Dakota
Lunch came and went. He hardly remembered it. Sliced roast beef with some kind of cheese sauce. Onions on the bun. Curly fries he didn’t finish. High-calorie meal, Kenna said. Something to replenish the reserves that burned away in the days he spent without a meal. But he ate the fast food because she put it in front of him, with a reward at the end: painkillers, gulped down with soda. He muttered a thank you before drifting into slumber again in her truck.
They stopped once for an obligatory restroom break, at some point in the late afternoon. Dakota found that with the new pills, the brace, and his M.S. medication, he could walk without help. There was, however, a drunken wobble in his step because of the opiates, which made the world spin when he exited the vehicle.
Still, he
