A/N: Sorry for the radio silence! I don't use my laptop for anything other than posting chapters on here at the moment, and I'm pretty bad at remembering things, so I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted. The remaining chapters need a little bit of editing, so I'm going to post two more tomorrow, and then the final one in a couple of days, enjoy!

"Thank god!" Tareq called from the back off the truck, his footsteps crunching the gravel before he appeared at the window right next to me. "They're safe!" He called, presenting the box of a dozen eggs in his hand, a grin on his face.

"I'm happy your clothes aren't ruined." Jimmy told him, leaving the car and wafting me with a wall of boiling hot air as he did so. "You coming?" He asked as I slunk back into my seat, hoping to avoid the sun as much as possible.

"I suppose." I told him, opening the door to let myself out and almost immediately regretting it as the heat soaked into my black jeans instantaneously, causing me to let out a groan. "It's so hot, Jimmy." I was surprised the ground didn't melt the rubber of my shoes, as I could feel the warmth on the soles of my feet.

"I know, Y/N." He said, putting his arm loosely around my waist as I joined him at the back of the truck, "But look at the pretty mountain!" He put his arm out and gestured towards the brightly painted pile of rock that lay before us.

"It is a pretty mountain." I said, watching as Chandler and Garrett began hopping over all mounds of dirt on the ground, huge smiles on their faces as they did so. I couldn't help but smile at the childlike enthusiasm of the two adults. Tareq began to film with the same huge grin on his face as he captured Chandler almost falling straight onto the artwork that covered the mountain. 

Chris however looked just as boiling as I felt. He wiped the sweat that had already formed from his face, and pulled a look of disgust as he finished the last of the water in his bottle. "How long do we have to stay here, Jim?" He asked as we all reached the base of the mountain. 

"Oh shush, grumpy, let's go and explore." Jimmy replied enthusiastically, causing my annoyance with the sun to fade away, and a sense of motivation to appear. I'd battle this heat if it meant it would allow Jimmy to enjoy himself, and of course, if Jimmy was happy, I was happy. I mentally rolled my eyes at how much I liked this boy, he could walk me through a wasteland and I would be skipping at his side. As if to agree with my train of thought, he linked his arm through mine, giving me a brilliantly beautiful smile, before he began talking to the camera.

We explored the whole place, the colors having been etched into my mind to the point of which they'd appear on my eyelids when I closed my eyes. Jimmy's enthusiasm didn't drop for a second, even after he tripped and fell and told me to ensure I edit it out of the video. I agreed with this, but made sure to tell him that there were no promises against saving the footage for myself. "Surely there are other things you'd prefer to have on video instead, right?" He'd told me, a cheeky glint in his eye, and a sarcastic smile plastered on his face as he whispered it in my ear, ensuring the others wouldn't be able to take the piss out of him for it later on. I nudged his arm in response, not even justifying what he had said with a reply, but of course he simply took my silence as a form of flattery. "That's a yes then." He said, giving me another smug smile.

"Shut up." I told him, trying to keep my expression blank as Chandler eyed the both of us, trying to work out why Jimmy was looking so pleased with himself. Jimmy simply chuckled beside me, shooting Chandler a wink, leaving him even more confused.

"Right then, back to the cars?" He asked the group, and was met with a cheer in response. His arm returned to my waist yet again, and only left when he had opened the passenger side door for me. 

"Such a gentleman." I told him, kissing him on the cheek before sitting down. 

Chris groaned from the backseat, "Hurry up, Jimmy! We need the A/C!" He shouted as Jimmy rounded the car. Chris had been sounding progressively worse as the day went on, he sounded as if he was coming down with something or another, and he had been complaining quite a lot throughout the day. 

"You okay, dude?" I asked him, as Jimmy jumped into the car and immediately started the engine, allowing cold air to rush out of the vents. Chris looked at me, his face slightly paler than usual, and a small smile on his face. 

"I'll be fine, it's probably just the heat." He told me, his expression showing that he didn't quite believe what he was saying.

"You want to come and sit up front?" I asked, squeezing Jimmy's hand that had already found it's way into mine. "You can direct the cold air straight at you." I added, and Chris seemed to perk up a little bit at that, and nodded his head slowly. 

"Thank you." Chris told me as we switched places, a grateful smile on his face. He aimed the A/C straight at his face the second he sat down, and placed his head in his hands as the car started moving. "Don't go trying to hold my hand, lover boy." He said to Jimmy, a smile visible on his cheeks.

"It's no use, man" Tareq said, "Once you start riding shotgun with Jimmy, it's only a matter of time before he makes you his girlfriend." I elbowed Tareq, causing him to let out a laugh.

"Don't be jealous, you had your chance." Jimmy joked, his eyes meeting mine in the rear view mirror, causing me to blush for the thousandth time since I'd met him. 

We drove for around for a little while longer, going to see another couple of sights before we settled down in one spot for the night. Chris had started feeling a little bit better, but he still wasn't back to normal, and was trudging along purely so he didn't miss out on anything. Although ripped apart dolls and other odd contraptions weren't exactly things he would've been sad about missing. 

The graffiti circle in particular was something every single one of us complained about, as it was no different than half of the walls in North Carolina. Even Jimmy was a little bit confused as to why it was a tourist sight, but tried to make the most out of it anyway, pointing at anything he found remotely interesting and struggling to make a joke out of it. We decided to move on pretty quickly after that, and after about three hours all in all, we arrived at our first stop in the actual Slab City.

"It's an art museum." Jimmy told me as we left the car, Tareq trailing after us with a camera and the other boys catching up with us quickly, most of them looking around nervously at the area we had been joking about getting stabbed in for the last couple of weeks. "You guys ready?" He asked as we congregated around the front of the museum, getting a few cautious nods in return.

Jimmy explained who we were, and what we were doing to the man who owned the museum, who eyed all of us up before responding to him. "I only have three rules." He began, "One, you don't have to stay on the carpeting. Two, everything is touchable, and three, you touch something and it breaks, tell them it was broken when you got here." Jimmy let out a small laugh, and it was almost impossible to tell if it was a genuine laugh, or a nervous one. I was particularly worried over who 'they' were.

Jimmy's arm tightened around my waist as we entered the museum, and much to everyone's surprise, the man followed us in. He explained the rules of the bowling alley to us, which was pretty much a lane of sand with wood on either side, and some rather weathered looking pins stood at the end. "We've been homicide free for three days, we're shooting for a week." He told Jimmy, still holding me tight as he humored the man and silently prayed with the rest of the group that he would leave soon.

Luckily, he left almost immediately after he told the group someone had been murdered only a few days prior to being there, leaving every single one of us slightly more scared than any of us would care to admit.

Jimmy waited until the man was out of sight, before he turned to the rest of us, "So, bowling?"