I’m ok. I’m ok. Cassie is taking care of everything. I’m ok. I’m ok.

  A hand grabs my ankle. The only reason I don’t scream is because I already removed my own speaker. Don’t react. I’m ok.

  The hand is chased away by Corax, only for a second to grab my wrist.

  Just stay still. Don’t move. I can’t make a sound. I can’t make our supplies shift. I can’t even let the car shift without giving us away.

  I squeeze Corax tighter.

  The car stops, and quickly begins to reverse. Don’t move. Don’t panic.

  Words wash over me, but I can’t dissect their meanings. My family would get their chance to speak too.

  The ground begins to open up beneath me. That’s ok. They can have their time with me, but I will not let them hurt Cassie.

  I stay limp as fingers dig into my mind, trying to rip out my organic chip. I stay quiet while eyes dissect my every secret and regret. I even manage to stop myself from crying while Kara floods my mind with her life, with every happy day and hope I made worthless by ending both the world and her.

  I focus only on Corax in my arms. A tiny speck of hope, far smaller than the darkness around me, but still glowing brightly against the void.

  A gunshot rings out, but I stay limp. Fuck, is that real? I look to Corax in the dim light, but he has no response to it. It’s just one of them trying to kill me again. I’m ok. Cassie’s ok. Corax is ok. I’m ok.

  The more the darkness encroaches on my mind, the brighter Corax shines. I’m ok as long as he’s here. Nobody can hurt me.

  The car begins to roll forward over the uneven ground, and still I fight to not move. Every bump tries to throw me into the cover above me, but I will not let them. I won’t be the cause of a single movement of the luggage.

  Eternities pass.

  Every moment is worse than the last. Jared’s words sink deeper into my mind. Even when I don’t consciously process them, a small portion of my mind does. The words are unknown, but the feelings, the regret, the pain, make themselves very known.

  The car eventually comes to a stop, and the door opens. The small box blocking my head in is removed, and sunlight streams inside. Cassie’s face fills the gap, with a finger to her lips.

  Quiet. Tablet. Bug. She quickly signs, and I nod. The tablet has a microphone on it, bugging it would be almost trivial.

  With shaking limbs I climb out of the car. Only an endless desert surrounds us, with no sign of mountains anywhere.

  I stumble into the passenger’s seat, still clutching Corax tightly to my chest.

  Tablet. There. Cassie takes the Driver’s seat and signs to me. She begins to drive the moment she sets down.

  I grab the tablet, form a protective shell over my mind, and plug myself in.

  The number of bites on the hard drive has changed, they certainly changed something. It doesn’t seem to be a virus though. Just in case, I zero out everything and reformat it, returning it to the exact state it was in before I added the mail. I slowly lower the defenses around my mind, and nothing slips inside.

  I’m ok. We made it.

  “Cassie?” My voice is a disaster.

  “Yeah?” Her voice is a mix of pain, regret, fear, shame, and a thousand other emotions.

  “Can I cry into your chest again?”

  She throws the car in park and roughly puts her arm around my head, pulling me in close.

  I let my emotions melt into tears, and my thoughts drop from my mouth. She only pulls me harder, and I do the same to Corax.

  “You’re never doing something that fucking stupid again.” Cassie’s voice helps cover up the scientist’s whispers.

  “Never.” Corax agrees.

  I can only nod, and continue to let my emotions flow.

  Cassie waits patiently until my mind is empty, drained of all emotion, all voices, everything. Threads connect, kickstarting my mind again. Emotions come back, but they’re small, manageable. I’m alright.

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  “Can I just lay here for a while?” I ask. My voice is thankfully not void of emotions, but I don’t care to figure out what I'm actually conveying with it. “You can drive.”

  “Sure.” She gives me one last squeeze before reluctantly putting the car in drive and placing her hand on the wheel.

  “Sorry I’m-”

  “Don’t even start.” She cuts me off.

  “Alright.” Sorry.

  I let my body go limp, awkwardly laying across the center console so I can lay my head in her lap.

  “Please, tell me if I’m in the way.”

  “You’re fine.” She lets go of the wheel and pauses, only to abandon whatever she was going to do with it and grip the wheel again.

  I have nothing to say to her, nothing to talk about. The only thing I want to do is to make her understand just how sorry I am, for everything. For forcing us to leave for Mara’s base a week early. For making all of their lives harder. For-

  Corax bites my finger, putting an end to that line of thought.

  If I don’t do anything, my mind is just going to continue to spiral. Instead, I begin to read aloud once again.

  The car glides over the sandy dunes, time measured only by my words.

  It takes a few hours before I finally start to feel better and sit up on my own.

  Corax climbs out of my arms, and takes his place on my shoulder.

  “You can get some sleep. I’m ok to drive.” I say. Cassie looks awful, she didn’t get enough sleep last night in the first place, and there’s still 12 hours to Vegas.

  “I’m not going to be able to sleep. I’m fine.” She says firmly.

  “But you’re going to be exhausted! If Vegas is going to be as dangerous as you expect it to be, you need to be awake and alert.”

  “Blue, let me make my own mistakes.”

  “But-”

  ‘This is my decision, let me make it.’ Kara’s words echo through my mind.

  ‘But can’t she see she’s making the wrong one?’ My desperate, distant thought echoes in response.

  Of course Cassie can see she’s not making the smartest decision. But think about things from her perspective. She’s stressed. Vince and Ivy are both in danger, and every passing moment only makes it less likely we’ll be able to bring them home. I don’t know how getting through the Rangers went, but I can’t imagine it was an easy, stress free time. All that is only amplified by Vegas, looming just behind the horizon. She’s certain it’s not going to go well. Of course she’s not going to be able to sleep, and trying to force her is only going to make things worse.

  “Alright.” If she can sleep, she will. If not, I’ll make it work. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope.” She says flatly.

  “Ok.”

  I grab the radio and am met with the same news I’ve been hearing for days. People discussing us, numbers stations, weather, and even a few faint music stations, probably all the way from one of the major cities around here.

  I’d love nothing more than to just sit here and listen, I could even just play the music from my mouth and let Cassie and Corax listen too. But no, I can’t do that. I stay away from those stations for now. Maybe when all this is over, the three of us can just relax and listen, along with Vince and Ivy.

  The sun passes its apex, and slowly traces its way towards the horizon. No matter how many hours pass, Cassie never takes her eyes off the horizon around us. It’s not until the sun sets that I break the silence.

  “Can you stop the car? I need to start the generator.”

  She puts the car into park without a word, and I step out.

  “Can you check if anyone’s nearby?” I ask Corax quietly. Cassie can still hear regardless of course, but that’s fine.

  Corax takes off into the sky while I get to work.

  I pull out one of our canisters of water and fill the boiling chamber. Beneath that, the oil and a few rags still sit undisturbed. All it takes to reignite the whole thing is sticking in two wires connected to the port in my wrist, and letting a single spark jump between them.

  Corax returns to my shoulder only a moment later.

  “Safe.” He reports.

  “Good, thank you.” I put a metal grate above the roaring fire, fill a bowl with water, kudzu, and salt, and leave it to boil.

  Cassie doesn’t ask what’s taking so long, and I’m making no effort to hide my intentions.

  After just a few minutes of boiling, I take the bowl off, safely store the grate, drop in a spoon, grab some cloth to wrap around the bottom, and step over to the driver’s seat.

  “You need to eat.” I know she’s anxious to get to Vegas, but a break will do her good.

  “I didn’t ask you to make soup.”

  “Are you going to let it go to waste?” I ask.

  She steps out, grabs the bowl from my hand, and sits down in the quickly cooling sand. She’s too paranoid about spilling it to risk eating on the move.

  I sit next to her, both of us leaning against the car.

  “Do you want to talk?” Despite knowing the answer, I can’t help but ask.

  “What the fuck do you think?”

  “I think that talking has always helped me.”

  Cassie rolls her eyes, takes another bite of her soup, and sighs.

  “It’s easier to talk when drunk.” She mumbles.

  “Sorry I didn’t find any in the last town.”

  “It’s my fault.” She shakes her head. “I should have bought some while I had the chance.”

  “Maybe we can pretend then.”

  She lets a small smile creep onto her face.

  “It’s not the same.” She takes another bite to buy time. “I don’t fucking know. I just…” She takes a few more bites, and I give her time to decide on her words. “You better not fucking die.”

  “I’m not. And I’m not going to let you die either.” I’m not going to let anyone die. “We’re being as safe as we can.”

  Cassie snorts in response.

  “I don’t just mean… Fuck, nevermind.”

  “What’s wrong?” I’m going to risk prodding her on, Even if it might make her mad. She obviously has something she wants to say.

  “What isn’t?” She shakes her head, and brings the bowl up to her mouth. She quickly finishes her soup and stands up. “We should get moving.”

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