Day three dawned early on their Rawlins, Wyoming Super 8. Three days was an ungodly amount of time on the road. The bleary-eyed trio wandered through breakfast and into the car for another driving stint, but the bleariness gave way to crankiness. As Mom would say, "Some nerves were starting to fray."

His phone said they were a solid fourteen hours from home, but Hela was determined to make the rest of the trip in one day. It was kind of crazy, and when he'd texted Mom, she'd tried to let him down gently that no, he probably wouldn't be home in his own bed.

He was sick of the van. It was hot, and the backseat smelled like Fenris and his kibble, and Thor refused to give up the front seat. He was out of Gravity Falls episodes, sick of skipping through his music library, and out of patience. He tugged his headphones off and spent the next four hours picking fights with Thor until Loki got up on his knees and shoved his shoulder between the front seats.

"You suck!"

Thor twisted and got his face next to Loki's. "You suck!"

"Hey. Hey!" Hela shoved Thor back down in his seat and swerved a little on the road before grabbing the wheel with both hands. "Sit down."

The car swerved back into the lane, and Hela growled and pushed the hair out of her face. "We are just tired—" She spat the word out. "—from sitting so long. I'm going to pull over at the next stop, and you two are going to chill out."

Loki stuck his tongue out at the back of Thor's head, but his older brother saw in the mirror and whipped around. Loki squeaked and lunged back.

At the next town, Hela pulled off into a tiny gas station and threw the van violently into park, and the brothers burst from the vehicle. Loki took a deep whiff of gasoline and farm, wrinkling his nose. After baking in the desert for so long, the green countryside felt cold, so he fished his hoodie out of his bag and wriggled into it.

Fenris headbutted his back, but the boy pushed him back inside and shut the door. "No. You stay."

"Hey. Where do you think you're going?"

The boys spun around. In front of the van stood Hela, holding up a piece of red plastic. Mom's card. Rats.

"Uh, for a drink?"

"And what, you were just going to leave this in the parking lot?" Her lips pressed together in an irritated line.

A little red around the ears, Thor stalked back and snatched the card from her hand. She watched him walk back to Loki then rolled her eyes and returned to pumping gas. Inside Loki looked over the shelves of granola and candy bars, but he didn't want any of those. He wandered around the corner and down the next aisle. Beef jerky, chips, powdered donuts. Mom bought him powdered donuts sometimes—when he got the flu and missed school for like a week, when she first told them she and Dad were getting divorced.

It had been a garbage day, and he wanted some.

Thor stood between the wall of drinks and the row of emergency road trip supplies—nail clippers, duct tape, air fresheners, things like that—when Loki came down the aisle and held up the white paper bag.

"Hey."

Thor kept texting.

With one finger, Loki pushed his shoulder, and Thor slapped his arm away and glared. "Bug off."

Loki held the donuts in his brother's face. "I want these."

"No." Thor shoved the bag away, turned his back, and resumed texting.

"I said I want the donuts."

"And I said no."

"You're not my mom."

"Good."

Loki shoved his brother, who stumbled forward then whipped around. With a yelp, Loki sprinted to the bathroom and slammed the door, which shuddered and banged as Thor pounded on the other side.

The older boy yelled, "You suck."

"You suck," Loki hollered back.

No answer. His brother might have already walked away, but it wouldn't hurt to wait a little bit. They hadn't fought-fought in a while—trying to be good like Mom asked—but Loki didn't want to get decked in a Nebraska gas station, that seemed like a lame way to die, so he'd give it a couple minutes. His phone was in his hoodie pocket, so he could call for help if he needed. Even though he wasn't sure if Hela would come bail him out at this point.

He looked around the bathroom to take stock of his hiding place. It was old, obnoxiously red and white with newspaper clippings of some wrestler dude, and aside from the overflowing trashcan pretty clean. A sink, an off-white toilet, and a roll of paper towels just sitting on the toilet tank. The small room reeked of Febreeze, but it didn't smell like the bathroom on the beach they sometimes visited on weekends, so it would do.

Still clutched his hand was the bag of powdered donuts, a little flat from all the swinging around, but still sealed, still obnoxiously, deliciously sugared. No way Thor was going to buy it for him now. After all the yelling the van, Hela definitely wouldn't. She seemed like she could stay P.O'ed for a while. Like, years.

Loki sighed and pulled out his phone. No messages from Mom in the four and a half minutes since he'd last checked. Again he looked at the bag. He could open the bag and just eat them all here in the bathroom, and then somebody would have to pay for it.

He squatted against the wall and unfolded the top of the bag. By the fourth or fifth one, the flaw in his plan dawned on him. There were like twenty donuts in here. No way he was gonna eat them all.

Screw it. He crumpled up the bag and stuffed it up his hoodie. Then he opened the door and trudged out into the gas station where Hela was paying for gas.

"Hey, Hela."

"What?" She took a receipt from the bored-looking teen behind the counter, glanced at the paper, then stuffed it in her pocket.

He thought about the half-full bag under his shirt. Everybody thought he couldn't do anything. Screw them, he could take care of himself. "Nothin'."

"Then let's go. If we don't stop, we can make it to your mom's house tonight."

Finally. He shuffled after her out to the car, shoulders hunched and elbows out to hide the weird bulge under his shirt. Thor was already in the front seat, slumped down with his feet up on the dashboard. Hela banged a fist on the hood, and the blond jumped and jerked his feet down.

"Thank you."

Loki crawled into the backseat, where Fenris shoved a long, wet nose into the kid's chest, sniffing and nosing for the opened bag. Loki pushed the dog away. "No. No, stop it." He settled in his seat and buckled up and pushed Fenris again. "You're gonna get me in trouble."

They pulled back onto the highway. Loki plugged his phone in to charge and slouched in his seat while the stupid donuts burned a hole in the sweater that was getting hotter and hotter, and dumb Fenris kept sniffing him and trying to nose into his shirt for food.

After an hour, Loki pulled out the bag and opened it as much as he could without crinkling it too loud and stuffed a body-warmed donut into his mouth. It wasn't as good—crumby, a little sticky, a pain to chew.

Hela glanced in the mirror then did a double take, then a triple take where she locked eyes with him in the mirror, and her eyebrows lowered in a dark scowl. "Where did you get those?"

There was something in her voice that made Loki want to curl in on himself, but Thor snickered. He hated that. He hated when Thor laughed at him, and he hated the way Hela was looking at him. He stuck out his chin and licked powdered sugar from between his fingers. "From the gas station."

"I mean how did you pay for them?"

He stuffed another one in his mouth and mumbled around it. He needed something to drink. "I can have donuts if I want."

She glanced at the road, adjusted the wheel, and nailed him again with a glare as dark as any Dad had ever worn.

"The card is in my wallet, kid. How did you pay for those donuts?"

He stuffed two more donuts in his mouth, but he couldn't quite close his jaw all the way. They tasted kind of chalky even as he struggled to chew. Thor had stopped laughing.

"Loki. Did you steal those?"

It wasn't a question. Loki tried to swallow, but the cake and powdered sugar had taken all the moisture from his mouth. Hela stared dead ahead, and painful silence swallowed the van. Loki choked down the donut and dropped the nearly empty bag on the ground, and Fenris leapt on it and buried his head in the white paper, his entire backside shaking from his tail. Five minutes later, Hela jerked the wheel, and the van screamed down an exit ramp, down a little side road, and to a stop on the narrow gravel shoulder.

Fenris bounced to his feet, ready to be let out again, but Loki threw open the side door, skidded down the steep, wet-grassed embankment and chucked the bag as far as he could over the wire fence into the adjacent field. The maybe two and a half donuts left carried it a little way into the waist-high plants.

Two doors slammed. He whipped around, and Hela was storming around the front of the van, coming up behind Thor. The older boy was staring at him in confusion, but his sister elbowed past him and slid down the hill. A little freaked out by how fast she was coming, Loki hunched his shoulders and backed up a step. She glared down at him, the crease of her brow familiar and frightening. She was really tall.

Hela growled. "Loki, you can't just steal random shit. What the hell were you thinking?"

He tried to glare back. "You can't prove I stole anything."

She gestured wildly to the field where she's just watched him chuck the paper bag and gave him an exasperated, disbelieving expression. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Thor skidded down the embankment and got between his siblings. "Hey, you don't have to yell at him."

The interruption didn't faze Hela in the least. "Why weren't you watching him, hot shot?"

"I'm not his dad. It's not my job."

"I'm not your mom, but I'm busing you across the entire country. A little help would be nice."

"Fine, I'll just sit on him for the rest of the drive. That oughta help."

"Watch the lip."

Thor was tall but not quite tall enough to look Hela square in the eye. Beet red, he clenched his fists, and Loki was half scared Thor would take a swing at her. "You're not my mom!"

"You're damn right I'm not." Hela stepped forward and forced him to back up to keep from getting pushed over. "And when we get to Minnesota, you're her problem. You'll never have to see me again."

"Fine! Leave. We don't need you anyway."

Loki slammed the side door shut, then slammed the front passenger's door closed and stomped around the van to crawl into the driver's seat—he wasn't quite tall enough to slide in—and shut the door behind him. Outside, his siblings were still yelling at each other.

He was sick of people yelling. They sucked. The van sucked. Everything sucked, and he wanted to go home. He grabbed his phone out of the back seat, tugged on his headphones, and locked the doors.

Hela froze when she heard the lock click. She and Thor whirled on the van just in time to see black hair disappearing beneath the passenger-side window. She scrambled up the embankment about as gracefully as a seal, the wet grass sliding out from under her boots. "Loki! Loki, you open this door."

He was slumped in the seat with his headphones on, rock music blaring loud enough to hear through the glass. Her phone was right there, stuck to the dashboard and useless. Still blasting his music, Loki pointedly did not look up.

She pounded her palm on the window. "Loki! Loki, open this door right now or I swear—"

"Or what?" Thor yelled. "If you hate us so much, why don't you just leave! Leave like everybody else does."

Thor yelled incoherently, prompting Hela to turn around just in time to see him hurl something at the ground and stomp off along the fence. She threw up both her hands. "Where are you going?"

"Away from you! You suck." He stormed off.

It wasn't like there was anywhere the dumb kid could go. He'd be back. Hela banged on the glass a few more times and yanked on the handle, but Loki grabbed a blanket from the back seat and threw it over his head in a makeshift shield.

Hela yelled in frustration, dropped onto her butt on the gravel, and leaned against the van's side. This had to be one of the worst days she'd had in a long time.

She sat for a long time, vacantly watching the field grass undulate in the wind. Eventually, she stood back up and tossed her jacket on the hood. Inside, Loki was passed out on the backseat, pillow under his head and his headphones crooked awkwardly on his head.

"Loki." She rapped on the window. "Kid."

He smacked his lips and rolled over, tugging off his headphones and burying down into his pillow. She sighed and peered up the road, hand up to shade her eyes against the sun. She should probably go look for Thor. And her dog.

So she took off slid down the bank to whatever Thor had chucked on the ground and poked around for a second before finding a cranberry red plastic hammer that looked like it had been printed in her office. Stuffing it in her pocket, she ambled off in the direction he'd gone and walked for maybe twenty minutes before she spied him chucking shoulder gravel into a wheat field while Fenris bounded through the long stalks.

Hela dropped to the ground beside Thor and propped her elbows on her knees. "Enjoying the view?"

He didn't look at her. "You're a jerk."

"I'm sorry."

He grunted. "I guess it's a family thing."

"Unfortunately." She looked down at her hands. Why was she so bad at this? "You're… you were pretty upset back there. You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Cool. I didn't want to talk about it either." She held out the plastic hammer. "You dropped this."

He glanced at it for a second before looking back out at the waving grass. "Don't want it."

She put it back in her pocket. "That's fine. You probably have enough on your plate without worrying about this dumb thing. School, hockey, friends…"

"Did life get easier? When you ran away?"

Ah. Hela took a deep breath and considered her options. Thor sounded pretty serious, more serious than she'd ever heard him, and there was a determined set to his jaw. It was too familiar, and she didn't like it on him. "Not really. I had to take care of myself by myself. There wasn't anyone else to lean on. Why? You thinking about running away?"

He picked up a rock and chucked it into the grass. "I don't know. I wouldn't have to worry anybody else."

"Who are you worried about?"

"I promised Loki I'd take care of us. But then he goes and does something dumb like this… What if Dad finds out?"

Hela snorted. "What, like I'm gonna tell him?"

"When Jane's parents got divorced, her dad took everything and left. Just disappeared. Her mom is working like all the time now."

Hela licked her lips. Jane was one of Thor's friends if she remembered right. "So… what? You think if Odin finds out about some stupid donuts, he's going to completely skip out on you and leave your mom to take care of everything?"

Thor shrugged, but his jaw clenched tighter, and he looked away.

"It's pretty cool of you to be worried about your mom and your brother. But if your dad decides to completely skip out over something as stupid as a three-dollar bag of plastic-flavored donuts, then he's doesn't deserve you guys. And I know I talk… a lot of smack about him, but maybe… maybe he isn't as big a jerk as I think he is.

"He left us in Phoenix by ourselves."

Hela snorted. "That's true. And Odin has screwed over a lot of people in his life, but I think whatever he does—even if I hate it—he does because he thinks it's what's best." She pulled up a blade of grass and twirled it in between her fingers, just so Thor wouldn't feel like she was staring at him. "Besides, your mom is a pretty resourceful woman. I bet she already has a plan."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She has her wedding planning business, and she figured out how to get you and your brother home from halfway across the country. So I think she's more than capable of taking care of you and Loki by herself."

Thor exhaled a shaky breath and wiped at his face, and Hela, doing the kind thing for once in her life, pretended not to see. Once he wiped his nose and cleared his throat, she tossed the grass away. "And if everything goes completely south, you can come work for me."

He raised his head. "Really?"

"Sure." She smirked. "We need somebody to babysit the printer."

He glared at her, but most of the venom had gone out of it. She bumped her shoulder against his. "Come on. Let's go make sure Loki isn't cooking himself to death in the van. I don't want to explain that to your mom."

Thor snorted.

Together they walked back to the van with Fenris trotting behind. At the van, they saw a little tuft of black hair sticking up behind the steering wheel. Hela sighed. "What is he doing?"

"You ask me like I know things."

Hela shook her head and walked around to the glass. In the driver's seat sat Loki, or rather, laid Loki trying to hold down the pedal and turn the key at the same time, half hanging from the steering wheel. She wrapped on the glass, and he jumped and scrambled back to get his butt on the seat. When he saw Hela, relief flashed across his face, followed by a blanche of uncertainty. She gestured for him to open the door. He glanced round, spied Thor, then unlocked the door.

Hela opened the door, and tepid air reeking of beef jerky wafted out. She wrinkled her nose. "What are you doing?"

"Was gonna come find you," Loki mumbled. He slid out of the driver's seat and scooted away to pet Fenris. With a sigh, the oldest grabbed her phone from the dashboard. Four missed calls and three lost hours.

She tossed it in a cupholder and walked around the van to where the boys petted Fenris, who was more than happy to lap up the adoration. Thor was talking to him in a low voice, but Loki seemed entirely focused on petting the dog.

Hela stood still, not really hearing what the blond said to his little brother, but after a few minutes, the boys stepped back from the dog, and Loki raised his head. "Are we almost home?"

"Almost."

Thor threw open the passenger door. "Then let's get this show on the road. I got places to be."

They piled into the van, and Hela pulled back onto the road and followed it back to the highway. Then she took a deep breath. "Hey, Loki?"

He met her gaze in the rearview mirror but didn't speak.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you."

He looked away and slumped in his seat. Hela glanced at Thor, who shrugged. Well, there wasn't much more she could do except get these kids home. So she adjusted her grip on the wheel and merged back onto the freeway.