River of Pain by Christopher Golden

Author:Christopher Golden
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Titan

16

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

DATE: 21 JUNE, 2179

TIME: 1207

Upside down on the driver’s seat of the crawler, Newt hummed softly to herself. It hurt her neck a bit, putting the weight on her shoulders and the back of her head, but she pushed her feet toward the vehicle’s roof, extending her toes, trying to see if she could touch.

“Rebecca, sit normal,” Tim instructed.

“This isn’t normal?”

“You’re upside down.”

“Maybe you’re upside down.”

Her brother reached up and whapped her legs. She scrabbled for purchase but went over like a falling tree, tumbling in between the front seats. Her limbs flailed and she felt her right foot kick her brother’s thigh. When he called out in protest, she kept flailing a bit longer and kicked him again, smiling to herself.

“Rebecca!” he snapped angrily.

She sat on the crawler’s floor between the seats and gave him an exasperated look.

“Why do you always call me that?”

“It’s your name,” he answered. “And don’t kick me.”

“You pushed me over. I was falling. And I don’t like that name.”

Tim sighed and shoved himself deeper into his seat. He’d been drawing before, but put his pad aside fifteen or twenty minutes ago.

“Maybe I like being upside down,” she muttered, pouting her lips.

“What?” he asked, glaring at her.

“I like being upside down.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just do it in the other seat. I’m going to take a nap.”

Newt raised her eyebrows and edged closer to him.

“Wow. You must really be bored.”

Tim glanced at her. “Aren’t you? They take us all the way out here, but then they don’t let us do anything. What’s the point?”

“I’m not bored,” she asserted.

He sat up straighter, scratching at a blemish on his cheek.

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t rather be back at the colony, playing Monster Maze with Lizzie and Aaron and Kembrell?”

Newt scoffed and blew a lock of her hair away from her eyes. “Sure, that would be more fun than this. But Mom and Dad are here, and so it’s okay to be here with them. It’s an adventure, remember?”

Tim leaned toward her, cocking his head and studying her as if she were some kind of weird insect.

“Yeah, but it’s their adventure,” he said. “We’re just sitting here.”

“Maybe you are,” Newt said, crawling back into the front seat. “I’m thinking.”

Shifting around, she put her legs in the air again, propped on her neck and shoulders, and reached for the ceiling with her toes.

“Yeah? What are you thinking, then?”

Newt’s stomach gave a little uneasy flutter and she shivered.

“I’m thinking Mom and Dad have been gone an awfully long time.”

* * *

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