“Oh, so itisvanity then,” Zina said, laughing. Trent felt his heartrate pick up at the sight of the two little dimples on either side of her mouth. She was justtooadorable. Plus, this was the first time she’d smiled in that kind of wide, unguarded way since she’d come back into his life. Trent wanted to see more of those kinds of smiles from her – he’d do whatever it took to see them more often, to wipe any concern or care from her life, and make her happy.
“I suppose we better make a move,” Zina said, leaning down and shouldering her backpack. “Any ideas where we might find some wheels?”
“I looked up whether there was anywhere we might be able to buy a used car around here,” Trent said. He’d had some spare time last night while Zina was sleeping, so he’d put it to good use. “There’s a used car place not too far from here. It’s a risk, but I’m guessing you have fake ID, right? Even having them run that isn’t something I’m thrilled about, but it’s the best option we have right now. There’s no car rental places in this town at all.”
“I agree it’s a risk,” Zina said, nodding. “But we need a car. So we’ll just have to deem it an acceptable one. I have a couple of unused fake IDs that probably won’t ping the system.”
Trent nodded. “Okay. Well, let’s do it. Let’s go get us a car.”
* * *
“Soooo…” Zina said, “did you say this was a car yard, or a cargraveyard.”
“Hm. Well, I have to admit, I wasn’t really expectingthis,” Trent said, as they surveyed the grassy, overgrown lot, filled with rusted-out hulks, cars without doors, cars without windscreens, cars withoutanything at allexcept a basic chassis. “I mean, I don’t consider myself a fancy man, but I do usually prefer it if my car has… well. Wheels. Doors. That kind of thing.”
“No kidding,” Zina muttered. “Maybe we need to try to come up with a Plan B.”
“You might be right. But still, this might just be the cars whoever owns this place has stripped down for spare parts. There might be something drivable for sale around here.”
“I think it’s a waste of time,” Zina said flatly. “Time we don’t have.”
Reluctantly, Trent had to agree with her. It seemed like they’d be beholden to the bus timetable for a little while longer – but they still wouldn’t be able to get out to Tahnee’s sanctuary without some kind of transport.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get out of here and –”
“You guys wanting to buy a car or not?”
Trent jerked his head around at the sound of the voice behind him. Turning, he saw a lanky man with a long graying beard standing by the door of a shed that sat in the midst of all the sad, broken-down, barely-deserving-of-the-name cars.
“Maybe,” Trent replied, a little warily. “If you have anything that’d actually be drivable. And I mean for more than fifty meters down the road.”
“No need to be rude,” the man said peaceably as he strolled toward them. “These’re just the ones I couldn’t save. There’s the ones I have for sale in the shed – all fixed up and ready to go.”
Trent narrowed his eyes, but the man met his gaze with an enviable tranquility.
“I can take a look under the bonnet and all that, right?” Trent asked.
“Of course. Plus, if you pay cash, I’ll even waive all the usual formalities.” The bearded man’s eyes flickered between Trent and Zina. “Somehow I get the feeling you two are in a rush. I’m used to dealing with customers like you. You don’t need to worry about it. Come on – I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
Trent felt a little ruffled as he glanced at Zina. Were they really that obvious?
“What do you reckon?” he asked, as the man turned and walked back toward the shed.
Zina shrugged. “I think we should at least take a look. Not having to run the risk of my ID pinging should be worthsomething, I think.”
“Well, I have to agree with you there.” Trent turned to grin at her. “Also, we may get a bargain.”
Twenty minutes later – after a short detour to stock up on food, water and cans of petrol – they were rumbling down the road in the kind of car Trent might have politely called apaddock basherwhen he was a kid. In other words, an unregistered, unroadworthy, barely functional bomb that was really only good for getting around the back end of a farm. It’d been a tradition when he was growing up: every farmer had one, and every farmer let their kids drive it around their property long before they had a license – sometimes before their feet could even touch the pedals, in which case the kid would take the steering wheel, while the parent would work the brakes and accelerator.
Trent could remember doing the same thing with his father, back in the day – at least until he’d steered the paddock basher into a fallen tree and it had unceremoniously died, never to start again. But considering it had cost his father fifty bucks and a round of beers, it hadn’t exactly been that big of a deal. Back in the here and now, wrestling this rusty old car out onto the highway brought back a few fond memories of when he’d first been learning to drive, that was for sure.
“I think we got ripped off,” Zina said skeptically from beside him, as the car’s engine made an extremely suspicious rattling sound.
“It was only three hundred dollars,” Trent pointed out.
“Whatever you paid, it was too much.” Zina raised an eyebrow. “Is this thing going to even last until we get out of town?”
“Appearances – and sounds, I guess – can be deceiving,” Trent said sanguinely. “My first car was a lot like this one, and it went for ten years before it gave up the ghost.” He omitted the part where that was because he’d driven it into a log. “Sometimes these old things are tougher than they look.”
