Page 161 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“Yeah. I told you, I was seeing a doctor, and they fixed it.” I turned back to him and forced a smile through the lie. “No more carrying me up staircases.”
“Oh, good. I was about to add a dumbwaiter to the shop. I could shove your body inside, and use a pulley to hoist you up to Ethel’s apartment.”
“Putting that architecture degree to good use, then.”
He chuckled softly and let his shoulders relax.
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re okay, though. I was worried.”
“I’m the last person you should worry about.”
“But you make it so easy.”
I slumped in my seat, sliding my shoulders down the vinyl.
“Tell the truth, are you on the clock right now? Is Gams paying you to escort me to Von Leer?”
“Only if you consider train tickets and hotel rooms to be legal tender.”
“I’m sorry.” What was supposed to be sarcastic came out more genuine than I wanted, but Liam replied with a crooked smile and an awkward shrug.
“I like hanging out with you, especially now that I know I won’t have to catch or carry you.” He slouched down in his seat to be at eye level with me. His smile softened. “You should try to sleep though. It’s a long ride to Von Leer, and you look like crap.”
I smacked his shoulder, but grinned.
“Sure. This train is freezing, and I have the most important interview of my life tomorrow morning. Sleep should be easy.”
“Sleep, Wren. You’ll want to be rested for that lecture you’re going to tonight.”
I jolted upright, and Liam laughed.
“How did you find out about that?” If he told Gams, she would tell Mom, and Mom would be furious.
“Von Leer posted about it yesterday. You were planning on going, right? You’re into all that rock stuff.”
“Geology is rock stuff. Rocks are only part of geophysics.” I relaxed back into my seat. Liam didn’t know the speaker was my biological father. “The lecture is about paleomagnetism, which isn’t quite what I want to go into, but I’ll still have to know it.”
“Right. Which is why you should sleep. I’ll need you awake enough to explain everything in the lecture to me.” Something warm and soft settled across my chest, accompanied by the smell of sandalwood deodorant and waffle cones.
“I don’t need your hoodie,” I murmured, but the thrum and rattle of the train were already lulling me to sleep.
It wasn’t a good sleep by any means. I spent a lot of it in a timeless fog somewhere between waking and unconsciousness. Sometimes I was aware of Liam sitting next to me, but his presence became all too acute when I realized I was using his shoulder as a pillow.
I sat up in a half-asleep stupor, mumbled something that was sure to have been devastatingly quick-witted and sharp-tongued if it had been at all intelligible, and then tried to lean against the train window instead. The vibrations of the rattling window shooting through my skull forced me to resort to slumping forward on the seat back tray in front of me for the next hour.
However, the moments of sleep that snuck in were better than nothing, and by the time we were halfway through the mountains, thundering past valleys of pine trees and cliff faces streaked with waterfalls, I felt more rested than I had all week.
Liam let me watch the mountains blur past in silence. Maybe he knew I was stewing in thoughts of how this could become a familiar train ride for me if my interview went well. Maybe he was lost in his own thoughts about returning to campus without his cousin.
By the time we rolled into the Bergdale train station, the mountains had reduced to foothills, and it was hard to see much through the forests that cradled the sleepy college town.
My nerves crescendoed, knotting my stomach and tightening my throat. When the train bumped to a stop, I briefly considered staying put. There were a lot of unknowns waiting outside the comfort of the carriage. If I stayed seated, if I let the train carry me to wherever its end destination was, I wouldn’t have to face those unknowns.
But Liam extended a hand to me, already standing in the aisle.
“This is us.” He shouldered his backpack. “Want to see where you’re going to live for the next four years?”
I held his hoodie against my chest as I took his hand and followed him onto the platform.
