I was on edge for the rest of the night. Light slowly crept into the sky before us, painting the world in twilight grey. We passed through several small cities, and I kept an eye open for the flat, dark building that I remembered from my vision. We never passed anything like it, and as the sun rose up from behind the trees in a show-off display of orange and gold, I began to relax. 

I dozed fitfully, flitting in and out of strange dreams. Faces floated in front of me and then vanished. Soft voices murmured my name. I thought I heard mom’s voice, and in my dazed, half-awake state I gripped the leather seat beneath me and wondered where they were wandering right now.

I heard the sharp voice of Manda say, “Keep going!” and it yanked me straight out of my dreams. Her tone was urgent. I blinked, rubbing my eyes. The jeep was passing through another town now, and up ahead to our right was a small gravel parking lot directly in front of a flat, grey building.

It felt as though something cold was dripping down my spine, and I shivered. That was the building. It looked just like it, only…the dream building had been a bit darker. This one was covered in grey stucco, and there were curtains in the windows. I tried to remember if I’d noticed the curtains. The details seemed more important suddenly.

“Don’t slow down, just keep driving.” Manda turned around to look at me, frowning when she saw I was awake. “Don’t worry, there’s no way I want to go in there. I have enough ammo.”

Jai gave me an easy grin as we started to pass the building. “See, no worries. Not all of your visions have to…”

The engine coughed.

The palms of my hands were instantly clammy. The jeep slowed, sputtering. Horace thumped his fist on the wheel and shouted at it. “No!”

The engine sputtered again and then abruptly it died. The jeep rolled forward a few feet and then came to a stop. We were on the road directly across from the building I’d seen in my vision.

I wiped the palms of my hands on my sweatshirt, feeling my fingers shake. “No, no we can’t go in there.” My voice was strained, higher than usual.

Jai grabbed my hand. “Hey, hey it’s okay. We’re not going in there. None of us are.”

“The guy with the gun, he’s in there…”

“We know,” he said soothingly. “We know he is. We won’t disturb him and he won’t have any cause to…do anything.”

My hands were drawn to my stomach as if by a magnet. The dream was still vivid in my memory. I could feel the hole in my gut, aching and empty.

“I don’t want a new body,” I gasped. “I like this one.”

Manda cursed and thumped the dashboard with her fist. “Damnit! Okay, it’s just the engine. Horace, you can fix it, right?”

“I’ll look at it.” Horace jumped out of the front seat, giving me a nervous look. The hood of the jeep lifted with a creak and he disappeared under it for a few minutes.

“It’ll be fine.” Manda was facing sideways in her seat, eyes glued to the gun store. She had the pistol in her lap. The same pistol she’d pointed at the man before he’d shot me.

“If you go in, don’t take your gun.”

“I’m not going in there.”

“If you do, don’t take it, okay?” My voice was rising even higher, on the verge of hysterical. It was important that she agree with me for some reason. “Say you won’t take it.”

“Alright,” Manda said. “Okay, look. See?” She put the gun in the side pocket on the door, staring at me with wide eyes while she did so. It was like she was staring at some kind of wild animal she was trying to appease. Like I might lose it and attack at any minute. “Better?”

I let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay.”

“I need a part.”

Horace’s voice made us all jump. He was leaning into the driver’s side door, hands black with grease dangling at his sides. He didn’t look happy. “I can put it in if I have one, but it needs a new carburetor.”

Manda groaned and slumped against the window.

“What if we go to one of the other buildings?” Jai suggested. “Go scope out something. There might be someone around here who can help us.”

“Right, you three stay here.” Horace shoved one of the handguns into the band of his pants, shaking his t-shirt over to conceal it. “I’ll be right back, hopefully with some help.”

“I’ll come with you, Jai can stay behind.” Manda said.

Another argument followed, but I was too paranoid and intent on watching the window of the gun shop to even hear it. There was no movement. No shadow flickering behind the curtains. It was hard to tell if there was even anyone in there. Maybe my vision had been wrong after all.

Horace and Manda eventually hashed it out, and they split up, each going a separate way to cover more ground.

“Now what?” I didn’t look away from the grey building.

Jai shrugged. “I guess now we wait.”

It was an hour before Manda came back. By then, Jai and I were both going a little stir crazy. I longed to get out and stretch my legs, and almost gave in to it a couple times, but each time I was tempted the memory of the shotgun blast came back fresh. The memory of the force that threw me against the wall and punched a hole in me.

I stayed where I was.

I jumped when Manda opened the door of the jeep. She slid into her seat, making a face at the empty driver’s seat beside her. “No Horace yet, huh?”

“Haven’t seen him yet.” Jai agreed, and the worry that was gnawing at my stomach grew more ravenous. Neither guardian said anything else, but I could tell by the way they kept scanning the building around them…they were nervous.

Another hour, and Manda smacked her palm on the dashboard. “Someone is watching us.”

The pronouncement made me sit straight up in my seat. “What? Where?’

Silently, she pointed to the window of the shop, and I cringed.

Manda said thoughtfully, “So he has a rifle. Probably means he’s a hunting man. Probably not a bad guy…”

“Manda.” Jai said her name half a question, half a warning, like he was telling her not to get any funny ideas.

“And technically in Kali's vision I drew first. That’s probably why he fired the gun…”

“Manda…”

“And Kali was the one who got shot, and I won’t let her come with me this time…”

“I don’t think this is a good…”

“I’m going.” Manda pushed the door open with her foot, shooting up out of her seat. I sat up so fast that I nearly hit my head on the roof. “What? No you can’t! He’ll shoot you!”

“I’ll show I’m unarmed,” Manda said cheerfully. “He won’t be able to shoot me then.”

“You know that’s never stopped anyone,” Jai said pointedly. “If he wants to shoot you, he’ll do it.”

“But he never did in the vision.”  She reached for the handgun in the side pocket and then stopped, reconsidering. “Okay, let’s do it your way.”

“No!” I yelled at her retreating back. “My way is staying in the car. Manda!”

She ignored both of us, walking straight up to the stacco building that I associated with nightmares.

She paused at the front door and rapped sharply three times.

Well, that was a different approach.

After a few seconds the door cracked open the tiniest bit, and the metallic silver barrel poke out, aiming right at her. I cringed, expecting the shotgun to go off any second.

Manda was saying something, leaning forward and speaking in a low, friendly voice. The man at the door said something back, and his voice was a deep rumble. I tried to imagine what the man who’d shot me looked like. Hulking, I’d imagine, with lots of body hair and no neck.

After another couple seconds of low murmuring. The door creaked open, and Manda walked in as casually as if she was visiting a friend.

I sputtered, clutching at Jai’s knee. “But she’ll…how did she…he shot me.”

“You didn’t actually get shot though.” Jai stared at the closed door of the gun shop, as if he had x-ray vision. “I mean, you foresaw you were going to. Manda has changed that. The universe will course correct in some way, but it probably won’t effect you. I…I think this might be okay. I think Manda will be fine.”

We were both silent for a minute, and I kept flicking my gaze back to the door, ready to hear the ear splitting crack of the rifle, or Manda’s angry scream. But there was nothing. Just more silence.

Footsteps crunching over the gravel made us both turn around, and Jai pulled a handgun from under his seat. With his other hand he pressed me back against the seat as he trailed the gun on the newcomer.

“Horace, crap. You startled me.”

“If I can sneak up on you, so can others,” Horace said sternly. “We’re all rusty.” He glanced at the passenger seat and frowned. “Manda still not back yet?”

“She went in there,” I stammered. “She went inside the building.”

“What?” Horace whirled around and started for the building, and Jai called after him, “Horace, wait. I think it’s okay.”

The big guardian paused uncertainly, eyeing the dark windows of the building. He stiffened as the door creaked open, but it was Manda who emerged, talking cheerfully over her shoulder to the man behind her. She looked up and spotted Horace.

“Hey, put the firearm away. He’s okay.”

The owner of the gun store looked nothing like I’d pictured him. He was younger than I’d expected, for one thing, with a smoothly shaved face and dark blue eyes. He smiled at Horace and then waved at Jai, who was leaning halfway out of the door of the jeep.

“Hey folks, I hear you’re having some car trouble. Manda here says you can trade me some ammo for car parts. I’ve got a few trucks in the back. They're wrecks, you understand, but they might have the part you’re looking for.”

Jai relaxed a bit, and stood up out of the car. “Come on, Kali. I think it's fine. Looks like we dodged a bullet.”

I grimaced at his back as I followed him out of the jeep, still unsure that this was a good idea. Plus, really...he couldn't have used a worse saying, could he?