Fucking shit! I exclaimed in my head as a Skitter half the size of our car scuttled past. With the massive gun turret on its back, it was about the same height as the car. This was even bigger than the ones that prowled the tunnels I had traversed to escape Eve's underground arena. Can I just have the Labrador back instead?

Fortunately, it didn't pay any attention to us, moving to the next lane into formation with two others of its kind. Despite their size, they were dwarfed by the boxy-type, four-armed ComExo behind them. Their group looked like a robot taking its robot spider pets out on a walk.

"Don't be scared," Deen whispered gently. She might've noticed my surprised jolt at the giant mechanical spider. As was her nature, she reached out for my hand to give me comfort. I already knew what was coming so I pulled my hand. But Deen still caught it. She gripped it, saying, "Nothing bad's going to happen, okay? The Suppressor is working."

My brows furrowed at the realization that I was slow as fuck and super weak. I wasn't able to move my hand out of the way, and now, I couldn't pull it from her grasp. I stopped struggling, letting out a sigh. Deen took it to mean I was trying to relax. Rather, it was a sigh of disappointment at the weakness of normal humans. Aren't I supposed to look for a cure? Whatever.

The cars on the twelve-lane highway were funneled to four evenly spaced open lanes—the main reason for the heavy traffic. In between the lines of cars were BID agents, Anti-Adumbrae combat drones like Skitters, and ComExos ranging from man-sized to house-sized.

This felt like I had my neck on a guillotine, waiting for the blade to drop if they detected I was an Adumbrae. Just one burst from all of these ComExos and combat drones would turn our car to scrap metal, assuming there'd be anything left.

To be fair, even if I still had my Adumbrae-bestowed durability, super strength, and insane regeneration, I'd still be gone in a second. My Blanchette form would also get deleted instantly. Perhaps Pino would survive, but my Erind body would be destroyed so I'd be still dead as...um...dead as something not alive.

Nonetheless, I preferred not to die as a feeble human.

"We are innocent...we are innocent," Deen said in a sing-song way. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in tune with the melody. "Please don't kill us...we're innocent...don't—"

"What are you doing?" I tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Couldn't she just shut up while I wallowed in disgust at being weak?

"Just trying to lighten up the mood." She shrugged and then continued singing. "We are innocent...we are innocent..."

If I wasn't on edge, I'd find this funny. I ignored her, concentrating on the BID agents patrolling the side of the lane. They flagged down the silver minivan ahead of us in the line. I swallowed my saliva. Deen stopped singing. Both of us closely paid attention to what was going to happen next.

A BID agent with a clipboard talked to the driver of the minivan who seemed to be arguing back. We couldn't hear what they were saying, but we could see the arm of the driver, furiously gesturing. The passenger windows of the van opened and a woman stuck her head out. She began yelling at the agents, flipping them off. We could hear the muffled profanities.

"They were selected for random testing," I said.

"I'm not sure if trying to argue with the BID is a good idea," said Deen.

And indeed it wasn't.

One of the bigger ComExos left its post and walked over to the van, passing by our car. The ground shook with each step it took. One foot landed right outside my window; it could've squished me if I was under it. "The roads are really well-built," I muttered sardonically, as I leaned closer to the window to check if the pavement was cracked.

The two-story-tall ComExo grabbed the van using its three-pronged claw hands and picked it up. The people inside it screamed. The woman from earlier tried to escape out of the window, something she probably didn't think through, before her companions pulled her back inside. The ComExo delivered the slightly crumpled van to the BID tents in a cordoned area on the side of the highway.

The BID likely had obtained special clearances to do forced testing of random citizens. I knew there were certain exceptions to the unconstitutionality of mandatory testing, but we hadn't tackled them in class yet.

"If they were chosen—" Deen started to say.

"—then they’re going to skip us!" I finished. To confirm it, the BID agent with the clipboard waved for our car to go ahead. We high-fived each other. Deen sung her stupid song as we inched forward, and I sang along with her. "We are innocent...we are innocent...please don't kill us..."

Our remaining hurdle was the scanners. The BID installed something that looked like a car wash entrance on the road, but instead of the huge rotating brushes, we had a curtain of blue laser to pass through. Actually, instead of a car wash, it looked more like the scanner at a grocery store cashier, or even those fake money detecting thingies. Nice, my random thoughts are back. I was feeling less stressed.

“Want to hold hands?” Deen offered.

“Do you think I’m a kid?” I said with forced laughter. Typical Deen. A big challenge was coming up; I didn’t want any distractions. “And my hands might get sweaty. You’ll get disgusted.”

“What? No, I wo—”

“Shhh, our turn is coming up soon.”

I became hyper-focused as we came closer and closer to the scanners. It was the annoying waiting part that made it worse. Five more cars…Four cars…My heart thumped hard that I could hear it over the noise of the engine and air conditioning. Three cars... Two...

Deen also quieted down, her eyes glued ahead, back hunched. She was bouncing her leg. I didn't have the brain capacity to spare to be annoyed at her shit. Not sure if she was doing it to relieve her anxiety or if she was readying to floor it if alarms suddenly blared. One car…Our turn was next.

I wanted to close both eyes but ended up only closing one. I looked over at Deen. She was mumbling something, maybe a prayer. We both stopped breathing as our car drove into the blue laser curtain thingy. The static in the air made the hair on my arms and neck stand on end. Or maybe it was just the stress. There was a slight scent of burnt paper.

"Uh? Is that it?" I whispered.

A police officer waved at us and then pointed to the gap between the barricades. We kept quiet as we passed through parked patrol cars, still wary that something unexpected might happen.

"Yes, we're free!" Deen yelled, breaking the silence and nearly destroying my eardrums. She held onto the steering wheel with one hand and shook my shoulder with the other.

"Concentrate on driving." I couldn't help but grin at her enthusiasm.

"Don't worry, my Guardian Angel will—whoops. I forgot he's not around for a couple more hours. Wow, it's really nice to have this much peace."

"That's why you should focus on the road."

She didn't listen to me. "Yehey! We're free as a bird! And peace for a couple of hours! Las Vegas, here we come!"

It was really hard for me to get super excited at anything, but I would admit I was relieved as hell we got through without any issue. So relieved that I didn't bother to push Deen away as she continued to celebrate by poking me while singing her 'we are innocent' song.

The traffic severely thinned as we drove onwards to Riverside, the other cars exiting La Esperanza going to our various destinations. Deen turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows. She played relaxing jazz beats on the radio as we savored the cool early morning air, the sun a long ways away from waking up.

It was almost half-past three and we were cruising through the sort of empty streets of Riverside. With the music in the background, we might as well be in a music video—Deen, the lead singer, and me, the random extra the director picked from the streets last minute because they lacked people.

It took no time to get to San Bernardino. I became so relaxed, any sense of vulnerability as a weak human gone, that I chatted with Deen instead of trying, or at least faking, to fall asleep. We avoided serious stuff like Adumbrae, Dario's organization, and how I was going to hide in the future if they hunted me down.

The topic of anything school-related soon dried up and we moved our conversation to my Mom. It was a pretty easy subject to talk about; I had already worn the face of a dutiful daughter plenty of times.

"How about your parents?" I asked Deen. Only now did I realize I barely knew anything about them other than that the Leska family was very wealthy with plenty of business ventures and political connections. What kind of monstrous friend am I? I sarcastically thought. At least I was trying to show that I cared about Deen's family now.

"They're there," she simply replied. By her tone, I knew she didn't want to continue. And so, that was the end of that topic.

We eventually entered I-15. From here, it was just straight driving, following the interstate through the desert and we'd reach Las Vegas. I went to sleep, telling Deen I'd take over driving later.

BEEEEP! BEEEEPPP!!!

"Ugh, what's going on?" I groaned as I was woken up by the blaring horns. There was a car following us, its lights reflected in the side-view mirror. "Why so loud? I was sleeping..."

"It's them," Deen said. From her tone, I already knew who she referred to.

The blaring music was a good indication we got assholes up our own asses. The prospect of a threat immediately drove my sleepiness away. "Did they intentionally follow us?"

"All the way from La Esperanza? I don't think so. They caught up to us only now."

"They remember your car."

"I'm sorry. If not for me—"

"Oh, shut up, Deen," I snapped at her. She stared at me, shocked at my reaction. I told her, "It's not your fault they're jerks okay? It's also not your fault that somehow they found us. We're in this together so don't blame yourself for anything."

I pinched my leg and felt a sting. A pinkish patch expanded on my pale, vampire-like skin. The Suppressor was still in effect. Fucking hell! Being a normal human sucked so much ass. This was the time I'd be justified in the eyes of society—I knew my usual standards on what was right weren't usually in line with public opinion—with putting these assholes in their rightful place.

And that place was six feet below the ground. Okay, that's too extreme. But we were in a dangerous situation here. Two normal girls versus like six guys? We didn't have any weapons with us except for a box cutter. This scenario seemed like one of those true-crime documentaries Mom and I used to watch about women disappearing while on long stretches of an empty interstate. I took a look at the time on my phone.

Apparently having the same thought, Deen said, "About an hour, and hour and a half more. We can't be really sure."

"That's a long time. Maybe these creeps will leave us alone?" The pickup truck following us rapidly switched from its high beam headlights to low beam, as if they were trying to communicate with us in Morse Code. The constant honking that followed told us that they were doing it to be annoying, not to share a secret message. I said, "Or I guess not?"

The assholes maintained their distance. If we sped up, they also matched our speed. Then Deen tried slowing down, prepared to accelerate if they were going to catch up to us. But they also decreased their speed. These fuckers just tailed us through the desert, occasionally honking their horns and flicking their headlights. We didn't pass any other vehicle. With a sluggish internet connection this far out into the desert, I analyzed the map of the surrounding area.

"They want to harass us," Deen said with a frown. "They'll probably just stay like this. Best if we ignore them."

"At some point, they'll get bored with their games," I pointed out. "And those guys are drunk, maybe even on drugs. We don't know what's going through their minds. Maybe they'll escalate things if we don't react."

"Yes, that might happen. But what are we going to do? Just speed up and try to lose them? Their truck should be faster than my car."

"Continue like this so they won't get angry at us or think something's up. Luckily, a little over four miles from here, there's a diner and a gasoline station." I showed her my phone. "The pictures look old, but it said it's open twenty-four, seven. There's a review complaining about the food dated a couple of weeks ago."

"Let's hope it's open," Deen said. "Then we can ask for help there."

"No need for that," I told her with a grin. "We're strong independent women, just not that strong right now. We just need to wait until the Suppressors wear off and we can continue our journey." Deen chuckled, lowering her tensed shoulders. I continued, "This is also a good opportunity for you to try some good old true American diner food. I'm really hungry."

About six minutes later, we saw the sign "MR. BEEFY'S", with the lights for both E's busted and the S dangling upside down from the bottom of the sign but somehow still lit. The creeper squad, likely realizing our plan despite their boozed-up state, suddenly sped up. Their truck dangerously weaved in and out of the opposite incoming lane.

Fortunately, we were already near the diner. Deen, ever the parking expert, slid our car in one try into the open spot nearest the diner's entrance. We got out and briskly walked to the door. There was a screeching skid, then tires crunching gravel. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the truck drive past us. I thought they were already going to leave us alone, but they turned around.

"Go in, go in," urged Deen, opening the door for me.

If these bastards keep this up...