Italian. Figures. I should have known from her features. She doesn’t have any accent, though, so she’s not first gen or anything.
I keep staring at her. I know it’s making her nervous, but I’m not one for small talk and I don’t want her to get the impression that she’s going to stay here and gossip away the evening with me. I consider picking the rifle back up and making it clear she needs to be on her way.
On her way where?
If I kick her out, she’s dead before the sun sets. What am I supposed to do – offer her a fucking ride somewhere? I don’t even know – or care – where she’s going. I’m also supposed to stay right where I am except when I need to go somewhere for supplies.
Getting low on gasoline., I remind myself.
Fuck.
I push the thought from my head. I don’t want to have to spend at least a couple hours in a truck with some chick I don’t know. She’s an idiot for even being here.
I reconsider almost immediately. She is an idiot, but that is for getting herself in the situation at all, not because she is here now. She doesn’t have a choice at this point. Going back out into the desert is suicide.
“Hungry?” I hear myself ask, and I want to slam my head into the wall.
“Um…a little, but really – you don’t have to go to any trouble.”
“Well,” I say, “it’s my dinner time, so I’m going to cook. If you want something, speak up now.”
She steps from one foot to the other a couple of times as she stares at the wood slats that make up the floor.
“I guess,” she finally answers. “I mean, if you are making something already, that would be wonderful.”
Too fucking polite.
Chapter Two
We sit at the table, and I serve up what I managed to scrounge for dinner. It’s a better meal than I would have made for myself – definitely. Fried potatoes with peppers and onions mixed in with it, along with canned peaches and a couple bottles of water. It still isn’t much, but the way she tears into it tells me how hungry she really is.
I leave the generator going, and the fan points close to us so we can at least be a little more comfortable while eating. Odin plops himself down next to the fan to reap the benefits as well. He watches Lia pretty closely but backs away when she reaches out her hand. When she asks me if he’s friendly to strangers, I can only shrug. He really hasn’t been around too many people. It’s always been just the two of us.
“This is really good,” Lia says as she takes another bite of the potatoes. “Where did you learn to cook?”
“Camping,” I tell her. It is close enough to accurate. “We did a lot of hiking in the middle of nowhere, so I can make a meal out of most anything as long as I have a fire to cook it.”
“We?” she pushes. “You and your family?”
I hesitate before shaking my head.
“I don’t have one.”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly as she bows her head. I wonder if she thinks they’re all dead and she’s saying a little prayer for them or something. I decide to take the moment to get a little distance.
“I’m going outside for a few,” I tell her. I need to hook the alarm back up to the truck, which means first running out to the point where she tripped it up and set it off. “I’ll be right back.”
Not sure why I feel the need to tell her that.
“It’s getting dark,” she says softly as she looks out the window.
I don’t reply because it’s such an obvious observation. Will she tell me I’m tall next? After picking up my rifle, I head out and Odin follows at my heels. He sniffs the ground as he keeps pace with my jog. Once I reach the general area, I follow her footprints in the dry ground until I come to the thin, detached wire and twist the metal part of it back together.
Odin and I run back to the truck and clip the whole thing to the truck’s battery. I walk slowly around the house using the scope on the horizon but see nothing of interest. I refill Odin’s water dish, feed him, and head inside again. I leave the front door open, which I do most nights. It doesn’t have an actual lock on it anyway, and it works particularly well this evening since the fan is on and it creates a nice cross-breeze.
Lia is still sitting in the same spot, tearing the label from her water bottle. I look her over, wondering what’s going through her head. I can make a lot of logical guesses, but there are still too many parameters. She could be thinking of her mother, the asshole who ditched her, or what she is going to do now.
“I