"Is that your guitar back there?"

The question caught me off guard.

I opened my eyes and I found my head pressed up against the window with my hand propped up under my chin. Drool was forming on my lip and dripped off my palm.

I don't remember dozing off at all.

When I glanced ahead, the power was still out for the rest of the city and we drove in complete darkness down a deserted freeway.

I looked over her shoulder to see how fast she was going on the speedometer.

Holy shit!

I sat up properly when I saw she was doing 99 but with the freeway stretched out so far and no cars around, it looked like we were barely moving at all.

"Yeah it's mine," I answered. "But can you slow down a bit? Remember this is my truck you're driving."

She waved a bangle right hand like I was a pest. "Don't worry chica. I used to speed race all the time with my dad when I was sixteen. I know what I'm doing." She gloated.

"He taught his daughter well. Whooped his culo a few times mind you."

"That's great and all but just be respectful of my shit OK?"

She smacked her lips. "Lo se, I got it. Damn, chill already."

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"Yes actually. I've been tailing one of them earlier but I think they shook me. I'd imagine they couldn't be too far away if they're still sending people to the bridge. I've been checking every exit for any signs of them. But anyway about the guitar," She said with an appreciative smile. "I bet you've bash in a lot of pretty heads with that thing. You know how to play it too?"

I looked in the backseat at my nearly destroyed guitar and nodded. "Yeah, I was in a band. In fact, all hell broke loose right after one of our concerts. We almost got stuck in the middle of it."

"Wow a band? That's pretty cool." She asked while turning her head back towards the road. "Who got you your first guitar? You're dad?"

I snorted. "As if."

"Did you two not get along?" She asked, sounding surprised.

I rolled my eyes. "That's the understatement of the year. The bastard couldn't get along with anyone."

Camila frowned. "Well that explains where you get your sparkling personality from. How come you guys didn't get along?"

I shrugged but didn't say anything. Camila acknowledged the silence and turned to face the road again. As I stared ahead into the overwhelming darkness, memories of living at that depressing shithole played in my head like a nightmare, reminding me of how my father used to be. Worst part, when we decided to leave, I couldn't stop thinking about how we abandoned our mom alone with him. With that thought, my mood went sour.

"Then who did?"

"Huh?"

"Who gave you your first guitar?" Camila asked, interrupting my rampant thoughts by snapping her fingers at me. "Keep up with me girl."

A blush creeped up on my cheeks at the question and I shifted to look at the window. "My um...my ex-boyfriend bought it for me a couple of years ago ..." I mumbled, hoping she wouldn't hear and just change the subject.

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah, why? Is there something weird about that?" I grumbled looking back at her.

"No no, es nada." She cleared her throat.

There was an awkward silence between us and my mind raced.

Yeah, so what if Matthew was the one who got me my very own guitar. I mean, I won't even mention that to Raymond and I even used to crash with the guy a couple of years after we left home. We were kinda together. In a sense. Was that weird? I never ended up finishing high school so I had no idea what girls like Camila was into now.

When we didn't say anything for a while I decided to change the subject. "What about you? Where's your father now? I thought you guys would be traveling together or something with how much you talk about him."

The smile on her face slowly faded. "He..." She cleared her throat again before speaking . "He's the reason my sister and I are still alive today. If it wasn't for him we would have...we would have all..."

When tears formed in her eyes, I instantly felt uncomfortable and regretted bringing it up. "S-sorry." I stuttered and slumped in my seat. I'm no good at "comforting". I somehow always end up saying the wrong thing to cause the tears in the first place.

"No no, it's OK." She nodded, brushing the tears away with her index finger. "He was a good man. I loved him a lot."

I nodded but didn't say anything.

"So it's just been you and your brother this whole time then?" She asked.

"Yeah." I muttered, keeping my eyes forward.

My truck suddenly sputtered and it slowed as if the tires were tracking through molasses before regaining speed again.

"Uh oh. What does that mean?" She asked with wide eyes.

"It means we're running out of gas. Let's get off at the next exit for a gas station."

"But your gas meter says it's fine!" Camila announced while pointing at it.

"Yeah...it's busted. I just never got it fixed. Too expensive."

"Ay Dios Mio" She groaned, shaking her head.

As we came up to Fernway Drive, she turned off the freeway ramp. She squinted her eyes, looking both ways. I knew my dim headlights were almost no help in this total darkness, it was an old 1993 clunky chevy and Lanora hadn't had a proper bath in a while .

I spotted what looked like a gas station but it was hard to tell; the lights on the giant logo were all shut off.

When Camila pulled up on station 6, she shut the truck off and looked over at me. "Hey, I have a question." She asked.

"Shoot."

"Does your brother know how to drive too?"

"No." I said simply but added, "But I plan to now. Especially after what's happened.

"That's smart." She grinned and tossed the keys at me before hopping out the truck."I was worried you were gonna need someone after we got them back."

I unbuckled myself and watched her casually walk over to the convenient store. The lights were off inside.

I opened my door and she paused what she was doing. "Are you going to be alright? I can handle this part too if you want."

I swung my feet off the seat and tested them against the metal steel beam step. The pain wasn't as bad as before and it was fine enough for me to carefully step down into the gravel.

"I should be fine. I'm not that helpless that I can't fill up my own gas."

She gave me a "I'm not going to fight you" shrug and went for the door handle. It resisted against her with a loud clang and didn't budge the next five times she pulled it. She cursed out loud in her language.

I sighed and wobbled to unlock my gas tank.

I knew it couldn't have been that easy.

"Don't worry, I'm sure there's another gas station along the way."

I picked my head up when she didn't respond back. I found her taking off her blue denim jacket, wrapping it around one elbow repeatedly and then watched as she jabbed it into the top of the glass door hard, over and over again.

"What the hell are you doing?!" My voice cracked as it couldn't decide whether to yell or whisper.

On the third try, the glass gave way for her and shattered inside the store noisily. She stuck one hand through the gaping shards carefully and unlocked the door from the inside.

"Don't worry, my dad taught me how to do that."

"That's not exactly a good thing." I grimace.

She glanced between me and her outstretched hand. "Oh no, not for shit like this!" She blushed the entire time she spoke. "It's just...I would always end up locking my keys inside my car when I used to work late shifts. My dad didn't want me to be stranded there or worse you know? Plus, he's also a mechanic. He used to patch it up all the time for me."

"OK that's good and all but you could have just shot it down or something." I suggested.

She frowned. "That would have been a lot louder than what I did. I find it pretty lucky we didn't run into anyone here."

"Yet." I mumbled under my breath.

With that, she brushed aside the shards and went inside the convenient store.

As I waited outside, I felt a ping of jealousy of how fondly she talked about her father.

Hell, I didn't even know what my old man did for a living besides getting drunk and being angry all the time. The fucker didn't teach me anything or give his kids any kind of attention. My hands clenched over the gas pump handle tightly when I entered it into my gas tank.

We were like ghosts haunting his home, there but never acknowledged. Only when...

Wait, what's that sound?

It was faint, but it sounded like someone crying close by. My eyes searched around the area for where it was coming from but it was deserted here just like Lily's city.

Camila came out with layers of clothes draped over her arms and handfuls of chips and other junk food. "Thought we could use a change of clothes. Pretty sure I got your size." She tossed a hoodie that said"I Love Tennessee" on it at me.

"Found some bandages too. Not the good stuff but still better than nothing." She shrugged. "Got one of the pumps working too, but I don't think it will stop once it's on so..." She held up two giant red gas cans she was barely holding by her pinky. "We can use these to fill up more in case we run out again searching."

"Wait Camila, we can't just take these. Who's going to pay for all this?"

She stared at me for a minute before busting out laughing. She stopped when she saw I didn't join her. "Dios mio, you're serious. Chica, I don't think the people who run this place are coming back. I thought you would have known that by now from what we all saw."

"So we're practically stealing then?" I asked, raising a brow as a smile tugged at my lips

"I'm doing what I can to stay alive and you should too." She tossed a few bags of snacks at me. "Here. Got something for everybody."

Before I could give her my seal of approval, the October night chill brushed over my arms and I shivered. I took the jacket from her and after making sure there was no one around, I hid behind the truck and switched off the tank top and my bra for the hoodie.

As I hung up my soaked clothes over the bed of my truck to dry, the faint crying started up again.

"Hey Camila, do you hear that?"

She came by with the red gas containers and sat them next to me before stopping to listen.

"No, what is it?"

Was I hearing things? I listened hard for it but couldn't hear anything either. "I think...there's someone or something. Maybe this place is haunted."

Camila's eyes narrowed and she walked over to the other side of the store.

"You hear it now?"

"Yeah...wait a second."

Camila froze for a minute before suddenly sprinting off all the across to the other side of the parking lot.

"Camila, wait! What is it?!"

I tried to chase after her but completely forgot about my injured foot. I stepped down right on it and would have toppled to the ground if the bed of my truck wasn't there for me to grab in time.

"Camila?!" I called out to her.

No answer.

Pacing myself, I circled around the store to see what made her run so fast.

Did something scare her away?

When I finally made it around, what I saw made my jaw drop.

Park along the concrete wall was one of the black vans with the same bull symbol we saw over on the bridge.

I luckily found a giant dislodged branch on the ground that I could use to catch up to her. As I stared at the crazy paint design on the faded black van, I was trying to fit all the pieces in my head but nothing was making any sense to me.

Did these people set that up the bridge as a trap? Intentionally waiting for people to come across and kidnap them? They couldn't be that fucked up.

Could they?

When I appeared at Camila's side, she looked at me and we counted to three before yanking the front door open.

What I saw made me stumble back.

"Oh sick."

Slouched back in the driver seat was one of the men with his arm outstretched and limp over his leg. His skin was pale blue and there was something wrapped around his arm that looked like a long thick rubber band.

His eyes were wide open but he wasn't moving.

Didn't look like he was breathing either.

"Camila! Don't!" I cried out when she touched the side of his clammy neck.

"Calm your tits, he just OD. There's needles everywhere by the gas pedal." She stated in disgust and wiped her hand on her knee.

"Is there anyone else up there with him?"

"No." She whispered softly and snatched the keys that were dangling out of his other hand. "Just him."

The muffled crying started up again, this time it was a lot closer.

"You hear it now?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think it's coming from the back of the van."

"Do you think it's them?"

She had a look of uncertainty on her face as she hopped back down onto the leafy gravel. "I don't think so. I can recognize Sofia's crying anywhere. I think that's an older woman crying."

As we headed to the back of the van, Camila walked up and knocked her wrists against the double steel doors. The crying hushed instantly.

"Hello? Are you okay in there?" Camila called out.

"Please, help me." The voice responded in a raspy southern accent. I couldn't tell if it was scratchy from crying, smoking, or just from how she spoke.

Camila tried out 5 different keys before finding the right one to open up the black doors.

A bony white woman crawled out, her clothes filthy and her white hair ragged in all places like she just woke up or fought something. She staggered out, barely able to hop off the metal platform before she looked between the two of us.

"Thank you ma'ams." She bowed her head and coughed nervously.

"You're welcome."

"What happened to you?" Camila turned and looked at me.

The woman shrugged but I noticed that her grey eyes were completely empty as she glanced between us. And then they were stuck on me.

"Just..." She wiped her nose and her eyes darted to the ground. "This pigfucker picked me up back in Knoxville. Tried to bring me back to his freaky cult. I swear the world has gone to shit." She spit over to her left then brought her eyes back to me. "I suppose I'm lucky this guy decided to OD so you ladies could find me."

Her gaze disturbed me as she talked. There was something weird about this woman that wasn't sitting right with me.

"Do you know where they were going to take you?" Camila asked.

The woman sniffed and wiped her nose again. "Yeah. He talked on the phone about gathering at the church that's off the 109 freeway, over by the ranch." She paused and cocked an eyebrow. "You guys aren't planning to go there, are ya?"

"Yeah actually." I said. "Those same fuckers kidnapped both my brother and her little sister."

"Well I wish you guys luck. Do you even have any plan or a way to get in there? From what I heard, they planned on doing something to us that isn't too pretty. They may be stupid but there are a whole lot of them, and swarm together like maggots. What they have going on, I'm sure they're not just going to let you walk right in and out by saying please and thank you."

I looked at Camila and she looked at me. I didn't have any idea of what to do. I was improvising everything along the way.

When neither of us answered, the old woman sighed and shook her head. "Kids this generation, I swear." she muttered to herself. "Let's find a way over there for now and we can figure out everything else when we get there."

"I have a truck on the other side of this gas station." I piped in. "And this van was still running when we got here so we can use it too."

The woman nodded and then looked down. "What happened to yer feet?"

"Cut it up pretty badly. Camila's been the one driving the truck for me."

"I see. How about you two take yer truck and I'll lead the way with this van here."

We both agreed and Camila handed her the keys. "We need to get this guy out of the front seat first."

I sat behind and watched as Camila unbuckled him out of the chair. The old woman wasted no time grabbing the man's wrist and yanked him out like a sack of potatoes. She literally kicked him to the side before hopping in and putting the van in reverse.

Camila and I headed back to my truck and I looked back to see her staring intently at the dead corpse.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

Her head popped back up and she just stared at me with those cold grey eyes before giving me a silent nod and drove around front.

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