The next day found the three of them piled into the front seat of a bandit technical truck, Brick at the wheel, Rocko on the passenger side, and Tina wedged between them. The radio was dark in the dash, but Rocko sung along to a song in his head. "Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong..." softly, because Tina dozed against his shoulder.

They'd passed the day in distraction, with Tina perched on the fine line between entertaining and annoying, but the high sun made everyone drowsy. Brick found himself alone with this thoughts. Invariably, they drifted back to Kindle.

He remembered that her mom had been in the Crimson Lance. With the Atlas headquarters out here in the Fathoms, Brick wondered if Kindle had been on these same roads before, staring off into the same endless bleached white sky and baking in the same punishing Fathoms heat. Maybe her mom had sung, too, but along with the radio. Brick thought that if she had, Kindle would have complained about her ruining the song. He hoped her mom would have laughed and kept on singing, just like Brick would have.

"...I hear her voice in the morning hour, she calls me, radio reminds me of my home, far away," Rocko sighed, barely keeping tune. Brick wondered if Rocko even knew he was singing. It seemed as reflexive to him as breathing.

Brick veered around the rusted out shells of Lancers and picked a careful path through abandoned blockades. He watched the signs for the way to Sanctuary, which was where the Raiders had agreed to meet if anything happened to New Haven. Sanctuary, the last free city. These decaying superhighways fed out all over Pandora, so they would come to it eventually, and if they didn't find it that way, they would eventually reach T-Bone Junction and get directions there.

He drove past the off-ramps for the Underdome, Windshear Wastes and the Southern Shelf, until they came to a familiar set of signs.

Twenty miles to the Dahl Headland. Ten miles. Five.

They wouldn't be turning off in five miles. That would take them to New Haven, and there was nothing for them there. Brick remembered taking that ramp with Mordecai, returning triumphant after their victory against the Crimson Lance. He swallowed.

They'd been delirious with happiness, speeding through the Fathoms in the Lancer that would soon be Roland's, and would later be crushed by a Hyperion loader. Mordecai had laughed at all of Brick's lame jokes that day, and kept leaning across the console to touch his thigh. He'd been ruddy-cheeked and windswept and brash, and Brick had been head over heels in love with him.

"You used to live out there, right? On the east coast?" Rocko asked, startling Brick out of his thoughts.

"Yeah. We'd turn up ahead to get ho...to New Haven."

Tina stirred. She opened her eyes, rubbed the crust out of them, and sat up. "Are we there?"

"Not yet, kid. Sanctaury's a ways off still," Brick said.

"But..." Tina frowned. "But, the sign says Dahl Headland. Shouldn't we turn there?"

"We're not going to New Haven. I told you that."

"But we gotta go! I promised!" Tina cried, struggling to plant her feet on he seat, as if preparing to jump out of the car if Brick refused to make the turn. Rocko grabbed the hem of her shirt and cast a questioning look at Brick.

"Hey, hey, siddown," Brick said. "Our friends are in Sanctuary. You wanna see 'em, right?"

"But I told her I'd be there," Tina said, a frantic edge creeping into her voice.

"What are you talkin about? Who'd you tell?"

"Kindle. She said to meet her by the shipping container. It's the turn, Big! You gotta turn here!"

"Teeny...Kindle isn't gonna be there. You know that, right?"

"She's gonna be mad at me! She said I had to go straight there. She said if I didn't, she wouldn't be my friend. Please, Big..." Tina sobbed, twisted halfway out of her seat to land a flurry of punches against Brick's shoulder.

"Come on, kid. Just-"

"NO!" She turned her fists outward, started to claw him like a feral cat.

Brick didn't stop her. "She won't...she can't..." he said.

"She said she'll be there! We promised! Big, the turn is coming! Please, come on, you're gonna miss it! No!" Tina screamed, scratching him hard enough to draw blood. Rocko tried coerce her back into the seat, but she shrugged away from him. Brick faced forward and focused on the road with grim purpose.

The Dahl Headland exit swelled, then disappeared behind them.

"DAMN YOU, BIG! I HATE YOU!"

He drove a ways further, Tina screaming in his ear the whole time, until the Headlands off-ramp was half hidden behind Atlas ruins. Then he pulled the truck to a stop on the side of the road.

"Teeny."

"Shut up! I'm never talking to you again."

Brick shifted in his seat, struggling to turn in the tight space. He wrapped his arms around Tina and wordlessly held her while she wept against his shirt. Rocko was staring at him, he could feel it, but he couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes. Instead, he kissed the top of Tina's head. They stayed like that for awhile, parked aside the crumbling guardrail, the world hot and dry and perfectly silent except for the soft, snuffling sounds of Tina weeping.

"I know she's dead," she said eventually. "I'm not an idiot."

Brick tried to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. Until then, he hadn't realized that he was crying, too.