Page 31 of Violet Spark
If you don’t try, you die.
I’d found the cheery motivational phrase on a forum when I was researching Mom’s prognosis after her injury. It didn’t take into account that even if you did try, you’d still die, eventually.
That gloomy thought got me to the campground. The check-in kiosk was empty except for a note to pay for any additional vehicles and a reminder to meet the ranger for a blacklight scorpion hunt after dark.
Yeah no.
I grabbed a map and started around the loop of campsites. Brayden’s blue Mazda wasn’t exactly unique, but among all the big trucks and air-conditioned RVs, little cars were few.
And none of them blue.
Shit.
This had been a stupid idea from the start. Why had I thought there was anything I could do about this? When had thereeverbeen anything I could do aboutanything?
I pulled off to one side of the road at the end of the campground loop and lowered my head to the steering wheel. My forehead was sweaty against my clenched knuckles, and the ratty bandage on the back of my hand scraped my cheek. My stomach tightened as if I’d been drinking another one of those poisoned pomegranate freezies.
Lifting my head, I stared out at the horizon. The flat line with the slow eddies of clouds above soothed me, and I let out a shaky breath.
I could just give up. Most people would probably say—and some peoplehadsaid—Ishouldgive up. But I just couldn’t, not yet.
Closing my eyes again, I stabbed blindly at the camp map. When I peeked, my finger was pointing just off a parking area for a trailhead. Fine. I’d start there.
As I drove in that direction, I kept an eye out for the blue Mazda. Or anything else that might forward my quest. Gold coins, books of spells, talking unicorns…
Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun was going down, and the already dusty hues of sage and burnt umber desaturated to dove and charcoal. As I crept down the winding roads from the arbitrary point my finger had found, my hope faded with the light. What did a few pings to a cell tower prove? BantaMatrix’s founder might think technology solved all problems, but since I’d found most problems were caused by people, I wasn’t entirely convinced.
With a long string of curses, I gave up.
In Legendelirium, I might be able to find someone in a maze, but the real world was just too big.
Checking the map one last time, I noticed an access road that connected my current location to the nearest route home. It was labeled gravel but in theory I could bump along the same path.
In the long stretches of evening shadow, I found the wide spot that marked the access road. It obviously wasn’t used much, because tufts of pale cheat grass had sprouted through the gravel like a sorority girl’s leg hair during finals week.
With my luck, the Fiesta’s struggling engine would ignite the dry strands and I’d go up in a fireball more impressive than anything my poor EldWitch had ever attempted.
Despite the ruts in the gravel, I drove quickly to keep from catching fire. So I almost missed the glimpse of faded blue from the corner of my eye.
I slammed on the brakes, my heartbeat skipping. Throwing the Fiesta into reverse, I held my breath as I crept backward. Could be just a ranger’s truck, or an off-site tent from someone who didn’t want to pay the park fees. Shouldn’t get my hopes up…
I angled the Fiesta’s headlights into the gloom of the chaparral.
The silvery wings of the logo caught my light, but my gaze locked on the dented bumper, the buckled edges of exposed plastic flashing back at me like a warning.
The bumper hadn’t been cracked before, had it?
The front half of the car was buried in the shrubbery. Not as comfy a camping spot as a BantaMatrix lounge chair…
Swallowing hard, I parked, leaving the headlights on. My fingers shook as I grabbed my phone off the seat beside me.
Swiping to the flashlight app, I stepped out into the scrub.
“Brayden?”
With the stink of dust and creosote clogging my throat, I crept toward the car. Sharp branches had scraped thin white lines in the paint that glinted like spiderwebs when I aimed my phone’s light toward the front seat. A fine layer of dust obscured the glass, reflecting back at me like an obstinate ghost.
I angled along the back fender, trying to avoid the spiny branches of wild lilac, but the door handle was buried in stickers. That was going to hurt…
