Life is Strange: Heatwaves E-Book

Brittney  Morris 

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 343

Beschreibung

An official spin-off to Life is Strange: True Colors featuring beloved characters Alex and Steph trapped in a small town's climate disaster. Alex's powers are tested against a dying hope for a sustainable future. Alex and Steph have left Haven Springs in the rear-view mirror to travel the country, chasing the horizon. Though they don't have much money, they have their guitar and drums and each other. But when their vehicle breaks down, they are stranded, their only hope a repair shop in a struggling town in the middle of nowhere. The town is dealing with a severe drought after an extended heatwave wreaked havoc on local crops, plunging its inhabitants into poverty and water rationing. What remains of its essential resources are being diverted to indulge the local senator, gathering support for their out-of-touch political campaign. Feeling the anger and despair of the town's inhabitants, Alex and Steph are compelled to do everything they can to help. But when Alex uses her powers to amplify the senator's fear of the climate crisis, in the hope of galvanizing their support, her plan backfires, and emotions spiral wildly out of control. Alex and Steph now need to find a way to revive the hope of a failing town and resurrect its history of political action to save the townsfolk – and themselves.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

The Timeline - Author’s Note

1: In the Wild

2: Barbazal

3: The Hotel

4: Camping

5: Owen

6: The Diner

7: The Car

8: The House

9: Clover

10: Gabe

11: Into the Woods

12: Not Out of the Woods Yet

13: The Cellar

14: The Lawn

15: Biggs

16: The Car

17: The Dam

18: The Hospital

19: The Road

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Also available from Titan Books:

Life is Strange: Steph’s Story

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Life is Strange: Heatwaves

Print edition ISBN: 9781789099645

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789099652

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: July 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Life is Strange © 2015–2024 Square Enix Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Brittney Morris asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To the Life is Strange fan

community, for loving these

characters as I do.

Get in, losers, we’re going

back to Colorado.

Yee… and I cannot stress

this enough… haw.

The Timeline - Author’s Note

Life is Strange: Heatwaves occurs in a timeline where Steph and Alex hit the road out of Haven Springs to chase their rambling band fantasy together. Whether your game choices led to pg. 1 of this book or not, I hope you enjoy the ride and continue to add your own spin to Life Is Strange’s world of infinite possibilities!

1: In the Wild

Steph cranks the volume.

“Drivin’ to the middle of nowhere,” she belts, arms thundering out an air drum solo, “with peaches on my plate.”

The urge to add my air guitar to the mix is overwhelming, but I keep my hands on the wheel and find something else to focus on. The trees stand tall and still as we fly past, skies clear and air blowing hot through the window.

“You know what that song is about, right?” I ask.

Steph keeps the drums going and smirks at me. “Ass, obviously.”

“Pretty sure the peach emoji didn’t exist in 1985,” I grin.

“Were you there?” she asks, jumping back into the lyrics with, “A plateful of peaches, and someone to share them with.” And winks at me.

“Too much,” I giggle. I can’t help it. She’s so goofy. “So, for real, do you know this song’s origin story?”

This was one of the first songs my brother Gabe and I heard on our dad’s record player. It sat in the living room for so many years before Gabe asked to dust it off and try it out.

I miss him so bad it hurts. Still.

Steph rolls her eyes. “Yes, I do. Some guy took too much of something, squeezed a bunch of peaches, and wrote a song about how horny he was. The source of all great songwriting.”

I’m afraid to ask.

“Horniness? Or ‘too much of something?’ Or… peaches?”

“All three. When we get to Fort Collins, we need to find something to smoke, and squeeze some peaches.”

“Stop,” I laugh. “I will tuck and roll right out of this car.” My cheeks feel hot. My whole head feels hot.

I glance at her again.

She’s smiling at me, an aura of golden light glowing around her head.

“What?” she asks, knowing very well what. To know Steph is to be constantly embarrassed as hell, and also delighted. I can’t believe I’m really here. With her.

I shake my head and turn back to the road.

“You’re reading me again, aren’t you?” she asks.

“You know I can’t read you unless I reach my hand out to you.”

“But you can see I’m happy. At least, I hope you can. And that I’m excited.”

Of course I can. And I soak in every beautiful, tingly, warm ray of gold.

“For Fort Collins?” I ask, our first destination.

“For the world,” she says, reaching over and squeezing my knee. “With you.”

If she had my powers, she would see I’m glowing too. I’m not even sure with what. Gold for joy? Purple for the tidal wave of butterflies I’m feeling right now? I look down at her hand on my knee and quickly turn my attention back to the road.

“So,” she says, turning down the music and nestling cozily into her seat, “when we get there, what are you going to do first?”

I breathe, and think.

“I, um…” What does one do there? Fort Collins is so… big. Compared to what I’ve gotten used to, anyway. Foster homes used to be my whole world, each one the size of a cardboard box. I caught glimpses of Portland on nights when I could sneak out for acoustic shows and underground raves. I never really got a sense of the whole city. And then there’s Haven Springs, which is no city at all, but a tiny community in a big wide world of mountains and open sky. I don’t know how to calibrate anymore.

As if she can read my mind: “See a farmers market? Rent a bike? Smoke weed?”

“All three.”

“At the same time? I like it.”

I chuckle. But I have to agree. All three sounds nice.

“You glad we left?” she asks me.

“Of course! Haven Springs was great to both of us, but… it’s time we moved on. Did what we want, you know?”

“Rockin’ out on stage,” she dreams aloud.

“Playing whatever.” I’m surprised to hear the dreaminess in my own voice too. This feeling of the open road, literally and, I guess, metaphorically, feels… free.

She pulls something out of her pocket. From the corner of my eye, I can see that it’s purple, and fits in her palm. She shakes it.

“Of course you brought a shaker egg.”

“Can’t go nowhere fast without rhythm,” she sings, tapping her free hand on the dashboard, her occupied hand shaking the egg in tandem. “Can’t go nowhere at all without time.”

I join in, lending my vocals, my fingers itching to strum my guitar along with the shik-shik-shik of the egg.

“Can’t go nowhere good without you, babe. You’re the rhythm to my rhyme.”

I study Steph, all aglow as she sings with me, like we don’t have a care in the world. New city, new careers, new dream.

But, we’ve got each other.

My mind drifts back to the word babe, and I realize how effortlessly it rolled off my tongue. Off both our tongues. Could I… call her that one day? Would she let me? Or would she say it’s cliché?

Then, suddenly, something deep and dark settles into my stomach, something that twists and coils. Something’s… wrong.

What’s the color of feeling like you’ve forgotten something?

“Holy shit, the oil!” I exclaim, just as a soft clicking sound starts tick-tick-ticking away under the hood.

“The oil? Didn’t you check it before we left?” exclaims Steph. She takes her feet down from the dash, so I know shit just got serious.

“I-I thought I did! I guess I forgot!” Ugh, I had literally one job. Steph had to load our instruments and backpacks in the car after buying this junker from her friend Hector. All I had to do was keep it on the road, keep all four tires on it, and check the oil.

“What do I do?” I panic, feeling my breathing spiral into something I don’t recognize.

“Stop!” screams Steph.

I slam on the brake way harder than I needed to, and the car lurches. Everything in the back seat and trunk flies forward—our instruments and most things we own. My guitar case slams into the back of my seat, and falls back down and hits the center console sticking into the back seat, letting out a sour twangggg.

Steph and I sit frozen in this car for what seems like forever, just catching our breath.

I can’t look at her.

How could I when this was her dream? Our dream. Taking our music on the road, performing for new people in new places, the Fort Collins Lamplighter Festival up first. We were finally starting the lives we’d dreamed of for months after getting a taste of the world. We were finally doing the thing.

And now we’re stuck somewhere on the way…

Wait, where the hell even are we?

As if we’re both thinking the same thing—and I’m sure we are—we look around. Down the road ahead of us, as far as we can see, there are zero street signs. Not even a speed limit.

I glance at the rearview mirror. No street signs back the way we came either.

“What’s the last city sign you remember seeing?” I ask her, praying for something, anything.

“Um… somethinglike… Barbell? Bar something.”

“Had enough of bars lately, thanks.”

And then she surprises me by laughing.

I look at her, confused.

“I’m laughing at how right you are,” chuckles Steph, leaning back against her seat and pressing her hand to her forehead. “Anywhere is better than the Black Lantern, huh?”

She sighs, content. “Can you believe we made it all the way out here?” she asks.

I’m already feeling the effects of the A/C having been off for twenty seconds. But no, I can’t believe it. It’s only been weeks since I lost Gabe, since Steph and I lost a friend in Jed. No, more than a friend. A father.

It was right for us to leave. What else would we do? Stay in Haven Springs and put on shows for the few dozen people who live there?

I guess that wouldn’t have been so bad… I look at Steph, and I realize all over again that I’d go anywhere in the world, as long as she’s there with me. I’ve never had a best friend before. Not like this.

Not even the words “best friend” feel right.

I look around. The trees definitely look like they’re turning their autumn hues. So why is it so hellishly hot out here?

“All by ourselves,” she continues, swinging the door open. “Welp, time to find Barbarella. Maybe they have peaches.”

*   *   *

We walk forever.

Well, not forever, but long enough that the gold aura around Steph’s head has disappeared.

“Walkin’ to the middle of nowhere,” she reprises, panting as she slings her duffel over her other shoulder for the fiftieth time.

“With peaches on my plate,” I jump in, my guitar heavy on my back. What can I do but lend my voice? She needs to know she’s not alone out here in this sweltering heat. But I look back for only a second, anxiety welling up as I wipe away beads of sweat from my forehead.

I can feel my hair sticking to my face. Some is plastered to my glasses.

“Um, hey,” I say, stopping and pulling off my guitar case for a moment of reprieve, setting it down on the pavement as gently as I can. I still feel the need to apologize to it. Putting it on the ground, even in these circumstances, seems… callous. I pat the top of the case to ease the guilt.

“Yeah?” she answers me, stopping and turning around. “Whoa, you trying to fry your case?”

She gestures to my instrument, and I quickly pick it up again. What’s the color of guilt?

“That’s… actually why I stopped,” I say, unable to hide the exasperation in my voice. I gesture over my shoulder. “You don’t think your drum kit might melt in the car? Shouldn’t we, you know, stay close and open the doors for it? Maybe a car will drive by eventually.”

A smile plays at the corner of Steph’s mouth, and she drops her duffel full of both our clothes and rests her hands on her hips. I notice the sweat glistening on her neck. A droplet runs over her collarbone, and I swallow.

“You really want to turn around and walk twenty minutes back to the car?” she asks, her voice playful. “When we haven’t seen a car all this time?”

She has a point, because of course she does.

I stay silent. There’s not much else to say.

“Maybe… the sun will set soon?”

“You wanna be out here when night falls?” she asks.

Would it be such a wild suggestion?

“I mean, we have granola bars, and crackers.”

“And coyotes?” she asks. “We had those in Seattle too. Trust me, they’re scarier than you’d think. Creepy as hell, and they travel in packs.”

That’s enough to keep my ass walking. But she continues anyway.

“Besides, Alex, we came out here for an adventure!” she exclaims, fists in the air. “And dammit, we’ve found one! We’ve got three days before we have to be in Fort Collins. Let’s, you know, see the sights. Even if it is just trees.”

“And pavement.”

“And pavement.”

She turns and walks on, and I look ahead at the heatwaves shimmering in the middle of the road.

We walk until the car shrinks to a dot behind us, and a tiny green highway sign appears in the distance before us.

“Look!” exclaims Steph. “That has to be a sign for Barbarella.”

“That has a Z in it,” I say, squinting to read it. “Beelzebub?”

“Ah shit, we’re walking into a demon cult,” she jokes. “Or a demon sex cult.” But I’m not fucking joking.

“Yo, what if B-town is a bad idea?” I ask. “A place with no cars coming in or out is… maybe not somewhere we want to be?”

Steph is looking past me.

“Prayers answered.”

I follow her gaze and spot a car in the distance behind us, flickering with the heat of the road. I find myself hoping that even if this person doesn’t stop for us, maybe they could spare some water?

“Hey!” calls Steph, jumping up and down and flailing her arms. The duffel drops to the ground beside her. “Hey, help, please!”

“Steph, we don’t even know who this is!” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m whispering. This person is still too far off to even see us, probably, let alone hear us. “What if they’re a serial killer?”

“Then we have a chance to solve a murder,” she says, without missing a beat.

What?!

“And what if they really do run a sex cult?”

Steph smiles at me, a laugh threatening to pour forth.

“Then let’s hope they’re hot.”

“What the hell?!” I laugh.

“Hey, help!” hollers Steph, stepping dangerously close to the road. The vehicle is near enough now to make out that it’s a little blue pickup. An old one. Probably older than me.

The truck pulls up, slows, crawls to a stop, and a guy leans out the window looking exactly how I imagined he would. Forties. Slightly disheveled. Checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He looks like one of those guys from the sun exposure experiments where half the subjects’ faces are scarred from constant UV, and the other half is mostly pristine, because he’s been driving the same sixty-mile stretch of road all his life.

“You ladies lost?” he asks. His voice doesn’t match his face. It’s… soft. Gentle.

I study him, but he’s looking at Steph. Steph glances at me before turning back to him and stepping up to the truck.

“We could use a ride to… uh…” She looks down the road and squints at the street sign, in a last-ditch effort to say the actual name of the town.

“Barb-zal?”

“Yeah…” She hesitates, looking at me again. “Barb-zal.”

The man smiles. I don’t know if it’s a friendly smile or a knowing smile, which is only contextually different from a sinister one. Maybe if I could read him…

A glistening golden aura grows around his head, warm like summer winds in Midwestern fields, soft like cotton balls. Nostalgia floods me, lifts my insides ’til I’m so light I feel like I could fly. This man loves the thought of Barbazal.

“That’s my home. Born and raised. Name’s Silas.”

“How’s it hanging, Silas?” asks Steph, picking up the duffel full of our few belongings, and—to my horror—heaving it into the back of the truck.

I catch her hand just as she lets go of the bag.

“What are you doing?!” I hiss.

At first, she looks startled, then her mouth curves into a grin as she glances down at my hand, still around her wrist.

“Do I look afraid?” she asks.

There’s no gold halo around her, but I study her eyes, beaming with hope. All peace. No fear.

“No,” I admit, “but maybe you should be? You wanna climb into a random truck with a random guy?”

Just because he’s all warm and fuzzy about Barbazal doesn’t mean he’s warm and fuzzy.

“He’s not a random guy. He’s Silas.”

But before I can jump in with just how unhelpful it is to know his name—if that’s really his name at all—she continues.

“And besides,” she says, breaking away from my grasp and reaching for the guitar strap slung over my shoulder, “the sooner we get to ‘Barb-zal,’ the sooner I can get us more oil. The sooner we get more oil, the sooner we get back on the road. And the sooner we get back on the road…”

She lifts my guitar up over the truck door and lays it in the bed as gently as a newborn baby.

“The sooner we can get to Fort Collins,” I finish for her.

“And then onto the rest of the world,” she smiles, her eyes sparkling.

She winks and walks up to the passenger door as casually and cozily as if this were Ryan’s truck.

I sigh, because she’s right. She’s charging ahead into the Colorado wilderness to find motor oil and sustenance, because it’s our only way forward. Maybe if I suck it up and pretend we’re choosing to get into this strange car with this strange man and drive to a strange town we’ve never heard of, it’ll feel like a choice. But as I stare at our duffel and my guitar case in the truck bed, and I rub my wrist to quell this unsettling wriggling I feel in my stomach, I can’t help but think…

“You comin’, Alex?”

…this doesn’t feel like a choice.

And now Silas knows my real name. I take back what I said earlier. Knowing someone’s name suddenly feels very personal.

I look up at the driver’s side, where Silas’s head turns and I hear him say something softly. Steph laughs, that gold aura glowing around her head again. Silas has one to match. He’s still happy.

That means we should be safe, right?

2: Barbazal

The truck smells exactly how I expect it to.

Like ass.

But Silas is warm. A goofball. He’s in the middle of an improv session right now, which he claims are world famous.

“Had my bacon, had my eggs, had my coffee today. Got my energy drink and I’m on my way.”

Steph glances over her shoulder at me with a face that asks, Where else could you find free entertainment like this?

I smile at her optimism. I stare out the window, getting lost in the scenery, and notice the first sign we’ve seen in a while.

Jonah Macon for Senate, it reads.

I’ve heard of that guy, but I don’t know much about him.

Jonah Macon will bring home the bacon!

I roll my eyes. Whoever he is, he’s not afraid of doing the expected.

“Got my liquid sunshine and friendly faces,” continues Silas, “Um…”

Silas goes quiet, and Steph jumps in for him. “We’re all piled in this truck, and we’re off to the races!”

“Woohoo!” whoops Silas. “You’re a natural! Y’all musicians or something?”

“Actually, yeah!” replies Steph.

I glance over my shoulder through the back window of the cab at my guitar case, happily nestled in the bed of the truck. I wish I’d brought it in here with me. My fingers itch to pluck the strings, to sit cross-legged back here, shut my eyes, and let the music carry me away. I think of Gabe, whose arms would have been long enough to reach through the window and get it for me. He’d insist I play.

He’d insist I do what makes me happy.

I’m facing my fears, Gabe. Finding new spaces, I continue the song in my head.

I watch the trees go by as I let Silas’s truck take me to wherever Silas decides. He doesn’t have to stop in Barbazal. What if he does and Barbazal’s not safe anyway?

You know how I feel about brand new places.

“Hey,” comes Steph’s voice. I’m yanked back into the conversation. “Alex, you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m just, um…” I look around for a distraction and my eyes find the crate of water on the floor beside my feet. “Silas, mind if I have a bottle of water?”

His eyes find me in the rearview mirror, and they narrow so slightly that at first I wonder if I’m seeing things.

“Yeah, uh, sure! Go ahead,” he says. But the aura around his head fades from brilliant gold into a sad, ever-bluing cobalt.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I ask. Steph cocks an eyebrow and looks from me to Silas.

His adjust his hands on the steering wheel and lets out a long, deep breath.

“I don’t mean to be inhospitable,” he apologizes. “We’re just… short on water, is all. Mind keeping it to one bottle each?”

Steph nods. “Sure,” she says, reaching into the back and finding one. I reach down and do the same. They’re warm. Of course they are. It’s approximately five hundred degrees out here, and if this truck has A/C, Silas isn’t using it.

“So,” I begin, too curious to let the question go unasked. “Why is Barbazal short on water?”

I take a swig, letting the clear liquid slake the thirst I didn’t realize I’d been carrying. I immediately want three more bottles.

Silas lets out another sigh, and his eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror again. The blue aura around his head brings out the depth of them as he studies me.

“It’s a long story, miss,” he says, his voice heavy, “and we’re already to Barbazal.”

The truck slows, and I look around as we turn right down a dirt road. The trees are sparse here—tall and austere. Dry. Everything about them looks pained, bending like old war-weary soldiers.

“Woah,” says Steph, probably thinking the same thing I am. Feels like we’re driving through a graveyard.

“Just up this way to Elias’s shop,” says Silas.

Another sign.

Vote Jonah Macon, it reads, followed by Beat Lazy Maisie.

Jonah vs. Maisie I guess? Never heard of the latter.

“Who’s Jonah Macon?” I ask. Steph side-eyes me, probably because I just rocketed this conversation headlong into politics. But I couldn’t help myself. My chest tightens, and I hope she intercepts the telepathic message I’m beaming to her—god, telepathy would be really convenient right now—Sorry, Steph.

“Little Jonie? He was born and raised here. Now he’s a big-shot senator. Or, hopeful anyway. Long as he beats that snake woman Crazy Maisie.”

I tense at that word. Crazy.

I rub my thumb along my wrist, a comforting motion my therapist taught me to do when I’m stressed. Crazy—I’ve heard that word so many times. From others. From myself until just months ago. So many adult faces staring me down with disdain, using synonyms they thought were kinder.

No, less legally incriminating.

Insane.

Unwell.

Unbalanced.

Disturbed.

Demented.

I haven’t heard the word crazy in so long, and it’s still too soon.

Steph brings me back to the present.

“Who’s… Crazy Maisie?” she asks gingerly. Clearly she’s not sure she wants to know the answer. Neither am I.

“Maisie Dorsey? She took my rain barrel away,” Silas sighs. There’s the faintest bite to his words, an edge he’s suppressing, like he ate something that’s turning his stomach. That blue wavering aura that had been pulsing since I brought up the water bottle fades from blue to indigo, to purple, to magenta, and heats up, searing and prickly, all the way to red.

Searing hot, blazing, angry red, that blares in my ears like a siren, sending shockwaves of pain through my head.

“Passed a piece-of-shit legislation s’posed to be about conserving water, when it’s really all for show to get the swing votes in the middle. She’s as right wing as they come. Don’t give a damn about the environment or nothin’—” He stops himself, like a dinner host realizing he’s upsetting his guests. “Sorry,” he says, taking a hand off the wheel, picking up a cloth from the dashboard that looks like it was used as a dipstick cleaner in a past life, and dragging it across the back of his neck. “Got carried away there for a minute. I’m sure Maisie’s a nice lady, but… she’sjust… so misguided. Could use some common sense. Know what I mean? She ain’t been here, in Barbazal. She’s in Denver, where there ain’t no water shortage. How’s she know what the hell Barbazal needs?”

Steph throws a look at me that I can’t quite read. It’s not quite fear. Apprehension? Is she nervous?

Not enough to warrant a purple aura, apparently. She looks back to Silas.

“So, I’m guessing Jonah has your vote?”

Smart. Get him back to a topic he enjoys. The truck wobbles slightly on the road as we approach town. Little buildings grow bigger, although sparsely placed. Looks almost like a ghost town.

“My vote and my sword,” he jokes.

We make our way through the town square, where more signs for Jonah litter the streets. Every telephone pole, every stop sign, every lawn has a sign that boasts the owner loves Jonah Macon or hates Maisie Dorsey, or both.

We drive up to a building with a big, rusty sign: Elias’s Spark.

“This here’s the place!” declares Silas, swinging the door open and hopping out before the truck has just barely begun to idle. Steph gives me a comforting smile before turning and hopping out of the passenger side.

My door opens and Silas is there to greet me with a beaming smile, hand out to help me down.

“Thanks,” I offer. Now that I can see him up close, his eyes look heavy, showing every bit of his age. Forties? Fifties? However old he is, he’s clearly been through a lot.

And a lot of days without sunscreen.

He helps me down and adjusts his baseball cap on his head, marching to the back of the truck, where Steph is already heaving our duffel out.

“No, no, let me get that,” he says. “My back might be older than yours, but my biceps lift more each day, I guarantee it.”

“Careful with the assumptions,” she says, chuckling, “I’m a drummer. My double-kit pedals alone are heavier than that thing.”

“Too-shay!” he says, in the worst French accent I’ve ever heard. I have to smile at his heart, though.

I look around. Elias’s Spark has seen better days, or at least I hope it has. From the looks of the place, it was once a gas station. There’s an old, I assume broken-down, gas pump on the corner right by the front door stuck on the price “.79”. I can’t remember a point in my lifetime when gas was that cheap, so I’d guess this thing is way older than me. In fact, everything here screams that word: old.

Everything is dusty, rusted, worn down, or all three. I count six vehicles parked side-by-side in the gravel lot around the side of the building, and several stacks of tires sit baking in the sun. It smells like rubber, motor oil, and gasoline.

“Woah,” says Steph, clearly in awe of the place. She steps up next to me, duffel bag in tow and eyes wide.

“Ain’t much, but it’s been here eighty years,” says Silas. “Wish I could’ve seen this place back in its heyday in the Forties.” He whistles his respect. “Every gleaming road rocket in a fifty-mile radius came through Elias’s Spark.”

“People don’t anymore?” I have to ask.

“Not like they used to. Barbazal used to be a mandatory road-trippin’ stop on I-70. Now people just drive on through for Denver. It’s only six hours away now. Back when cars would max out at forty mph, you’re talkin’ near twelve hours without food, water, or gas. They had to stop somewhere.”

I guess he makes a good point. Clearly he’s thought long and hard about this. Silas walks around the front of the truck toward the gaping garage door.

“Elias!” he hollers, although with his accent, it just sounds like “Lias.”

A voice replies from somewhere nearby, muffled, buried.

“Yup!”

Steph looks at me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah!” I answer too fast. I shrug to further sell the reply, because I know she’s not buying it, but now she’s looking at me like she flat-out doesn’t believe me. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“And super nervous about something,” she says, reaching forward to take my hands. “Listen, Alex, if this place is really making you uncomfortable, we can get us a bottle of oil and get out. I’m sure Silas would take a fifty to drive us straight back to the car.”

I think for a moment about what she’s saying, and I look around.

How easy would it be for Silas and Elias to grab us, tie us up, throw us in the back of the truck, and take us out into the woods somewhere to kill us?

It would’ve been easy enough for Jed, even if I hadn’t walked out there with him willingly first.

Who would come looking for us? Ryan? Sure. But would he ever find us? He’s Mr. Park Ranger Man, yeah, but… a homicide investigator?

I had to get myself out of that mine shaft. No one would’ve found me. I’m not going through that again—

“Alex?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, let’s hurry and get out of here.”

Steph can tell when I’m spiraling. Anxiety is like that for me. My brain starts locking up, I start dissociating, and information bounces off my ears instead of being processed like it’s supposed to. The children’s home attendants used to call it “spacing out,” but now I know it by a better name.

Maladaptive daydreaming.

Maybe Steph is right. Maybe we should get out of here.

“You coming?” she asks. I look up and she’s walking up the driveway to Elias’s shop.

“Yeah.”

I thought the outside smelled like motor oil and gasoline, but inside the aroma is almost unbearably strong. Broken equipment fills the garage. The space is twenty feet across, with only four feet of walking space. It looks like someone set up for a garage sale, and then never got around to selling anything.

Car parts I can’t identify line the walls—belts and wheels, pipes and bottles of fluids I couldn’t identify if I wanted to because their labels have fallen away.

Something crashes at the back of the store, making me jump. Steph glances over her shoulder at me to ask silently if I’m okay. I nod.

“Come on back, girls!” comes Silas’s voice from somewhere in the back of the shop. Then I hear another voice follow that one. One less excited at the idea of company.

“Not up for visitors,” it mumbles. “There’s oil in the lobby.”

“Come on, Elias, you want ’em to just leave the cash on the counter?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t be like this. You know that’s why people don’t come round here no more.”

Steph and I exchange a glance at that last part. That’s why people don’t come round here no more.

Implying that, one, people don’t “come round here no more” and, two, there’s probably a reason for that. Could it be the unfriendliness Silas just mentioned? Or maybe that everyone here is as reclusive as Elias?

Or could it be something worse?

I narrow my eyes at Steph in a way that I hope says, Let’s just leave the cash on the counter and get out, but she tears her gaze away and spies something that’s clearly more important.

“Alex, look!” she exclaims, darting to the wall where a huge picture of a shiny red hot rod hangs, slightly crooked. “She’s beautiful. 1965 Mustang.” She whistles.

“Didn’t know you were so into cars.”

“I may drive a bag of screws, but I can dream.”

She sighs as she looks up at it.

“When we get that record deal after Harson sees us perform in Fort Collins, I’m getting one of those.”

I have to chuckle.

“What makes you think we’re getting a record deal?”

She looks at me like, How could you think anything else?

“Dude. When Isaac Harson hears you romance those strings, he’ll go weak at the knees. Like I do.”

I feel heat creep into my cheeks in the best way.

“Oh my god, Steph,” I say, smiling, tucking my hair behind my ear and glancing at the far side of the room, where I know Silas and Elias are waiting for us. “Let’s just get a bottle of oil and get out.”

“Sounds like a great idea. Pick a favorite.” She’s smiling and gesturing to the shelf behind her, where I see… nothing?

The shelf is empty.

And at the very bottom is a little yellow price tag that’s partially covered in rust.

Motor Oil. $5.99.

I sigh.

“How can they be out of motor oil?”

“Guess Silas was right—this place isn’t exactly a road-trippin’ stop anymore,” replies Steph, following it up with a mock-dramatic gasp. “Maybe we should go… oh, I don’t know, ask the owner?”

I roll my eyes.

“If he’s a cannibal,” she says, taking my hand in hers, “he can eat me first.”

“Yuck.”

We round the corner, Steph first, and as I lean my head in, I half expect to find Silas and Elias crouched side by side with some unidentifiable piece of meat roasting over a campfire. But nope. They’re standing. Looking perfectly normal. Silas is leaning on the workbench behind him, turned toward Elias, who’s got his back turned to us. He’s leaning over another workbench, working hard on something. I can’t see it from here. But something else about him catches my attention. His shoulders are slumped, his posture hunched, and a huge blue aura glows brightly around his head, thick and suffocating like a humid fog. And cold. So, so cold. And I get the overwhelming feeling of something heavy. Like a lead sack resting on my chest.

Elias is deeply, crushingly sad.

About what, I wonder?

I clear my throat.

Silas looks up at me, but Elias stays where he is.

“Hey, ladies, welcome to the shop,” he says with a warm smile, gesturing to the rest of the room.

“Silas,” spits Elias. A single word, but it speaks volumes. Steph clocks the tone switch too, because she glances at me and then clears her throat.

“Mr. Elias? Sir? Uh, we’re just here for motor oil, so… if you could find a bottle in the back, we’ll just—”

“Don’t have any in the back. Whatever we’ve got is out front.”

Jesus, this guy is cranky. Why the attitude? We’re paying customers after all. I feel my eyes narrow, involuntarily. Whoops. But I can still feel the anger welling up.

“There is no oil out front,” I say, catching the snip in my voice. I soften. “You’re all out.”

Clearly, I’ve said something earth-shattering because everybody freezes. Everyone. Elias’s hands stop working on whatever he’s working on. Silas’s eyes do a slow sweep from Elias to me, and then to Steph. And then something softens in Elias’s face.

He sighs, like a teacher who was about to reprimand a student for talking out of turn and then realized they made a good point.

“I’ll see if I have more in the back—”

“We might! I’ll check,” says Silas with one foot already out the door. “If we’re out, maybe Jonah’s caravan has a bottle we can use.”

And Silas is out.

Whrrr, whrr. Elias immediately pours himself back into his mysterious project.

“Woah, Alex, look.” Steph stands and wanders to the wall of shelves, where more photos of classic cars rest, all of them in black and white and dusty. Elias must be really into cars. Like, more than a hobby. It looks like cars are his whole life. They’re to him what music is to me.

Steph leans forward to examine a little red box with gold trim, and I get up to join her, but my eyes remain on Elias’s back.

It couldn’t have been the oil, could it? Who gets that worked up over running out of motor oil? Maybe the simple act of Silas leaving? Leaving Elias alone with his thoughts? Or… wait,no…

It feels like something deeper.

I glance at Steph one more time before stepping forward, hand outstretched to Elias’s back. Something about this man, about how a single sentence can send him into such deep sadness that I can see it around his head—feel its temperature, almost taste it—ignites a curiosity in me that I can’t extinguish.

I can’t just ignore his pain.

Cold seeps into my fingertips, trickling up my fingers and into my palm, my wrist, my forearm, like water defying gravity. I clench my teeth as the blue hue travels up into my chest, and I shut my eyes, sinking into Elias’s feelings.

I step into the aura.

I’m still in Barbazal, but outside. Red, white, and blue flags flutter in the wind, strung along pennants weaving through the town square. There are people. Everywhere. Like, more people than I thought could live in a town as empty and off-the-map as Barbazal. I’d never even heard of this place before today.

And yet there are crowds, bunching up along the side of the main road we just drove through, eager to reach the barriers keeping them from throwing themselves into the street. I crane my neck and stand on my tiptoes to get a better look. I’m already short, and the arms in the air cheering on whoever’s over there aren’t making this any easier.

I can hear cars crawling past. Flashes of shiny red, glittering chrome bumpers, and brilliant white rims with white walls indicate that these are classic cars. Is it some kind of car show?

The crowd swells from cheering into straight-up shrieking in excitement, and soon I see why. A gigantic balloon float pulls up the rear of this… parade?—I don’t know what else to call it—at least ten feet high. Two smiling women in white blouses and jeans with cowboy hats and red lipstick toss candy into the crowd. Only the youngest out here bend to find it. And when I look back up at the float, I see him—the subject of everyone’s worship. A man in a navy-blue blazer with a lighter blue necktie, tied perfectly, dark jeans, white cowboy boots, and a matching white cowboy hat. His glistening smile is warm, charming. He must be at least in his forties. He’s actually incredibly handsome, in a Ken doll sort of way? Like if Ken owned a farm and never had to actually farm anything a day in his life.

Jonah Macon will bring home the bacon, reads the banner along the side of the float as it passes. I look around at all the smiling faces, and I think back to Elias. Why would such a joyful scene make him so profoundly sad?

And then I look around for him. Wait… whereis Elias?

I look over my shoulder and find Elias’s shop across the way, just as worn down as it was today when Steph and I walked in. This must be a recent memory.

There he stands, wearing the same overalls, downing the last of a bottle of water which looks like it had only a few drops in it to begin with. He tenses—I feel the tightness in my shoulders with him—then crushes the empty bottle in his hand, and hurls it to the ground. Then he marches back inside.

I look back up at Jonah, expecting to see that movie-star smile, but instead I see something else.

His smile has fallen as he looks toward Elias’s shop. He’s… broken. Just a little. That political mask he’s wearing—that all politicians have to wear at least sometimes—cracked for a moment. Did anyone else see it? Or are they all mesmerized by the banners and the free candy and the fact that he’s already back to smiling and waving again?

Whatever’s up with Elias, it has everything to do with Jonah Macon.

Whooooosh!

I’m back in the shop. I’m staring at the ground. I hear the faint tinkling of music, like the world’s tiniest xylophone, playing a song I recognize. It’s a song my mom used to hum all the time when I was little, a song that she kept in her back pocket her whole journey to America with my dad.

When all the world is darkest,You’re alone and feel forgotten,Know the road ahead is there.