• • •

We've been driving for almost two hours now, passing a number of the brick houses in this city. Daphne only made one stop at a petrol station and came to the back of the truck to, thankfully, throw in some bottles of water. She also said we'll be able to take the cover off of us once we enter the dry land.

The dry land is a large, barren area that divides the City of Vessels from the main gates; the large metal obstacle that stands between me and my destiny.

Even after passing the gate, there's still a bunch of nothing to cross before entering any of the main cities or towns. Luckily for me, there's only one town I need to pass before reaching Vita.

"Ahhh," Nova yawns.

She has been yawning for a while now, but I don't think she is able to sleep. It might be due to Leo's snoring. Then again, our crouched position isn't exactly a comfortable one to sleep in.

"I can't feel my legs," Nova complains before pulling at the covers over us.

"Nova!" My eyes widen when she throws the cover off of all of us, but just when I'm about to shout at her even more, I take a look around us.

There's nothing but dirt ahead of us, and a cloud of dust follows the car. We're in the dry land. From the look of things; we've been it for some time now.

"Sorry," Daphne calls out to us from the slider window. "We're about thirty minutes through the dry land. I forgot to tell you."

Daphne focuses back on the road, while Nova lets out a deep breath and stretches her legs onto mine.

"You're so lucky to have me, Mora, or we'd still be suffocating."

I giggle when Nova flicks her hair back. She then looks to her wrist, likely for a hair tie, but huffs when she realises she doesn't have one and will have to let her orange-brown locks fly with the wind.

"We make our own luck. No one else is in charge of another person's reality." Zeke stretches his arms across the tailgate of the truck and takes in a deep breath. However, he starts coughing when all he inhales is dust.

"Let me guess," Nova laughs, "that's something you learnt in the fourth dimension."

Zeke has tried to explain a lot of things to us in the short amount of time we have known him; the fourth dimension being one of them.

Guiltily, I didn't pay much attention to what he was saying, but I think he discovered the dimension after a bunch of doctors drugged him with almost everything they had in store.

"It's just something you have to experience." Zeke shakes his head and stretches his leg to harshly kick Leo.

"Don't wake him up!" I scold, but it's too late.

Leo sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes and scratching his hair.

"Do you want to deal with sleepy Leo when the car stops?" Zeke asks, and when I think about how clumsy Leo is for the couple minutes after he wakes up, I shake my head. "That's what I thought."

"Are we," Leo yawns, "there yet?"

"We don't even know where 'there' is." Nova leans forward as she looks at me. "Amora?"

"You're smart enough to know the answer to that," Zeke says. "Amora's leaving. People only go through the dry land to reach the gates."

"No!" Leo pulls me to face him, and I'm surprised by the strength the little boy has. "You can't leave. Who's going to tell me stories?"

I chuckle and ruffle Leo's hair. This time, a bit of oil comes onto my hand, and I harshly wipe it onto my leg.

"The library will be fixed soon, and then you can read all about them."

"It's not the same," Leo pouts and lowers his head.

I turn away from him and pull the blue bag onto my lap—the bag Daphne gave me. After yanking the zip open, I pull out a thick, brown book and run my fingers along the cover. There are two warriors with spears in their hand, ready to attack the other.

"Here," I say, gently placing the book onto Leo's lap.

"The..." Leo takes his time reading the title, "The Iliad."

"Yes! You'll learn about the Trojan War. It's full of action. Just the way you like it, right?"

Leo nods and smiles, earning a laugh from everyone in the car. There aren't a lot of ways to please Leo, but giving him a book is one of them; a very uncommon way to make a child happy these days.

"Wait..." Nova pauses as if she's thinking of something. "You weren't even going to say goodbye."

She hits my leg and causes me to gasp. However, when I raise my hand, ready to start a cat fight, Leo tugs on my top.

"What's that?" He asks, leaning over the edge of the truck and pointing to a tiny figure on the road. Unfortunately, I need to be a little closer to make out what it is.

After pushing past Leo and Nova, making sure to hit Nova on my way, I tap the rear windshield.

Daphne only turns around for a second, but she looks more afraid than I've ever seen her before. I look ahead of us and squint in the hopes of making out what exactly is in front of us and scaring the hell out of Daphne.

I don't need to squint for long, because a bullet flies into the front windshield, cracking the screen and missing Daphne by a few inches. Daphne shoves my head down, but considering I was already going to duck, she didn't need to use much force.

"What the fuck!" Zeke shouts. "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!"

"Shut it!" Nova screams back, holding her hands over her head and trying to lower herself even further onto the truck.

I watch as Zeke pulls Leo closer to him and follows Nova's lead. Leo starts to cry, and he tightly shuts his eyes. If the bullets still flying don't trigger us, I'll consider this group the luckiest one in the world.

"Daphne, stop!" My cries are ignored, and Daphne continues driving in the direction of whoever is shooting at us.

We all scream as the car bounces, slightly lifting us off of the truck before slamming us back down. Suddenly, the car swerves, and we're spinning in circles before it comes to a stop. No more bullets come our way, and I'm sure we owe that to the bumpy ride.

Everyone is panting, and I watch as Nova hurls green chunks onto the truck. She starts to wipe Leo's tears away before frantically wiping the sweat off of her face.

"Daphne?" I whisper, panic filling me when I get no response. "Daphne?"

I lift my head when I hear a moan, and my hands begin shaking when I take in the sight in front of me. I reach out to Daphne, but she, painfully, turns her face away from me.

"The tire is hit." She looks at the main gates right in front of us, somehow expecting that to distract me from the blood oozing out of her stomach and arm. "Go, Amora."

I jump out of the truck and open the driver's door, wrapping one of Daphne's arms around my shoulder as I try to pull her out of the car.

"Help!" I scream, looking at a security guard now stepping out of the small guardhouse near the main gates. "Please! Help!"

The man seems frightened, and with shaking hands, he fires another shot. I jolt, causing Daphne to fall face down onto the floor.

"Daphne!"

Dropping to my knees, I turn Daphne over. However, I fall back when I see a new wound; one in Daphne's neck. Helpless, I watch as she gasps for air.

"Stay back!" The security guard shouts, now aiming his gun at something behind me.

When I turn around, I see the rest of the group has stepped out of the car, and all of them are now raising their hands in surrender. However, when Zeke sees Daphne's body, he pulls Leo's face towards him and holds Leo against his shirt.

This movement causes the security guard to shoot again. However, the bullet misses us and grazes the car.

"You really want to trigger us here?" Zeke asks, and the security guard's eyes widen. "Open the gate."

"You're Vessels? I—They said you...we were ordered to stop thieves. You assaulted people."

"Open the gate," Zeke repeats, but when the guard hesitates, Zeke begins shaking in a strange way.

The guard drops his gun and starts running away from us.

"That's what I thought." Zeke stops shaking when the guard has put a lot of distance between him and us.

I quickly stand up and move towards the gun, picking it up slowly before turning to the group.

"Grab the bags," I say and walk to the guardhouse to press the red button that will open the gate.

A beeping sound fills our ears, and we watch as the large gate parts open. I jerk when I feel a tap on my shoulder but calm down when I see it's just Zeke, who now carries Leo and my bags on his back.

"Why would they do this?" Nova joins us.

"They probably think we all want to leave." I try to hold back my tears as I take one more look at Daphne's lifeless body. "They think we'll just get triggered out there, so any Vessel that wants to leave is actually taken out."

Looking at Leo's scared face, I choose my words carefully. Although, he can probably figure out what I mean.

"Take me back," Leo cries, but when we hear engines in the near distance and more guns being fired, we know that cannot happen right now.

I press the red button again and watch the gate start to close. I take one shot at this button, completely destroying the device needed to reopen the gate, before dropping the firearm onto the floor.

Zeke is the first to pass the gates, and I grab Nova's hand as we follow.