The pleasure of having Carlos's hand settled firmly on her back didn't last long. As they approached Claire and the others, the group tensed. Alice's sharp eyes picked up their instinctual movement toward one another, packing together for protection.
She felt Claire staring down Carlos from behind her aviator sunglasses. Reality came crashing back. No matter what she felt for the man beside her, she was dangerous. Carlos had friends in the convoy, a family. She had no right to take that away from him. It would be selfish, and he would be safer without her.
Alice veered to the left, away from Carlos's comforting hand, and headed for the shade provided by the roof over the gas pumps. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, alerting her to the frown Carlos was directing at her back. She continued moving forward at a steady pace.
Once shielded from the sun, she was able to peak over her shoulder and watch as Carlos was enveloped into the tiny group. Many of their faces were in shadow, but she could still see the urgency in their stances.
Unable to watch anymore, she cast her eyes out over the desert, letting her mind wander. She glared up at the sky. It didn't matter how well she played it off in front of Carlos and his friend, they had been tracking her earlier. She had felt the achingly familiar tug as the satellite passed over her, the brief but piercing ring in her ears of the transmission.
"Hey. You got a minute?"
Alice bit back a sarcastic reply. She obviously wasn't doing anything important. Unless staring at the sand would allow her to derive some magical solution to a world being destroyed by a single corporation with a superiority complex.
"Sure."
"Look, everyone is really grateful for what you did-"
"But how long am I gonna stay?" Alice was surprised by the amount of venom in her voice. She disliked the weakness it implied, that despite the terror the members of the convoy currently felt for her, she was still vulnerable; she still felt pain.
"Don't get me wrong, we really are grateful. But they're all talking, what you did out there, and they're scared." And there it was, the pain blooming outward from an indistinguishable point in her chest, stretching outward, threatening to consume her.
"I don't blame them. People have a habit of dying around me."
"Not just you." Alice's eyes snapped up to meet Claire's, the eyes of the fearless, ruthless convoy leader to see her own pain and fear reflected back in them. She was just trying to protect her family, even as it kept shrinking smaller. Although her chest still seared with rejection, Alice felt an admiration for the woman.
"Thanks." Her voice was low, dusty like the wind blowing through the camp.
"How many years have you been out here on your own?" Claire's voice was hushed.
"Too many. And not enough." Alice met Claire's eyes one more time before she pushed herself off the gas pump and walked out into the blazing sun, tugging at her scarf so that it shadowed her face.
Kicking at the sand as she went, she silently made her way around the bus and then the gas tanker. Glancing around and seeing that no one was watching her she grabbed onto the ladder hugging the outside of the tanker and hoisted herself up. Once perched on top, she gazed out over the camp.
They were clumped together, sitting in the shade afforded by vehicles and the roofs of buildings sticking up out of the sand. Although several close friends had just been lost, they were laughing. One group had found a deck of old cards and was playing some kind of poker, using frivolous items lifted from various hotels and gas stations as chips: lipstick, nail polish, a ballpoint pen, a pack of double fresh gum.
They were hungry, tired, and scared. But they were loved. Tears burned in her eyes and she stood and spun in one quick motion, leaping off of the top of the tanker and landing several yards away outside of the perimeter marker. Somewhere in the distance she heard an alarm going off and people yelling at one another. A tear trickled down her cheek, and she began running.
"Alice!" It was Carlos. A surge of pain filled her, and another tear followed the path of the first as her legs moved forward just a bit faster.