Made

The peace he'd gained from her nap only lasted until they'd gotten on the train to Manchester. He'd carried her throughout the station, hoping against hope that she could ignore the mad sounds of the crowd and continue sleeping, but the jolt and sounds of the train breathing were too much, and she woke up.

"I don't want to go to Manchester," she said.

He didn't even look up from the paper he was reading, but shot back a flippant, "You'll probably like it."

"Please don't make me go," she said, and he looked up. There was a pleading quality in her voice he'd never heard before.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked.

She scoffed, and their little moment was gone. She turned away from him to look at the sheep and greenery they passed on their way to Manchester.

In hindsight, he shouldn't have let her sit in the aisle seat. He'd been distracted by carrying her, and decided that climbing over her and into the window seat was much easier than having to plop her into the window seat over the aisle. He was entrenched in an article about cheating in the US school system when he felt the seat beside him shift, and heard her move, but didn't think much of it. Admittedly, the two beers he'd had hadn't helped.
He'd just looked over to ask her about cheating scandals when he finally noticed she'd gone missing. He cursed several times, looking all up and down the aisles for her, but couldn't see her short hair or nearly sheer dress. Just as the whistles began, he jumped off the train, preferring to be stuck in some random city while she was heading towards Manchester, than have her wherever this was while he was in Manchester.
He cursed again. Crewe. Where the fuck was Crewe?
The station was just large enough for her to get lost in, but he cleverly enlisted the help of the workers, pleading for them to help him find his half-sister, who had gotten lost. They bought the story, of course; he was an actor, dammit. It took the lot of them over an hour to find her, sitting on a bench waiting for a train south to Cardiff.
He was relieved to have found her, his hands gripping her arm so tightly it would bruise as he thanked the workers profusely. He could hardly think as he led her to a secluded corner and slapped her across the face twice. His hands shook as he reached into her bag to pull out her cigarettes and lighter, but not even the two cigarettes he smoked illegally on the platform calmed him down.

Laila said nothing, not even when he shoved her into the window seat of the next train, or yanked her towards the taxi he'd hired in Manchester. She just stared, and he imagined she was barely holding back a desire to strike him back.