Once on the I-435 Missouri River Bridge, the young girl in the dark hoodie sat up, tensing her body, willing the car not to slide off into the river. The driver’s knuckles were tight on the steering wheel, the only vehicle in the southbound lanes at that time of night. A lone Humvee crawled along northbound, in the direction of one of the casinos the government had converted to dormitories. Covered over in plastic canvas, the poor souls in that vehicle would be frozen to the bone.

Once they had cleared the river bridge, Sofia slipped into a brief, fitful slumber, losing just a few minutes. She woke when the taxi bounced through a deep pothole in the tarmac, opening her eyes to the sight of the all-night diner at the Flying J truck plaza. Fairy lights and yellow neon bathed the interior of the cab, casting a sick, malarial pallor over her skin and disorienting her for a moment. Startled awake, she had the unpleasant sensation of not knowing where she was and then recalling the events of the previous evening anew – Papa, no! – before scolding herself for dozing off when she was so vulnerable. For one brief moment, she was about to cry, but she managed to stuff her feelings back into the tight little container she stowed them in.

The truck stop was busy with all manner of vehicles, military and civilian. Most of the truck drivers were probably wary about pushing out into the ink-black night, where petty criminals waited to pick them off if they didn’t travel with their assigned military escort. Here and there, small knots of men and women stood outside in the brutal cold, smoking and clapping their hands together.

‘Here we are,’ said her driver. ‘I hope you do not get in trouble for being late. I drove as fast as I could.’

‘S’okay,’ said Sofia.

He pulled up directly in front of the door to the recently built diner, for which she was grateful. Although they had taken a good twenty minutes, the distance travelled was not great and the fare was only six dollars fifty. Newbies did go a long way. She didn’t tip and the driver seemed to think nothing of it. Now that everybody was scratching to survive on the minimum federal wage, no one had anything to spare. She’d just spent half of every dollar she possessed.

Sofia thanked him and hopped out, hurrying towards the humid, greasy heat of fried food behind the sliding doors. In the short time she was exposed to the cold, she felt like the skin was being flayed from her body with dull iron knives. The oily, metallic stench of diesel in the air propelled her to the warmth inside. She had no idea how the smokers did it. They were banished so far from the gas stop, they must have been exposed to the full, bitter fury of the weather.