Twelve miles used to be nothing. Twelve miles used to be a ten minute drive to the store, windows down and music on. Relaxing.
When Adelaide figured out where the Dog King was asking her to meet him, twelve miles north into absolutely nowhere, down a wildly exposed stretch of highway, she very nearly gave him back a note with a few choice words and a dismissal.
But Adelaide is determined that she won't be having any more children in the middle of the goddamn end of the world, determined enough that she bit her tongue, lied her ass off, 'borrowed' another vehicle, stole half a dozen enormous ribeyes from the Capitol's freezers, and drove twelve goddamn miles across a dried out wasteland through armies of dead and clouds of poison. That is how determined Adelaide is that she won't be producing any further progeny to while their hours away in the endtimes.
And that is, in equal measure, how irritated she is when she approaches the location.
She's sure she is watched while she parks the big vehicle alongside the flea market stalls. She's sure there are numerous eyes on her when she gets out, scanning the area warily, and goes around to take now half-frozen packaged meat out of the back. She's sure she is observed, closely, while she looks over the stalls, and picks out the first one, the one with the door closed, the one she just knows the Dog King is in, waiting for her. So knowing this, she tilts her chin and she walks straight to that door, coolly as if this is something that she does every day, and she doesn't pause at that closed door like she might want to except long enough to move her oversized sunglasses from her face to on top of her bright red hair. Then she pushes it open, and enters the dimly lit stall.
She goes from cool and haughty to clutching the doorknob for an anchor in two instants flat - two instants that float like lifetimes while her eyes adjust and take in the scene, the Dog King and his Sergeant and everything that ever meant anything to her in this world. The meat hits the floor sounding like so many zombie corpses before it, and the world spins, and her back hits the door and closes it with a resounding, echoing bang. She can't breathe, and her hand goes up to her throat like she is confused by the idea of ever breathing again. Her eyes never, not for a second, leave the Dog King's face.
"But you're dead," she finally whispers, with no idea what she is saying at all.