Page 27 of Queen of Nothing

This whole running away thing has been so intense and chaotic that I actually haven’t had the chance to feel the loss—until now.

It’s a long drive.

It’s a quiet drive.

And that cold ache spreading through my chest is undeniably grief.

I face the window to hide the silent tears falling down my cheeks.

Everything in me wants to run back to Mother and throw myself into her arms and cry on her shoulder.

I have to force my mind to hold onto the reasons I ran in the first place, that Mother is supposed to protect me but dismisses me instead, that she was so cold about Dray and all the pain he’s put me through, and that our meeting at Bluestone if I didn’t run wouldn’t have gone in my favour at all.

Maybe once we reach the shield witch and get settled, and it all slows down, I’ll feel better.

No more motels, bad food, airports and flights. No more chasing our shadows.

The shield witch is our reprieve.

“I can have the baby there,” Serena told me back at the last motel. “It’s safe and remote. I can trust her.”

It’s a relief that we won’t be on the run while she’s pregnant. But once she has the baby, we go back on the road.

That’s a whole other problem for another day.

Right now, I just need to stop and stand still for a while.

I distract myself in the car.

Once I fight back the tears, and wipe the evidence away from my cheeks, I switch back and forth between two radio stations.

One plays a pop song that Serena likes, humming along with it like she knows the tune, but I think it’s sort of hollow and the singer sounds lazy, the melody is lazy, and it’s all very bland.

The other is weird yell-singing.

And honestly, I don’t know which is worse.

Serena hits my hand away, annoyed by my constant back and forth of the stations. She makes the decision for me, and that traps me in the car with hollow pop music.

And it’s a long ride to Mexico.

It’s hours until we cross the border.

Serena turns onto the highway and she drives slowly. She turns the music down, and a fresh wave of quiet washes over us.

I throw the bags onto the backseat. Much lighter now that they are free of jewels.

The book illusions of the cash will have faded now.

It’s not a lot of money. Less now that we have paid our way across the world.

I don’t know how much the shield witch will cost us.

Assuming she doesn’t take too much, I doubt even then the money will last us a long time.

I’m not familiar with how much is needed to live, for food, for a home, for… other things that come with life out in the krum world.

But between us, maybe there’s only a year or two in that money—unless we chose to live somewhere like here.