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“Well,” Ethan said, in the ensuing silence. He checked his side—bloody, of course, but his ribs felt okay under the shredded skin.
“I think you put it out of its misery, really,” said Benji. Blood was dripping from his split-open eyebrow again. The cut was from a fight eight days ago, back when they were in Annaba and things were—not good, exactly, but eight days of sleep deprivation earlier, which gave the whole sequence of events something of a rosier sheen.
The front half of the car was intact. The headlights looked sort of like eyes, and the oddly-shaped grill could have been a mouth, complete with buckteeth. The state of the back half of the car—if you could call it such—made that automotive expression seem particularly pitiful.
“It looks, uh—” Ethan started, then gave up.
“Sort of like it’s looking at you, yeah,” Benji agreed. “But what it’s saying is, thank god, they made me for eleven years and never figured out how to make my head gaskets not shit or make me stop looking like this.” Benji swiped a hand across his face; the blood was trickling into his eye. He smeared it across his cheek instead.
“Here,” Ethan said, stepping closer, intent on wiping it off, but as soon as he reached out he realized his mistake; he was covered with dirt and some of his own blood.
Benji laughed at him, dug a tissue out of his pocket, and calmly wiped Ethan’s hands instead of his own face. “Let’s call the car a public service. What’s next?”