Lani didn't have much of a plan.

She didn't have much of anything, really.

In fact, in that moment, all she had was a stolen (borrowed) katana and half a microwave burrito that turned over in her stomach (Llyn ate the other half thankfully).

With all the excitement, she had even left her phone in the car.

So as she sprung to her feet with the three foot blade poised above her head, she couldn't help but wonder if she had left her luck in the car as well.

The closest thug was the one with the hand-held semi-automatic, who wore too much eyeliner to be passed off as anything more than a punk idiot. Lani's teeth sank down into her bottom lip as she brought the sword down on the back of his neck.

Unfortunately, she hit with dull edge of the blade. "Well damn, I'm going to die," she muttered as the thug rubbed the back of neck before turning in surprise.

His face was pale and clear of piercings, and there were the tell-tale shadows under his eyes that hinted that he wore glasses. He scoffed when he saw Lani with the sword. "Oh wow, really? Do you even know how to use that thing."

"Of course," Lani replied defiantly and lunged forward. She was just as surprised as the guy was when the blade sank deep into his stomach. "Pointy part stabs body, I know that now. Thank you."

The guy let out a low gurgle as she yanked the katana from his stomach, dropping the body onto the ground with a loud thud. Her blade gleamed red and Lani made the mistake of holding it up to inspect it, causing the blood to wash down the worn metal and drip over her hands.

"Oh, ew," she mumbled. Lani would have complained a little bit more, but in that precise moment the rest of the so called Riders, appeared to notice that their buddy had been impaled. She cursed loudly and grabbed the the fallen man's gun off the ground before scrambling back behind the car where the others were hiding out.

"You just stabbed a guy," Llyn stated as Lani crouched behind the car and winced when the bullets zinged off the pavement.

"What concerns me more, is that Llyn screamed when she attacked him, and no one seemed to notice until he was bleeding on the ground -- including him."

"All that dragon riding and gun shooting must have messed up their ear drums," Llyn noted.

"Must have."

"Yeah."

"So who wants a gun?" Lani said hurriedly as the gang of dragon riders moved closer. With each step someone fired off another round. The nearest dragon snorted angrily. The three of them cringed up against the car.

Llyn took the gun nervously. "Point and shoot, right?"

"I sincerely hope so."

"This is why people don't let us do things," Alli muttered as Lynn checked the magazine and ended up spilling a handful of bullets onto the ground.  "Fabulous. Now what's the new plan?"

"Don't die." Llyn replied as she slid the bullets back into the barrel.

"I like this plan, this is a good plan," Alli nodded. "Now how do we do that?"

"Guys."

"I don't know."

"Guys."

"We could storm them from the front. If Party would stop hiding in the car, he might be able to distract them while --"

"Guys."

"What, Lani."

"Sheep."

The three of them froze. In fact, everyone on the bridge froze as one of those puffballs with legs wandered out into the road bleating cheerfully while trying to eat the asphalt.

"Where the Hell did that just come from?" Lani muttered and slightly rose to her feet to get a better look.

"Knowing our lives, it probably came from Hell."

Alli pulled her back down. "What are you doing? It could be a bomb," she hissed.

"It's a sheep, Alli," Llyn replied skeptically.

"It looks like one of Mya's sacrificial sheep," Alli said with complete certainty. "Look at it's face. It doesn't expect to live very long." The sheep bah'ed and nudged one of the gang members happily before wandering off to look for food between a burning car and an agitated dragon.

"Poor, hopeless soul," Lani whispered.

"So are we going to save the sheep or sacrifice it?"

"Gods, this sounds like some sort of crazy D'n'D game." The passenger door of their car slowly opened and out rolled Nik, with her phone clutched in her hand. "By the way guys, thanks a lot for remembering me, it's not like cars are bulletproof or anything."

Alli patted her on the head sympathetically. "Sorry, we got distracted."

"You guys would make horrible Marines."

"Don't suppose you have a plan?" Llyn asked.

"Well....the sheep appears to be distracting the dragon pirates," Nik noted before snorting and burying her head in her hands. "Never thought I would say that out loud."

But it was true. Lani raised herself up onto the balls of her feet and peered out over the hood the car. Out on the freeway the sheep was running back and forth, distracting -- if not severely annoying -- the hijackers.

"Shoot the thing!" Screamed one of the Riders.

"But it's so cute! We can't kill something so cute!"

"Shoot it! It's trying to eat my pants!"

"That'll be a first for you, Ted."

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"Both of you, shut up and kill it!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, where they were keeping the drivers prisoner, Mya was standing there smugly with her arms crossed over her chest. The rest of the drivers were scrambling back to their cars (because the gang was stupid enough not to collect the keys off the road). Lani chuckled and sank back behind the car. "Oh, I love this sheep so much."

"But we can't get out of here with those dragons blocking the road," Llyn glanced up nervously at the two black dragons lounging lazily on the freeway. From the other side, horns and sirens screamed from the oncoming traffic -- though sparse, it was still existent. Unlike their human counterparts, the dragons didn't seem even the least bit distracted by the sheep, not to say that they didn't appear distracted. One of the dragons was blowing smoke rings into the air, while the one next to it would glare at him in annoyance and growl every minute or two.

"So I have an idea..." Alli said slowly.

Nik brought her hands up in surrender mode. Even in the dark, one could see the look of dread on her face.  "No offense Alli --"

"--I feel like I'm about to take offense to this --"

"But the only person in this group that can say that and bring forth more regret than you, is Mya. Your plans are..." She paused as if unsure how to phrase the next part of her sentence.

"Never end well for the little people involved," Llyn supplied.

Nik clicked a finger at her and nodded.

"No, you'll be fine..." Alli smiled encouragingly (sadistically). "I'm just going to talk one of their dragons into letting us pass. Get in the car, and wait for the signal." She carefully rose to her feet and sprinted off before the rest of them could get in a word.

"Wait! What's the signal!?" Lani yelled, but it was already too late.

She was gone.

"Okay, let's get in the car -- before she blows up something important," Nik sighed and slowly got to her feet.

"You mean, like us?" Llyn asked warily.

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

After the three of them were safely (or at least moderately safely) in the car,  Nik slowly opened the driver side door and swiped the keys of the pavement. When she turned back, she found that Lani climbed into the passenger seat from the back. "Hi."

"Hi," she replied. "Can you drive?"

"Now is as good a time as ever to find out."

"What --?" Llyn started to say, but Nik had already slid the key into the ignition and shifted into drive. For a moment nothing happened.

"Take your foot off the break," Lani reminded gently.

"Oh, right."

"If there is a God...Lord help us..." Whispered Llyn.

"You guys might want to buckle up."

And the car shot off like a bullet.

Lani screamed.

Llyn screamed.

Nik tried not to scream (but was internally screaming).

Party squawked wildly and dove into the backseat.

The Riders finally pried their eyes away from the sacrificial sheep and dove out of the way as their car motored straight toward the burning wreckage that the dragons were guarding. "BRAKES BRAKES BRAKES!!!" Lani screamed as they almost collided into a hybrid Prius.

"GUYS! GET DOWN!" Llyn yelled as she ducked onto the floor with Party hugged protectively to her chest.

Nik tore her eyes away from the road for one fearful second and gulped when she saw several automatic rifles leveled directly at them. "Gods...the things I do for the the Guild of Graphics," she muttered and spun the wheel before slamming on the breaks. The deafening repeating patter of the automatics felt like a pickaxe to her ears, but she couldn't do anything but ignore it.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a bright flash of light -- like fire or an explosion. Out of the rearview mirror she could she the left back door getting thrown open. Llyn yelled something, but it was too hard to make out the words with the ringing in her ears. Maybe it was, "Mya, get in!" or, "Save him!" or, "No more, I'm done." Either way, she couldn't make it out.

The world started to grow faint, and the brightness became brighter. Suddenly it didn't seem like nighttime, yet she was still so tired.

Nik, wake up, an echoy voice called to her. We need to get out of here. Nik. Nik...

Rachel didn't know what to do.

She had a dog that didn't really like her and a bunch of thugs who wanted to shove her into a sack. As for provisions, she had fifteen pounds, a lot of rain, no umbrella, and an essay that was due on Monday.

So of course the most logical thing she could think to do was run and hide out in the bathroom of the nearest McDonalds. They didn't allow dogs, but no one seemed to notice that she had smuggled Pedro in under her windbreaker.

After setting him down on the floor and locking the door, Rachel took a deep breath and stared at herself in the mirror. Her skin was dull and tired looking; dark circles rung her eyes. The late nights she had spent stalking threads were really starting to get back at her.

She perched herself on the edge of the sink and patted her pockets before allowing herself a brief sigh of relief. At the very least, she still had her phone on her. It took a minute to connect to the McDonalds WiFi, but when she did, it took her a moment to realize that the slack chat was unusually quiet.

Not that it was unusual for there to not be a bunch of spam every once in a while, but there would always be at least one person dropping their world domination plans, or arguing with the slackbot or something. But this time, there was nothing.

Rachel refreshed the page a couple times, and was just about to give up and check wattpad, when a single message popped up in the announcements channel.

eosophobic has sent a message
@stardust24601 @abyss-of-crazy @rachels8766
Guys, if you see this, please respond back. I'm not sure if this is even going to go through, the signal is really bad here. The rest of us got halted up and are stuck somewhere, we don't even know where. And something is wrong with Nik, we don't know what.
Rachel, if you can see this, then get somewhere safe. They're coming after you and that's all we know.
Last known whereabouts are unconfirmed. We're walking blind. :explodingparrot:

Rachel was just about to text back when she heard the sound of voices shouting from just beyond the door. Pedro growled loudly. "Don't do that," she scolded him before pocketing her phone and scooping the dog up off the floor.

She quietly shouldered the bathroom door open and peered out. Off the reflection on the floor, she could see three hulking shadows crouched over the main counter. A gruff voice was hastily giving her description to the cashier and ordering a stack of hotcakes with fries.

Rachel took that as her cue to steal into the kitchen. She hot footed it toward the back, behind the deep frier where she paused to take a breath. The voices of her assailants still shuddered across the room like a broken wave.

"What are you doing here?" Asked a voice, causing Rachel to whip around in shock.

Standing before her in a crumpled McDonald's uniform under an old aviator jacket, stood a pale, skinny kid who was about seventeen years of age. His eyes were ringed with shadows and his cheeks looked sunken in, like he was more skeleton than flesh.

"You're not supposed to be back here." When he spoke, his voice wavered with a light Italian accent that was so slight, that one wouldn't even notice it (unless you were born and raised in Scotland, where even the slightest Italian accents stick out like a sore thumb).

"Look, I just need a way out, is there any back door I can take?"

The McDonald's employee stared at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Is there someone after you?"

"You could say that..."

Pedro growled from under her jacket. His eyes widened slightly, but he didn't question it. "I feel your pain," he said before picking up a medium fry and handing it to Rachel. "Just in case you need to appease any lost souls," he added when she shot him a questioning look.

He motioned for her to follow him and together they disappeared into the freezer. Surrounded by frozen patties of 'beef' and 'chicken', the two of them high tailed it through the freezer toward the very back of the building. "Here," he said at last. "That's the loading door. No one will see. Tyche be with you, whatever it is you're running from."

"Thanks," Rachel nodded and was about to head to the door when she paused. "Hey, I didn't catch your name."

The kitchen worker was already making his way toward the building. He paused and said with his back turned, "Mico. Mico DelAngela."

"You're not serious," Rachel chortled.

"What?"

"You just said your name was Nico di Angelo."

"No I didn't," he rolled his eyes. "That would be serious copyright infringement."

Mico tugged his jacket tighter over his shoulders then with a single step behind a food rack, he was gone. Like a shadow in the sunlight.

"My life is too complicated," Rachel decided.

Pedro poked his little head out from under her jacket and nodded in agreement.

N O T E:

Haha....that was...something. If you haven't figured it out by now. This is probably one of the most random books ever. Omgs.

Did Alli do something? What's wrong with Nik? Did they make it off the freeway? Who knows!!!! Until the next episode XD.

Lovely poster by MulanJiang
Love those comments, guys!