The Last Coffee Shop

Chapter 11: Highway to Hell/Road to Ruin

The world was spinning foggy gray, marbled with yellow. Mads squinted through bleary eyes, wondering why everything looked like plastic. She was intensely aware of her lungs, and the strange whooshing sound her breaths made as they were filtered through her biosuit.

Biosuit? Mads blinked and jolted to awareness as she remembered what had happened. Luc.

Mads tried to sit up, but a sudden pang of nausea made her reconsider. She lay back, carefully, wincing at the pain in the back of her neck. Where am I? She blinked through the helmet's shield, licking her chapped lips.

Luc must have drugged her and taken her to the service station. She certainly hadn't put on her own suit. Based on the hazy yellow-gray sky beyond her helmet, she was somewhere outside the bubble, and riding in a skimmer or some other open-topped craft.

The question was, where in this bomb-scarred hell were they going, and why had Luc brought her with him?

Mads heard a faint rattling from beyond her outstretched feet. She propped herself up on her elbows, still looking at the smoggy sky, before gingerly levering herself to a sitting position. Once she'd gained that, she hooked her hand into a nearby wall brace and surveyed her surroundings.

Her guess had been correct; she was on a wide supply skimmer headed east, if the yellow part of the sky meant sunlight. A cautious look beyond the skimmer's low sides confirmed that she'd left Springs Village far behind. The bubble wasn't even visible. Instead, there were miles of dusty, destroyed, blackened earth with fissures, concrete chunks, and ancient metal scrap. It had probably once been farmland and freeways, rendered unfertile by ancient wars.

They were in the Wastes, and farther out than Mads had ever been. However, she saw that her first assessment of the outside had been the correct one: there was nothing living here.

Mads turned back to the front. The supply skimmer had a canvas blocking Mads from the cab, where Luc probably was. A load of metal boxes was strapped down in front of her - the source of the rattling - but they had no markings that might hint at their contents. Mads saw that Luc had taken the precaution of securing her feet to the side of the skimmer, using large plastic zip ties, interlocked like chains to loop around a metal bracket meant for cargo straps. She pinched a zip tie with her glove. It was loose enough to fit a gloved finger beneath it, but too tight to get her foot out without risking a tear in the biosuit.

Mads grit her teeth and visually surveyed the skimmer again, searching for any tool that might help her free herself. Or something to serve as a weapon. She had to get out of here. The Shop needed her, Grandmere and Krill were probably worried sick, and it was all Mads' fault for not trusting her instincts. She had known better. She hadn't trusted Luc from the minute he showed up batting those pretty green eyes.

Mads leaned back on her elbows and sighed. Her breath fogged up the helmet, and it smelled stale, making her gag. How long has it been since I brushed my teeth? Mads choked out a laugh. What a thing to be worried about. Still, her mouth was dry and it tasted like dirt.

It was hard to gauge time under the warped sky. But eventually, the skimmer slowed, then came to a shaky halt. The large metal boxes shifted a bit, sliding closer to Mads' trapped feet. It wasn't dark, so they probably weren't stopping to rest. Mads knew she should be afraid. She'd been kidnapped by a killer who'd lived under her nose for months, who'd taken her out to the middle of nowhere and bound her to a skimmer. But all she could summon was a simmering rage, bordering on hatred. She just wanted a crack at Luc's pretty face with her famous right hook.

A large, suited figure appeared outside the low skimmer walls. Mads tensed, waiting to grab for his feet if he got close enough. However, he climbed up the far side and checked the boxes, stepping carefully around Mads feet and not looking in her direction one time. His frame was too large and bulky to be Luc, unless he hadn't been able to find a suit that fit. For the first time, Mads felt a pang of fear. If it wasn't Luc, who had taken her into the Waste, and why?