Raina leaned over Puck who sprawled on a pile of shabby blankets in the bed of the rusted-out pickup, black tears streaming down her face, clamping down hard on her Aunt's hand as another cramp rippled through her synthetic body.
"Pux-gurl gonna be okay?" Maggie whimpered up in the oil and old plastic reeking cab to her Uncle Mike, who loomed over the cracked wheel gritting his teeth, one large hand draped over the battered gearshift between them as he carefully steered their rolling eyesore down the narrow way without flattening anybody's trash cans.
"Be home soon." he rumbled. He downshifted, blue eyes deliberately staring ahead as they passed fenced-in back yards filled with laughing children, some with fangs or excessive body hair.
Yellow-eyed Maggie picked at the duct-taped seat she was perched on, staring enviously out of the cracked half-rolled down passenger window at the splashing backyard pools full of kids with fins and gills. "Why does this keep happening?" she asked. (The Steins had a pool, but Uncle Mike said the public pool was good enough for them. Too bad that pool was closed for repairs.)
"Dunno. Stress from bein' on th'road fer two years? Bein' hunted by Charlie?" Mike shrugged, "A bad period?"
"We're dead, like totally dead." Maggie groaned, rolling her eyes, "Like, what's the point of being on the rag if you're dead? I mean, REALLY?"
Mike gave a massive shrug; lady-stuff always made him uncomfortable – thank God Raina his wife handled most of that so he didn't have to. "Home at last." he announced with relief.
Groaning like the sinking Titanic, the Schmidt's rolling eyesore pulled into the back of the Stein's property and promptly expired in a cloud of blue smoke.