Page 130 of Dawn Caravan
This was an accident.
She hadn’t been inside.
No, no, no, no.
Ben stood in the middle of ashes and yelled, “Tenzin?”
He looked to the swiftly darkening sky. Nothing.
Where was she? Because she couldn’t be in the trailer and she couldn’t be gone because he would feel it, right? He’d taken her blood. She was in him. If she was gone—
“Tenzin!”
Ben flew up and raced over the camp, scouring the air for any hint of her.
She wouldn’t have left him. She wouldn’t have just flown off. He flew back to the wreckage of the trailer and kicked through the ashes where the door would have been. His foot hit something hard and he bent down, lifting up a heavy metal lock burned black by the fire.
No.
He curled his fingers around the warm device. It was linked through the metal door mechanism. It must have been smoldering for hours, just like the ashes around him.
A padlock, basic tumbler. Easy to pick from outside.
Impossible to break from inside. Even for Tenzin.
Ben’s mind shuffled through a hundred possibilities as he walked around the perimeter of the burned-out trailer, the padlock clutched in his hand. He could feel it searing his skin.
She could have broken through the walls.
During the day?
She could have flown away.
In sunlight?
“Tenzin?” He could hear the edge of panic in his voice. “Where are you?”
She couldn’t be gone. It wasn’t possible. A world without Tenzin didn’t make sense. This was Tenzin. She had to have gotten away. She had to have a plan. She always had a plan.
The night sky was clear, star-filled, and silent.
“Tiny!” he screamed. “Where the fuck are you?” He turned in circles. He took to the air again, racing from one end of the camp to another, but other than the occasional scrap of paper, there was nothing. It was as if the Poshani had never existed in this place.
He flew back to his trailer and looked underneath. Had she hidden there?
Nothing.
“Tenzin!”
She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t be dead. He needed her.
Ben walked back to the wreck and began to dig through the ashes. He tore through the remains of cabinets and the odd swatch of fabric that had remained unburned, certain that at any moment he’d pull back a piece of rubble and see her impish grin.
Got you, she’d say.
“Tenzin.” He began to speak. “Show me where you are.”
More broken and charred cabinets.
