the crows go on vacation (and other family things)

the rest stop

"Jesper, if you kick my seat one more time I'm going to rip your throat out."

Normally, that phrase would be eyebrow-raising and questionable to any casual audience, but those words had come from the filthy mouth of the one and only Bastard of the Barrel, Kaz Brekker. And they'd been aimed at someone who was more than used to the well-dressed boy's verbal abuse. 

Jesper stilled in his seat, though he made a mocking face that made Nina burst into tear-inducing laughter. Kaz's eyes shifted to stare at the two in the middle row in a menacing glare, but neither of them cared. The two were always the ones who pushed Kaz the most and got away with it. They sure wouldn't give two craps about any dirty looks coming from their ringleader.

In the back, Wylan opened his mouth to say something, his brow furrowed in slight concern. Matthias, who had been watching the scenery out the window, turned and slapped a hand brusquely over the younger boy's mouth. His wide eyes practically said, "Don't say it." Already, Wylan had asked, "Are we there yet?" 6 times in the past 30 minutes. It was pushing Kaz's patience, but the dark-haired kid had yet to snap at Wylan the way he had to both Jesper and Nina. The others, especially the rowdy middle-seaters, suspected preferential treatment, but none, not even the middle-seaters, dared to say it aloud.

Inej turned around in her seat, her deep brown eyes soft in the sunlight. If there was any favorite in the group, it had to be her. Kaz had let her ride shotgun. Jesper had protested, whined, complained, and begged to get that seat. Inej had almost conceded out of pity and love for her friend, but Kaz refused to budge. In the end, Kaz always won. However, Inej promised to switch spots with Jesper at the next rest stop. The Wraith would love to spend time chatting with her fellow girly, Nina. 

Now the Wraith spoke, a touch of amusement playing on her lips at the sight of Wylan's predicament. Matthias removed his hand, patting the curly-haired boy on the shoulder to offer his condolences. "Is anyone hungry? Now's a reasonable time to have some light snacks," Inej offered, gesturing to the tote bag filled to the brim with junk foods like Doritos, trail mix, M&M's, Lays, Cheetos, Ritz Bitz, Goldfish, and oddly: pistachios? There were also some dried fruits, but everyone knew that those were specifically Inej's. While the Suli girl would always kindly offer her snacks to the others, none of the Crows seemed to be able to take from her favorite snack. 

Nina's hand shot up with an, "Ooh! Ooh!" That was no surprise. Nina always seemed to be hungry. In fact, the snacks had originally been kept in the middle row of the minivan per her request, but Nina kept pillaging them and Jesper kept gambling them away. They'd then moved the snacks to the back, but Wylan accidentally spilled some of his acids in the bag and demolished their whole supply of gum (apparently the acid targeted only that) and Matthias was too spaced-out (and queasy looking) for the Crows to trust him with the snacks. Nobody wanted him to puke in the snack bag, despite them making sure he had taken his car sickness pills. 

 Matthias shook his head in polite decline, knowing he probably couldn't handle eating something. Even the thought of doing so made his stomach roll over. Wylan smiled his sunshine smile, nodding. Jesper had somehow fallen asleep, and he looked too peaceful to bother about snacks. Inej tossed Wylan some Ritz Bitz (cheese flavor), which he fumbled in a comically clumsy way. Nina snickered before picking up the bag and handing it to him, cooing, "Butterfingers" as she did so. Inej then handed back some nacho Doritos to Nina. 

The Wraith then turned to Kaz, murmuring quietly. Because of car physics, it was difficult for the crew to make out what Inej was saying. They could deduce it was a question about snacks, because Kaz shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Inej returned the snack bag to its place. 

Silence ensued. The radio had been broken, unfortunately, due to Jesper's Fabrikator shenanigans. There'd been a bet that he couldn't change the song from where he was sitting, so of course Jesper tried to prove Nina wrong because he desperately wanted some Goldfish. Instead of skipping the god-awful Ed Sheeran song that had mysteriously made its way onto the road-trip playlist (the Crows looked to Nina to blame, knowing damn well both she and Jesper were the token pranksters of the group), Jesper had cursed the car with deafening silence. Surprisingly, Kaz had said nothing about it, but only Jesper knew of the murderous look entailing many threats that Kaz had given the Zemeni boy.