Hux paced angrily around the rental car, trying to achieve a decent phone signal and keep from freezing. He swore loudly as the signal faltered again. He'd tried several times to call for recovery assistance, not that any had been of any help during the brief minutes he'd managed to get through to them. Hux assumed it was due to bad phone signal and they simply hadn't understood him on the noisy crackly line. That or the locals around here were simply rude to outsiders.
He looked up and down the empty road for the hundredth time hoping for a car to appear out of the dim fading light and rescue him.
In the two hours or so he had spent stranded in a rural layby growing chillier and more icicle like Hux's thoughts had turned from hopeful to murderous. He cursed the genius in Human Resources had decided to rent him such a cheap car for such an important business trip. Especially considering they were well into winter now.
He made a mental note to terminate them, assuming of course he did get that promised promotion once this disaster of a trip was over.
His boss, Snoke would not be pleased if he didn't get the contract sitting safely in his briefcase signed by the end of tomorrow. Hux glanced at his watch and hoped he'd make his meeting tomorrow on time. Hell at this rate he hoped he'd get to his bed and breakfast before tomorrow.
The setting sun cast the sky in a red angry glow that matched Hux's current mood. Hux thought of hot chocolate and a warm bed and began to contemplate sleeping in his car pulling his fashionably thin coat closer around him.
Hux heard the blast of vintage Christmas pop rock long before he saw a car approach, the cheesy music a welcome din to his cold ears.
Hux dashed into the road, keen to make the driver, whoever they were stop and help.
The sight of a tacky silver van, almost made him change his mind. But given he'd lost the feeling in his toes, Hux couldn't afford to be picky.
Hux braced himself to deal with some country hick.
But the van kept going.
Perhaps Hux thought, perhaps that idiot can't see me in the murky light, the driver not having turned on their headlights yet.
Hux moved further into the middle of the road and waved his arms like an eager child waving at a mall Santa. He must have noticed me now, he thought hope spreading through his body like a shot of whisky.
And yet the van still doesn't seem to want to stop for him.
Hux cannot wait another for someone else to come down this quiet lane, especially as evening has pretty much arrived.
Hux threw himself out into the road, arms spread wide in the hope that the van driver would stop or at the very least put him out of his cold misery.