Domik leaned over her shoulder to see, but the words made no sense to him. “I can’t read that.”
“Oh, I forgot,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Right, so we’re here.” She pointed a finger at a spot on a map in the center of the page. “We’re near a place called Death Valley, actually not that far from the base where we want to go, which is around here.” She stabbed her finger at a second spot on the map.
“Death Valley?”
That sounds ominous.
“Oh, it’s just a name.” She smiled up at him, and his breath caught.
She is so beautiful.
Domik grunted and turned away, walking toward a rack of clothing and flipping through mindlessly. CJ approached and stilled his hands with one of her own. “Different clothing is a good idea, but I don’t think that what you’re looking through is going to work.”
“Huh? Why not?”
She gave him a look that said, ‘just trust me on this’, before pulling out a violently pink top that looked far too small for him.
“Oh,” he said, looking down as she held it up to his chest with a giggle.
“The map shows a town not far away, with a motel and a department store. Let’s see if we can get a ride and head over there.”
She tossed the pink monstrosity back on the rack and turned, hands on hips, to look around.
“But first, let’s eat something. I’m starved.” She rubbed her stomach as it rumbled. “And I have a hankering for some junk food.”
For the next few minutes, Domik trailed CJ around the shop holding a basket that she placed anything and everything she wanted into. When the basket was full, she took it from him and led him outside to a table and chairs at the front of the store.
She began pulling the food from the basket and opening packets with an exclamation of glee.
“I have missed you so much,” she said, much to Domik’s amusement, as she bit into what smelled like pure sugar but looked like a fluffy cloud. CJ closed her eyes and moaned as she chewed, a little dusting of powdered sugar on the corner of her lip drawing Domik’s eyes like a beacon.
Are those lips as soft as they look?
He looked away and absently opened a bottle of what CJ had confirmed was water, taking a deep swallow. Picking up a packet at random, he opened it to find most of it air. He reached in and picked out a roughly circular, pale yellow shape. Lightweight and very delicate, it crushed a little under his fingers.
Domik looked from the supposed food to CJ, who nodded encouragingly, so he popped it in his mouth and bit down. The flavor was… strange. Salt and air, but not much else.
“Do you like it?” CJ asked. Domik couldn’t bear to disappoint her, so he nodded and was rewarded with a beaming smile.
Ah, Clodagh. I would eat cardboard and call it gourmet, as long as you smiled at me like that.
Domik ate another of what CJ told him were potato chips, deciding they weren’t awful, but weren’t exactly his favorite thing to eat either. Rinsing down the last of the packet with the bottle of water, he stood up and strode across the front of the gas station toward a series of parked vehicles.
“Where do you think they all went?” CJ asked, trotting along behind him with a bottle of water in one hand and another sugary food item in the other. If she liked those foods so much, he would make sure she always had them available.
“What is that?” He pointed at the packet in her hand, wanting to know what it was so he could buy more for her.
“This?” she asked, lifting it up to look at the small packet with a grin.
“Yes. What is it?”
“A cake of sorts. It’s called a Twinkie. I know they’re terrible for me, but I haven’t had one in so long that I just went a little overboard.” She frowned as she looked at it. “I probably shouldn’t eat this one, or I’ll make myself sick.” She went to toss it aside, but Domik grabbed her hand to stop her.
“Keep it. You can have it later.” He wasn’t about to let her get rid of something that made her so happy.
“OK,” she said, dragging the two syllables out.
He nodded. Glad that she understood. He faced the vehicles that were parked on one side of the gas station. There was another truck, like the one to the rear of the building, a smaller vehicle and a curious looking four-wheeled vehicle that looked very similar to the speeders that he had used on Taurus.
