"I didn't agree to that," I said, but Phil shook his head and went on.

"It's the only way to know for sure it's safe. She'll be fine, Ardith will look after her."

Not possible. I looked over my shoulder at the car, at her sleeping in the back. I couldn't go through with it. Phil wanted us to go with them across Scavenger Country, fair because we knew the way, but he also thought that it would be far safer for everyone if it was just he and I that approached the Citadel. It made sense, we had brands, there should be boys who remember us, knew us. We could ask to speak with an Imperator, or whoever the next link in the chain of command was, and that might get us a word with Furiosa. Wasn't happy about that last bit but the rest was reasonable, except the one thing. I can't just leave Dune somewhere in the badlands with the rest of the caravan. It could be that I didn't fully trust Ardith, it could be that I didn't want to leave her in buzzard territory. It could be either of those things and I'd use one of them as the excuse, but I knew the truth. I didn't want to go back without her with me. I've only ever left the caverns three times without her, first to check out the Citadel, second to fetch the crap we left behind after the sandstorm, third to get guzz for this stupid trip which kept making everything more complicated. It's a matter of feeling naked when you're not because something that should be there isn't.

Another excuse to avoid admitting the humiliating truth, it's her fault we're going, so she was obligated to be there when I had to go.

The night before, she'd made my choice for me. Fucking psycho nutter, couldn't say no to that dumb drunk smile. We were going with these strangers, apparently, back to the place I swore up and down that I would never return to, not even on pain of mediocre death. Why? Because the little idiot kissed me, not on the mouth, but still. She always had her way of rendering me stupid and compliant, so that I'd do the stupid ass things she wanted me to do. Make no mistake, I was pissed. I just couldn't really channel that at her when it was my own pathetic weakness that made it possible to say 'Yeah, you'll like it there' instead of 'I'm not fucking going because I don't want to and you're not fucking going because I said you're not'. She just had to put her damn mouth on me again.

On the other hand, I might have agreed to it at some later point without her forcing it, because it may just extend both our lifespans by a few years. The fact was, it's likely that I'll eventually need clean blood just to function, much like many other half-life war boys. The problem with her was, she isn't exactly a person who should be permitted to live on her own for a number of reasons, and inevitably she'll be on her own again if we never leave Scav Country. Dune is plenty capable of killing, surviving, collecting necessities, whatever, but eventually her lucky streak is going to run out and she's going to hallucinate her way into some kind of situation and without someone there to wrangle her loony ass... I refused to finish the thought, it made my guts burn.

Phil kept pressing for details about the dried out rust hole we came from, I told him he'd need sand cups on his tires if he could get ahold of something like that. The answer was simple, he couldn't, and I knew that feeling. The tires on my ride were the same ones that came with it when Dune shot the former owners. I can't tell you how many times I've had to patch them half-assed because I couldn't find the supplies to get the job done right. I was even starting to think it might be worth it to stop fighting the dry rot and stuff that rubber with as much trash as they could hold so that I wouldn't wake up one morning and find the Impala sitting on her rims.

Dune woke with the sun while Phil picked at my skull meat and worked on the pickup. She hissed at the light and rolled over with the covers pulled up over her head.

"This scav is never gonna get used to this."

"Hm? What?"

"Sun, waking up to it. Stays nice and dark in the underground where we nest, doesn't it?"

She was right, it did stay dark back at her kip where we slept. I never really thought about the weirdness of sleeping in the caves, much like the warrens, then here in this bog where we slept in the car, much like when I slept in the war chariot Nux and I rode on long patrols and places that take a while to reach and raid. I was used to sleeping wherever I happened to drop, she wasn't.

Once she managed to uncover her head and stumble out for a stretch and a yawn, she looked my way and declared that I looked like shit. Had another crap time getting to sleep and I couldn't be sure how long I slept. Felt like between the frenzy of chaotic dreams about home and Phil waking me before the crows start cawing, maybe a couple solid hours of shuteye? It wasn't enough, one look at the side mirror on the truck and I knew that I looked like a corpse.

"Aw Duck... Maybe when we head home we should stop by Wilson's and see if he has anything for sleep. Sorry, it'll probably be some kinda tea."

"Don't worry 'bout it."

"...something buggin' ya, Slit?" She asked. I must have had a tone.

"No,"

"But-"

"Dune! Just... Not right now." Yeah, I was pissy and she was being all soft about me looking like hell.

Roaring at Nux every time he pissed me off for his softness or for putting me in a position I didn't want to be in is what got us where we are in the first place. One dead -probably- and the other in self-imposed excommunication. Don't need to repeat history. It was better to avoid talking to her about anything until my head had time to cool off and think right.

When I turned away from the side mirror to look at her, she had this face on that I'd seen before, just not on her. It was a blank stare, not quite hurt, not quite angered, just stalled out for a second. She changed the wraps on her feet, pulled on her boots and went inside the crow hovel. I cursed. Damn, even when I fucking try not to I still find a way to screw up and send people off with that look on their face. It's only when you start to give a shit and them in return that you can actually make someone look at you like that. Never know how deep the blood runs until you find out if you can piss somebody off to the point of shooting streams of cola out of their eyes. Did that to Nux a couple times, even laughed at him for it. Great V8, what the shitting hell is wrong with me? Phil had something to say, of course, he did.

"What's got your britches in a bunch?"

"Nothing."

"That nothing doesn't sound like nothing."

I'd backed myself into a corner. I dragged Dune here, it was only fair that she got to haul my carcass back to the Citadel so I really couldn't argue it, plus she knew how to get me all rust and dumb enough to agree to anything with the shine hand and the mouth now too. I realized, if I went back, it would make everything that happened real. That's the problem. I don't want reality. I wanted to pretend that I was on a long walkabout and nothing had changed at home. I swallowed down the lump rising up my neck, prepared to repeat myself, but what came out of my mouth wasn't what I meant to say.

"Nux won't be there, and I don't want to go home to that."

I couldn't see what Phil was doing, eyes still glued to the door Dune had disappeared behind as she went inside, but I could hear him shuffling in my general direction.

"Did he die on the road, or in the blood shed."

My jaw clenched til my teeth ached. It was just another symptom of the neurosis I didn't want to confront, and with that came talking about it which I never had any real desire to do. Too late, he was already expecting an answer and he was even worse than the nutter, I'd rather not have him knock me on my ass while I'm trying to take a leak again.

"I don't know."

"You didn't witness him?"

"No," I felt a tension in both my whole leg and the ghost of the other, an instinct to move and get out of this grease pit and away from Phil's pity as quickly as possible. I made up an excuse as I turned to walk around the shack toward the outhouse. "Gotta take a dump."

I didn't get far, he had me by the elbow and almost got himself decked for it, but he slipped the move easily by throwing up an arm and grabbing at me again to pull me along in another direction.

"No you don't, and now you're not. C'mon, follow me and don't tell Ardith."

Alright, I'll humor an old war boy getting close to the end of his half-life, but I won't be led about like a pup. I removed myself from his grip and hobbled behind him at the pace I chose, rather, what the metal leg would allow going uphill.

Another bridge, in even worse shape than the one I'd just begun to disregard the inherent dangers of. He went across and waited at the other side for me, finally he revealed that the destination was what seemed to be a tool shed next to another dwelling that had caved in at the top some time ago. He opened the door, went inside, and lit a hanging oil torch in a tin can.

"You gonna stand there like the plastic people behind the big windows in the ruins, or are you gonna get in here and take a look'it what I brought you here to look'at."

I rolled my eyes before stepping inside the five by five rust box. There was hardly enough room to stand, had to cock my head because the roof was so low. It was bare inside save for the hanging torch and stacked boxes under a sheet of mildew stained cloth.

"Okay, now what?" I snapped only to be jabbed in the kidney just hard enough to feel it.

"Be patient, I'm gettin' to it."

Off came the sheet and what was there to be seen was a wheel shrine, a miniature version of the one I would remember at the very back of the blood shed. It was just one wheel, a skull made from ornate coils of copper wire adorned the center with spent shotgun shells for teeth. It sat up on a stand made up of two shock springs and a steering column. I recognized the wheel.

"Is that-"

"Yup. It's my driver's wheel."

I could remember Phil being part of a three-man team. Made sense that he was again in a situation with two other dudes and they were all riding the same thing. The lancer Ike, The driver Dunny, with a name like that because he had a mouth like a friggin piss pot, and Crank, the repair boy on the go.

"You stole his wheel?"

"I stole his car, Slit."

Yeah, I could remember that too. Nux and I would still occasionally hang around Tank and Notch's patrol team. I could clearly recall the crew coming back from evening patrol and Dunny just bawling, Ike raving fuckin' mad and taking out that fury on whatever face got too close to him in the pits. I wondered if Phil would like to hear about the fallout that came after what he had done. I also wondered what the hell he brought me here for and what it had to do with the fact that Nux must be dead and I wasn't so chuffed about going home to confirm it.

"A deserter and a thief."

"Shut it, get on your knees. We're doin' prayers. C'mon."

In the last two and a half years I had only prayed when things got bad or if I wasn't sure that an engine would start, just the usual quick pleas to the might of V8 not to let everything get all fucky and ruin my life some more.

Phil was already on his knees with his fingers over his head in salute before I decided whether or not I cared enough to do this.

"Bet your 'wife' gets real suspicious about you coming home with dirt on your knees." Dune is rubbing off on me.

"Don't be nasty, this is a holy act. Get down here."

I didn't even know any prayers which didn't directly make references to Joe as the supreme god. Would feel weird now to do this, especially right next to Phil with his opinions. He was waiting, not having said a word yet. Did he still believe in Valhalla? In the mighty V8? I didn't think he would, what with the way he talked.

Still, we waited on me. I huffed, snorted, growled, but I pushed the knob of the metal leg down and let it collapse under me as got down to the dirt floor.

"I dunno what I'm supposed to say if Joe wasn't what he said he was..."

"Just say what you think Nux and your brothers would wanna hear, mate. Jus' talk to them. Everyone dies, but they ain't gone. Okay? Just pray, an' if he doesn't hear it, then guess what? Must still be kickin'."

My face contorted at those rust coated words. If it was true, it could be a comfort, but I'm not one for fairy tales.

"How the hell do you know if they hear it?"

"You can't know everything, Pup."

He began his mantra in mutters. I heard words I don't think had ever been used in our prayers, and there were names of the fallen brothers. There were some familiar phrases: Live, die, live again. Instead of honoring him with deeds Phil said honor them and I couldn't be entirely certain what 'they' he was referring to, but I guess he could have meant the brothers long gone before us.

It might not be so out there. There had been times I was convinced Nux could hear me from the other side, even speak to me in my own mind although I sort of knew it was just my head churning out what I think he'd say in response to this or that. I didn't hear voices in any sense the way Dune did. Easy to see the difference between the memory of a person and the effect of that versus half-feral madness.

I did the usual prayer, without any mention of Joe, then I told Nux about the car and how much he'd drool on the thing. That's just small talk. Once more, I had no idea what to say, much less to him. It was awkward with Phil there, but he was busy with his own stuff, talking to Ike and Dunny. Dun, I'd him seen die, burnt up in the blood shed. Couldn't be certain how Ike was doing but he was looking really lean last time I saw him.

I tried talking about Dune, and that was just a mess. I didn't want him to think he'd been replaced, even though that's how I had felt when I saw that feral blood bag puke pat him on the head and take over for him when they were spitting guzz into the engines of the War Rig. So long later, I think I've cooled off just enough to stop wishing that feeling on him.

"Did you hear it, when I thought I was at the gates?"

I still remember that last moment, the blood bag was right there, if I could just get that chrome slice of wasteland beauty to accelerate before the people eater's limousine came in on my left, I might have shredded his fucking head against the bumper. Oh, the fury that flowed so deep and pure that I thought I might combust, and then I did. At the time I wasn't sure if it was me or the gas tank that blew. I just wanted that driver thieving retch dead so bad.

This whole time I've been letting myself act like that was the moment I actually died. Some part of me was dead after that, besides the leg. I don't know, maybe I had dead pieces even before that. Who fuckin' knows anymore.

Phil must have up and left without me noticing. I was alone in that shed, praying weird shit at some wheel that didn't even belong to my own driver. I think I still appreciated what Phil was trying to do. He might be a deserter and he might be a dirty thief, but I knew why he had to do what he did. I think he wanted better for all of us, shame most of us would've been too damn dumb to see that. Jesus Chrysler everything was wrong and I felt like I was falling down a long dark hole into someplace totally unknown. I'm on a road to somewhere, but it feels like nowhere. I wished that I could ask Nux where we were headed because he always knew where we were going even if I couldn't clearly remember our orders.

"Fuck I hope Dune ain't pissed. No offense to you but, as kamikrazy as you could get, you never bit me. Heh, that shit hurts."

I know he'd laugh at me for that, taking that kind of guff off a scav only two thirds my size and with half the gears upstairs turning in the wrong direction. V8, I could hear his voice in my head, and I know it was just a memory. That was exactly enough of that. I think I felt comforted, but comfort isn't a word you should throw around lightly. Comfort is rare, and I couldn't quite equate the feeling to that. Numb might be better. Being numb is better than being in pain.

The day crawled on, nothing to do but go with it. The meeting reconvened and I was physically present, although I was asleep through most of it, sitting against a wall and hearing only bits and pieces that crept through the dream-like state that I fell into. I dreamed about maps and territories and dangers the others talked about with Dune as if I was there, in Scav country looking at what they were talking about at any given time.

I woke to a dry, foul tasting mouth and Dune talking about supplies. We had supplies, scavenged munitions, water, things we could trade to the Citadel to secure entry. She was so dead set on going that she was offering to pack up our supplies and hand them over, to cement our place in the caravan and to ensure that we got our spot on the lift. That is if they let us up.

My blood pump did a flack flip in my chest cage. We can't put all of our resources in this when the chances of it going down in flames were as good or better than any hope of success. I wanted to know for sure, that if I had to do this, at least there was a second option if the first backfires. I wanted something to go back to if everything gets screwed.

No time to grab Dune and tell her she was acting insane. They agreed to meet her, and me too I guess, at a point on the map Featherknife had scrawled out. It was somewhere between Wilson's and the dunes, at a rock formation that Dune had to scribble out for them so that they would recognize it when they saw it. I wasn't awake enough to say anything, I was just trying to make sense of what I was hearing and seeing as I watched over her shoulder and scrubbed at my eyes. They seemed to assume that I knew what was happening, I didn't. The meeting was over before I could argue that this was nuts, way more than we should give, and downright idiotic. And I had almost begun to miss Dune's delusional optimism.

Before long, we were outside, around the car again and piling in to return to Ardith's home the same as the day before, and once again, Phil waited to say something to me. He stopped me with a push on my shoulder to turn me around.

"Hey, I'm sorry, Slit. Yeah, I'm using you. It's because I'm old, I need help to do this, help from somebody who knows what it's like out there. Not an excuse, just an explanation. You don't have to do anything, just think about it, alright?"

"Decision is already made," I muttered, shouldering my way passed him to the driver side.

He probably thought I looked miffed because of him, because of what he had me do earlier. No, I was just hot in the head over what Dune was doing and worried she was just as heated over what I said this morning right after she rolled off the mat in the back of the car. Things never end great when we were both moody.

Repetition is torture anywhere but home, and I was realizing that Dune's kip had become my home, not the Citadel. At home, you do the same shit you do every day and it's easy, safe, makes you feel secure. If you're anywhere else, it feels like at any minute everything might break away from the routine and remind you not to trust anything to stay the same. I hate it here, and the ever-present gloom of the fog was starting to make me want to scratch my eyes out so that I wouldn't have to look at it.

When Dune got out of the car, she looked back at me for only a moment before following Ard inside. Blood pump did another flip, and I was following them inside too, trying to get a word in before Dune and her lady friend started talking about whatever it is they talked about when I wasn't there to eavesdrop. I reached out and took her at the elbow to stop her from sitting by the crate of records she seemed to like so much.

"Hey, can-" It didn't want to come up my throat hole and out, the words just clung to my tongue and wouldn't let go without being forced. She looked at me like I had smoke rising out of the top of my head. "...can we talk?"

The loon shrugged and shook her head, it wasn't a no, it was a way to say that she couldn't see why talking would be as problematic as I made it sound, which made me feel like a moron as I led the way back outside. Phil passed us as we went, and his eyes pried right up until I slammed the door on him.

"Duck, you tell Dune what's wrong with you. Been acting funny all day."

How the hell do I start this?

"Dune I... I'm sorry I snapped at you this morning." I choked that up, and it burned on the way out like bile.

Her hand thumped over her blood pump and she had the look of a snake that had just been stepped on. "What the hell?!"

"I said I'm sorry!" It came in a shout, stooped to her level as my face got hot with both embarrassment and what felt like a kind of mild anger.

"Slit! Stop! Okay, did you think Dune was mad at you?"

Well, yes! I did. What else was I supposed to think if she wouldn't talk to me all damn day? She seemed to see it in me, what I thought, so she stood straight and held out both hands as if she were trying to calm some feral.

"Slit, Duck, one of the first coherent things you ever said to Dune was 'I hate you'. You think she'd have kept you around for very long if her feelings were easy to bruise? Dune ain't cross with you! Jus' seemed like you needed space, so she bit her tongue and went to annoy Arddie for a while, with EVERY intention of coming back to irritate you later."

"Oh."

It felt like I had been preparing for the worst, maybe for Dune to not care if I went with the caravan or not.

"Slit?"

"Huh?"

"What else is troubling ya?"

"Eh, I don't like it when you make plans without me."

"Oh, do you... Not want to go?"

"I- I dunno what I want."

She sighed her answer, looking away from me toward the door. "I never asked how you felt, I'm so-"

"Don't!" She was talking in the first person, never a good sign, and I could sense another apology coming. I didn't enjoy giving mine, and I know I wouldn't enjoy receiving hers. "Don't say you're sorry."

"We don't have to go."

"...Yes, we do. I'm just not gonna like it."

"Ducky-"

"Don't stand there and act like it didn't suck for you on the way back here. It's the same thing. I'll deal."

Silence. She looked down at her feet like I had stepped on a nerve, or maybe not.

"...Yeah, it did. I'll be there with you. Only fair, right?"

Stupid to think she would ditch me.

That night I slept like a pup. We did the usual thing, eating with the crow fishers, but in the back of the car, later on, she grabbed me by the ear and dragged me across her lap. I protested, at first, but a shine hand on my head and the other held in my left stopped that. She stroked from the back of my head to the waistband of my trousers, and it didn't take much of that to get me leaning into her for more of it. Late in the night, I woke, startled and uncertain if I had remembered to tie the loon's hand to mine. I was the one being spooned and when I moved to see that it was her on me, it came to my attention that she had tied our belts together since her arm was too short to fit over me and reach my wrist. Slick of her. She pulled me back down and yanked the covers back up over our shoulders, all the while doing her inane murmuring.

Every night she did that, sometimes she sang too, and looking forward to that helped to keep the dread of what was to come after we left here at bay. We were going back to her kip after this harvest thing, packing up our shit and taking it to the place where we were supposed to meet the others in six weeks time. It was long enough for everyone to get their affairs in order, and a long time for me to consider backing out.

I hate not knowing the road I'm headed down, I guess I should just be thankful there's still a shine hand to make it all tolerable. Soon the harvest thing was upon us, and that meant the end of everything safe and easy.