In case you didn’t notice, this isn’t a gas station.”

Ted teased her. “Well, I’ll be darned, you’re right. Good thing I’ve got a back-up plan.”

“Are you going to try and siphon gas?” asked Kade. “I’ve got to see this.”

“Siphon gas?” Sena queried.

“He’s going to try to take the gas out of these cars and put it in the Highlander,” Claire explained.

“And he’s gonna get a mouthful of it in the process,” said Kade, rubbing his hands together in gleeful expectation.

“Wanna bet?” asked Ted.

“Heck yeah. I siphoned gas out of my mom’s car once, I know how it works.”

Sena raised her eyebrows at Kade. “You stole your mom’s gas?”

“She cut off my allowance! What did she expect? I wasn’t going to just stay home.”

“So how do you do it?” asked Sena.

“You basically stick some plastic tubing into the full gas tank, stuff a rag around it to keep any air out, and then suck on the tube until the gas starts to flow out. If you’re fast, you can time it right, but most people get a mouthful of gas, like I’m betting Ted here’s gonna get.”

He turned to Ted. “What should the stakes be?”

“I don’t know,” said Ted. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. The gas isn’t going to get anywhere near my mouth.”

“Do you have a hand pump or something?” asked Kade, narrowing his eyes.

“Nope, just some tubing and my mouth.”

“You’re so gonna lose,” said Kade. “How about we bet our next dessert? The loser has to give his dessert to the winner.”