Chapter 275: She Wanted Fries With That Disaster

DOVE’S POV

The food truck had a smiling potato painted on its side and a front wheel hanging over the edge of the road.

Dove stopped the van well behind it. Beyond the truck, a line of cars waited between the reservoir and a steep bank covered in scrub. A concrete maintenance yard stood below the road, its gate open, but a stack of empty plastic crates blocked the narrow driveway leading through it.

She could see a way around the truck. Getting to it was the problem.

"Before you say anything," she told Edrik, "I am not volunteering to hold up a truck."

"Good. I was about to ask how you’d fit it in your handbag."

She looked at him. "You know, one day I’m going to own a handbag just to annoy you."

"I’ll carry it beautifully."

He checked the vehicles behind them before getting out. Dove took the radio and their ready bag, leaving the rest of their belongings safely stored. She wanted to know what had happened before she committed either of them to fixing it.

A man in a grease-stained apron stood beside the truck with two boys and an older driver. The boys were sharing a paper tray of fries, which made the whole situation look almost ordinary until the truck shifted and everybody stepped back.

"Road gave way," the cook said. "Nobody’s inside. We got out before it moved."

"Good," Dove said. "Let’s keep nobody inside. I don’t care how good the fries are."

One of the boys offered her the tray. Edrik made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh when she hesitated.

"I have principles," she told him. "They occasionally come with salt."

She took one, thanked the boy, and asked the adults about the maintenance yard. Its rear exit joined a service road farther along the reservoir. People had tried calling the keeper, but no one had answered. The crates had been left there after a delivery, and the old driver couldn’t move the heavier pile by himself.

Dove looked toward the gate again. Empty crates. A visible driveway. A way around the trouble that also helped them reach Thorne. She could do something useful without turning herself into the person responsible for everybody’s whole day.

"We can clear the crates," she said. "Then you take your cars through slowly. Nobody goes near the broken edge."

Edrik glanced toward the road above them. "I look first. You stay where I can see you."

She agreed, because she didn’t need to prove she was brave by being inconvenient at the worst possible moment. While he checked the yard, she asked the cook whether anyone had offered help already.

His face tightened. "Recovery truck came through. Asked about a woman with white hair and a bear."

Dove felt the fry settle unhappily in her stomach.

"What did you say?"

"Hadn’t seen one. Then they asked whether any women were in the cars. Didn’t seem very interested in the wheel."

The older driver spat into the dust. "Offered to take the little ones. We told them where to go."

Dove looked at the boys, who had stopped eating. Real frightened children, real tired adults, and a truck that might fall if somebody bumped it badly enough. She refused to turn them into another trap simply because other people had been awful.

She also wasn’t giving strangers a tour of her private supplies.

Edrik returned and described the yard: concrete walls on three sides, a low workshop with a shut front door, and a back gate opening onto the service road. No people visible inside the yard. He could see the route through from the front gate.

Dove walked down with him, keeping the food truck behind her and the open yard ahead. The boys stayed with the adults. She touched the first loose stack of crates and stored it, then the next. They were ordinary delivery crates, awkward rather than terribly heavy, and moving them out of the driveway took less time than arguing over whose turn it was.

The old driver stared. "Well. That’s handy."

"I have my moments," Dove said. "Please tell everyone. My husband thinks he’s the impressive one."

"I haven’t said that," Edrik murmured.

"Your shoulders keep implying it."

The driver laughed and went to bring his car forward. Dove felt a little better. The older driver gave her a delighted wave through his windshield. Dove waved back, pleased that for once the men staring at her had something useful to stare at.

*Your route is clear,* Sprout observed.

*I noticed. You can clap quietly.*

*Quiet applause initiated.*

She snorted. Edrik looked over, and she shook her head, smiling despite the heat.

The cook wrapped the remaining fries in paper and put them in his bag before leaving the truck. Dove approved. They were getting away from danger, not entering a contest to see who could be most miserable about it. She asked whether the boys had shoes and somewhere to sit in the car, then left their father to handle them instead of taking over.

They moved the van closer to the yard entrance, then helped direct the first car through. The food truck would have to wait for proper equipment. Its owner accepted that with the pained expression of a man abandoning his kitchen, but he stayed away from the broken edge.

Dove gave the boys two sealed drinks from her own stock. She wanted cold soda and an air-conditioned booth herself, but water was what she could offer without pretending every good thing was available right now.

The cook thanked her and started gathering his bags.

Then Edrik stopped looking at the yard and looked uphill.

Dove followed his gaze. Three men stood beside the roadside guardrail above the truck. One had fox ears and a burned left sleeve.

She remembered the survivor beneath the toll roof describing bright light and a hole through a wall.

The man’s hand began to shine.

Dove dropped the empty bottle she’d been holding and shouted for the boys to get behind the concrete wall.