Night-Owl Trucking

Wednesday, 1:38am MT / 12:38am PT

Luz scowled out the windshield at the cross-Denver traffic, sluggish both due to the late-late-late-early hour and slowed by the torrential downpour. She had one hand on the wheel, and cradled her most precious cargo with the other—when she didn't have to shift gears due to another stupid—! She frowned and hissed through clenched teeth as another rain-soaked pair of tail lights slipped in front of Hooty's headlights and immediately brightened. The inner-left lane cut almost the whole way through the city, which meant she didn't have to jockey for position—or worse, merge into a busy lane—as long as she kept her cool. She wouldn't have to crane her neck to see the mirrors and possibly jostle her passenger in the process. This will make it smoother for Amity. She needs her sleep. It's just normal idiot drivers in their normal idiot environm— She tapped the brakes again and muttered a choice four-letter word while [Joe Walsh's four-piece band][https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=Rt75y38J00s] rocked a four-four beat in-tempo with Hooty's windshield wipers.

She glanced down at the pale girl, half hidden in the night's dark, barely lit by her instrument panel and rimed with the dim green glow from the highway's sporadic lampposts. Amity had worn a pinched, worried look most of the way down from the Divide, and then a glassy-eyed terror when they came across the storm. Just remembering the pure, unadulterated fear in those golden eyes made her chest tighten in a truly painful way. Now, though, Amity looked peacefully asleep, her eyes flitting back and forth behind gently closed eyelids. In the middle of some dream, no doubt, Luz guessed. Her cheeks had a hint of color, and her lips... Luz glanced down again, at that small, soft smile, the tiniest bit of her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she dreamed, and—

Luz rolled her eyes and shook her head, Don't creep on the sleeping beauty. The thunderhead above splintered the sky, and the truck rattled from the force of its breaking. She pressed her hand to the back of Amity's head, just... just holding her. She was torn; every instinct she had was screaming at her to stop, to find shelter, to hide Amity away from nature's wrath until the weather cleared... but if she did, she would fail her. She definitely didn't have the head for numbers like Amity, but she knew she couldn't make up too much lost time on a solo run—and who knew how long this storm would last? Eda planned out a bit of a buffer, but I'm already cutting it close with 850 miles a day. Luz set her jaw and nodded. I can't fail Amity. It was unacceptable.

Irritation bubbled under her skin and simmered in her stomach. She'd been glancing at the sat-phone rattling in her cup holder for the last half hour, doing her best to resist the urge to hit redial. Oh, who am I kidding, Luz rolled her eyes and quickly snatched the plain gray device and flicked the antenna up, stabbing at the small oval button under the LCD screen. You're weak, Noceda. She wedged the sat-phone between her ear and her shoulder and listened to the tinny ringtone for a pair of long, calming breaths, then—

"Hey Mittsy, what's up?" Edric sounded half-distracted.

"Edric, it's Luz, I'm—" she started to reply, but her words were swallowed by a flash of light and a crack and rumble from the sky above. For a half-second, the cars and trucks spread out around her were frozen in an impossible tableau, heavy rain drops hanging in the air like time itself had stopped. Luz blinked away the afterimage as her wipers swept across the windshield.

There was a staticky silence for a moment, then the sound of items clattering on his end of the line. He must have dropped a tool, something metal. "Oh shit."

Luz couldn't help but laugh. So he did know. Maybe both of the twins knew. "Yeah," she drawled, "oh shit is right." She sighed through another peal of thunder, "I found out she is absolutely terrified of thunderstorms."