The Quest of One

Wade

Wade Owens is a puerile nomad living in a ratty Volkswagen van. The parking lot is cracked from the quakes, but his van is intact, idling. I wonder, is the idiot really foolish enough to abandon his van after an earthquake? It's tempting to steal his car and continue our journey to Paradise in a vehicle. But I remember what One told me on our way here, about his permissive parents, who would probably put up a description of the van if we made out of here with it. Switching plates wouldn't matter at that point.

I start toward the door, but One steps ahead of me. "Maybe I should knock. He'd probably ask less questions if he saw me first."

I nod and she knocks on the side doors. After a crash from inside the van, the doors swing open. A cloud of white smoke rises slowly from the doors, and in the midst of it all, hazel eyes bloodshot and squinting, sits Wade.

"Hey, Raven," he says, trying but failing to keep his speech from slurring. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah," she replies. "Our place got jacked up in the quake."

"Oh, damn! I'm sorry about that." Wade looks over her shoulder and stares at me, and suddenly his face shifts to concern. "Is that your grandma?"

"Grandma, this is Wade," One introduces me to him. "Wade, this is my grandmother, Mrs. Dufort."

"Call me Hilde," I say through an artificial smile as I shake his hand, holding myself back from tearing this mlaknom's arm off for putting my Garde in danger. "Mind if I drive?"

"Oh, um, yeah," Wade steps outside the car and walks me to the driver's side door. He opens for me in an exaggerated act of chivalry, as if I'm some frail old woman. Before I get in, Wade reaches his hand up to the dashboard and grabs a small plastic bag of marijuana, stuffing it into his pocket before he thinks I noticed. "Right this way, Hilde."

"Thanks, you're too kind."

I slam the door shut and drop my bag behind my seat. He knocks on the window, and I press down on the horn of the steering wheel.

"Get in!" I shout. Both he and One climb in. She gets in the seat near the back, and when Wade tries to follow her, I reach behind my seat and grab him by his arm. "Nah, you sit in the front with me."

"Oh. Okay." Wade gets into the passenger seat beside me, struggling to buckle his seatbelt. When he finally does, he raises his eyebrows and smiles, asks, "Where are we going?"

"Just a little place in Ohio." I take the car out of park and start driving, the engine grumbling with ferocity as we pick up speed. I follow the street close to the beach for as long as I can before the traffic gets too dense, and then I start to maneuver around the stalled cars, the rubble from the quakes, the vehicles left abandoned in the streets and the firetrucks that block entire lanes. I avoid all this with my knowledge of the roads, routes that Wade remarks even he didn't know about.

Only when I prepare to get off I-15, about half a day later, when the sun rises above the verdant forests ahead of us and sets the snow-capped Rocky Mountains rising in the distance alight with gold, does Wade sober up. "Wait. You said we're going where?"

"Ohio," I reply. "Paradise, Ohio, to be exact."

"Okay, but that's a long drive. Where are we?"

"Well, right now, we're about to drive through Fishlake National Park."

"We're in Utah?"

"Yes." I glance at him, slightly perplexed. "You don't seem concerned that I'm taking you east against your will."

"I honestly thought for a minute that you were driving me back to my parents in Seattle," he says in a relieved breath. "That woulda been bad. No, I don't really care where we go."

"Hmm," I start to ask him why he doesn't want to be with his parents, but I let the conversation die.

"You sure you don't want to pull over? I can drive."

"You ever been to Paradise?" I ask, holding up my atlas in one hand for him to see.

"Well, no, but—"

"Then I got this."

"—I can read a map."

"I thought kids your age only drove with GPS. Hell, you ask me, I don't think kids your age should drive at all."

"I don't use a GPS. Those things make it way too easy for the government to track you. I like doing things the old-fashioned way."

Sober, Wade is well-spoken and polite. He seems like he's a sweet kid, but still, I cannot help but wish One had never met him. We wouldn't be in this situation if she wasn't trying to impress him.

"So," Wade continues, "what's in Ohio?"

"A family friend. Someone who can help us."

"That's cool. So your house got hit by that earthquake? That sounds awful."

"It was."

"Were you there?"

"No. I was...," I say, my voice dripping with frustration, "I was picking up Raven from jail."

He furrows his brow and twists back in his seat to look at her. One has been asleep since we left California, a side effect from prolonged exposure to the vitamins in the kelp. She's stretched out across the backseat, blond hair fanned out over her backpack, which she's using as a pillow. Her hands are stuffed in the pockets of her hoodie, and she breathes unsteadily. Wade cannot tell, but I can. The struggle of our breath due to our bodies' difficulty adjusting to this weaker and oxygen deficient atmosphere.

"Raven got arrested?" whispers Wade. "For what?"

"She was caught stealing from a record store." I take my eyes of the road for a moment to stare daggers at him. "Clerk called the cops."

"Oh, shit." Wade breathes, slouching into his seat. I want to break his jaw when I notice a small smile cracking across his lips. "She remembered."

"She got arrested because of you." I look in the rearview mirror, at One, at the junky van of clothes, seashells, and rolling papers. "Is there even a record player in here?"

"Well, no, but it's the meaning that counts, you know?" He expects me to be understanding, as if his argument is reasonable. When I harden my face, I think he gets the point to rextrawd. "I'm really sorry for getting your granddaughter arrested, Mrs. Dufort. I promise you it won't happen again."

"No, it won't. You have no idea how much danger you put her in."

"Let me make it up to you?" he pleads. "Let me drive. You should get some rest—"

"I'm fine," I reply sternly. "I know where I'm going."

"Yes, ma'am."