Listen while you read:
NCS Alan Walker - Fade
_______________________________
As Lauren drove her eyes were noticeably red in exhaustion. She blinked a few times to keep herself awake while Ally, Dinah, and Camila slept in the back. Normani kept flipping the map around to make sure she was reading it right. Lauren kept to the road where she passed many creos who couldn't keep up with the speed of their car.
"Okay, it looks like we're in McMinn." Normani said slowly, slightly unsure about their whereabouts. "So just keep going down this road and we'll eventually be in Polk."
Lauren nodded and attempted to stay awake, but her eyes were feeling heavy. The road was getting blurry from the small tired tears forming in her eyes. Her body was feeling limp as her eyes were beginning to close. Suddenly her head begins to lower and she's driving off road.
"Lauren!" Normani yells waking the woman up.
Lauren's eyes shot open as she quickly pulls the steering wheel causing a loud screech to break the silence around them and wake the three girls up in a fright. When she gets back onto the road they hear a loud bang as though they just broke the sound barrier. Suddenly, Lauren loses control once more causing her to stop in the middle of nowhere. Lauren rubs her eyes in frustration; frustration that she fell asleep at the wheel. She then exits the car angrily kicking the door, slamming it shut. The girls flinch and Normani gets out to check out the problem as well.
Normani walks over to where Lauren stood angrily looking at the car with her arms resting above her head. The Texan walks around to see that they've popped a tire and sighs.
"Shit. Do we have a spare?" Lauren shakes her head in frustration. "Damn it. Well we can't be far from a city. We'll look for an auto shop." Normani suggested. Lauren nodded her head as she took slow deep breaths with her eyes closed, attempting to calm herself.
Dinah and the others then exit the car with worried expressions, "What's the problem?"
"Popped tire." Normani said rubbing her eyes.
Dinah sighs, "Well let's spend the night in the car and find out how to fix it in the morning."
As Dinah was about to enter the car once more, there were loud and horrible growls in the distance. Everyone stopped in their spot and listened. They all looked down the road, but couldn't see a thing in the darkness. Ally pointed her flashlight at the growls, but that didn't do much help either with seeing in the obscure. Suddenly, the sounds stopped. Each girl looked at one another worrisome and looked back.
When they looked down the road, a creo leaped in view and jumped onto Ally and knocking her down. Lauren acted fast and grabbed the creos head and twisted it. Its limp body fell on top of Allyson, who then pushed it off and quickly backed away. Dinah and Normani helped the short woman to her feet when the horrible growls began to get louder.
"We gotta go." Dinah said.
"Where?"
The growls now sounded fairly close, "Anywhere, but here!" Dinah exclaimed before pulling Normani to run. They all began running except for Camila, who still tried seeing one of the beasts. Lauren noticed this and sighed in irritation before grabbing the brunettes arm and pulling her away until she finally began running.
The creos jumped over the car as some pounced onto it. Each girl was running for their life. They ran with everything they could, but it wasn't fast enough due to the fact that they were all still pretty tired. Lauren could hear the foul noises getting closer and closer to a point where she could practically hear them breathing. Out of reaction Lauren pushed Camila to the side and pulled out her knife before turning around just in time to see the beast running at her. Lauren stopped and planted her feet firmly on the ground before driving her knife into the creos head and dropping it.
Lauren turned to a frightened Camila and helped her up, pulling her hand to keep running. Up ahead the group could clearly see a building, most likely a home. Normani runs ahead and checks the door only to notice it's locked. With a swift kick, the door swung opened and Normani was waving the others over. Dinah and Ally ran in followed by Camila and Lauren. As Normani was about to enter, a creo tackled her to the ground. Dinah ran to aid Normani by kneeing the creo on the side of its head where it fell off of the Texan. Dinah then straddled the creo and began throwing punches to its face, beating it to death.
After the creo had already died, Dinah continued to punch it, getting more of its blood on her knuckles. Normani then had to pull the Polynesian off and bring her inside before shutting the door. They all waited in silence as they heard the creos run by screaming their horrid howls. They all sat on the floor close to one another as it was suddenly silent once more. They all released a breath of relief and stood up.
"Are you okay?" Normani asked grabbing Dinah's hand.
"Yeah. Are you? Were you scratched or bitten?" The Californian asked cupping Normani's face.
"No, I'm fine. Thank you for helping me." Normani smiled.
"Anytime."
Lauren went to check and make sure the rooms were clear. Allyson was ensuring that Camila was okay and she simply nodded obviously shook up by the events. Everyone watched as Lauren returned and nodded her head to show it was clear.
"Fuck." Dinah sighed in frustration. "We left everything in the car."
"So?" Ally said.
"Those duffle bags have four rifles, three shot guns, two revolvers, five pistols, your machete, and a shit load of ammunition. Anything could happen." Dinah stressed. Lauren then walked over to the door and slightly opened it, but stopped when she heard someone add on to the conversation.
"Well it's too dangerous to go right now. There could be more of those things out there and we won't be able to see them in this darkness. It's best if we wait till morning." Camila spoke up.
Each girl looked at her with a worried look as they thought of what could happen if there were more creos out there. The only one without the sincere expression was Lauren who wore an angry one as she stared at the brunette, who stared back with a look of concern. Lauren broke their small staring contest and turned to Normani and Dinah for confirmation.
"Lo, she has a point. It is too dark out there." Dinah said with a shrug.
Lauren now turned to Normani in hopes to get the answer she wanted to hear, "Lets wait it out, Lauren. It's safer that way."
Lauren grit her teeth angrily and squeezed the door knob before slamming the door shut. The raven haired woman then stormed past the group and went into a room before slamming it.
Camila looked down in regret until Normani held the young woman's shoulder causing her to look up into brown sincere eyes, "Don't feel bad. You did a right thing speaking up. Lauren is just.. in a rough patch at the moment."
"She doesn't like me very much does she?" Camila asked.
Normani didn't say anything because she couldn't speak on behalf of another person. Maybe Lauren really didn't like her. And she didn't want to feed Camila a lie. "She's just not so keen on new people. For the past 9months it was only her, Dinah, and I."
"Yeah. She still hasn't even warmed up to me yet and I've been with them for about a week. But," Ally said slowly, "She wasn't like this with me."
"She's just a little extra because she's looking for her family. Family is one of the most important things to her. She's just desperate to get to her home." Dinah spoke up.
"And how can you be so sure that's what she's going through?" Normani asked.
"C'mon don't act like you don't know Lauren. You know exactly how she was with Taylor." Dinah said.
Camila was itching to ask who Taylor was, but thought against it because she didn't want to go through other people's business.
"I dropped my hat when that creo attacked me." Ally pouted.
"Well there's nothing we can do about it right now. Lets get some sleep." Normani said flopping onto the couch.
"Yeah. I'm gonna check if there are anymore beds." Ally said walking into the hallway. "There's one more." She notified.
"You take it, Camila. I'll take the couch." Dinah offered with a smile where Camila returned it before walking into the hall.
As Camila walked into the hallway Allyson pointed into a room obviously showing Camila where she could sleep. After Ally walked into the other room, Camila simply stared at the other room door knowing that Lauren was in it. Everything in her was telling her to leave the green eyed woman alone, but her mind was telling her to check on her. She went with her gut and simply walked into her room. She laid in the bed, but could not fall asleep. The brown eyed woman stayed awake with thoughts flowing. She tried to remember what was forgotten, but nothing came to her mind. Camila then began to fear if wether or not she would regain that small part of her memory ever again.
In the living room Dinah couldn't sleep either. That night was the first night that they came so close to being in actual danger of losing more than one of them. Dinah laid on her back staring up at the ceiling lost in thought. She turned to a sleeping Normani and just watched her relaxed features. Dinah didn't think it was possible for Normani to look more beautiful than she already was, but in that moment she was proven wrong. The thing that surprised the Californian the most was that Normani was breath taking even while asleep; while she wasn't even trying. Dinah eventually caught herself smiling while admiring the Texans beauty. She then placed both hands over her face in embarrassment.
"What are you doing? She doesn't even know you like her." Dinah quietly said to herself. She shook off the thoughts and turned on her side to have her back to Normani.
Hours had passed and Camila was still awake. She got up in frustration and ran a hand through her hair. With the thought still on her mind she decided to check on Lauren after all, knowing that she'd most likely be asleep. The brunette carefully entered the room and seen Lauren fast asleep cuddling a pillow. Camila walked to Lauren and pulled the covers over her. With the moonlight pouring into the room through the windows, Camila could see small carving on the dresser near the bed.
She delicately ran her fingers across the letters L.M.J. Camila furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she felt small pieces of wood under her fingers. She could tell that this was done recently. Without thinking too much on it, she left the room without making a sound. As she laid back down in her bed she could feel her exhaustion hitting her. The thing bothering her was Lauren's well-being and now that that was taken care of, within no time she was fast asleep.
*****
Morning came fast and all five girls were in the living room prepared to make a plan.
"So this is what we'll do: Lauren and Normani will go to the car and make sure all our things are safe while Ally, Camila, and I look for an auto shop to locate a few things to fix that tire. Maybe a new tire. We keep our talkies on and keep each other updated, okay?" Dinah ordered.
Each girl nodded their head and were off to do as they were ordered. Lauren and Normani sprinted towards their car while Dinah and the others walked deeper into the town in search of an auto shop.
As Lauren and Normani ran through the barren road they could see the feet of many of the creos imprinted in the dirt. Lauren's emerald eyes were solely focused on the small figure of their car that was still miles away.
"Lauren, can I ask you something?" Normani asked. Lauren didn't do anything nor looked at the track star. "So are you gonna keep up the silent treatment or..?"
Lauren furrowed her eyebrows at the Texan and began running faster to ignore the question. Lauren reached the car first and quickly entered it only to see that their things were gone.
Lauren grunted in anger before slamming the car door shut. Normani arrived and sighed in defeat, "Fuck." She said to herself. She then took out her walkie talkie and held the button, "Hey, guys, bad news. Our stuff is gone." Normani said sadly.
"What do you mean? Was it gone when you got there or did you guys get mugged?" Dinah asked worried.
"It was gone when we got here."
Dinah sighed, "How much stuff is Lauren breaking?"
Normani looked back at her silent friend who was kicking the car and punching the hood. "Not much." She shrugged.
"Alright just hang tight. We found a Pep Boys and got a tire and one of these watcha things to fix it." Dinah said.
"Alright we'll wait here." Normani sighed and just watched as Lauren was hitting their car with a branch.
Dinah rolled her eyes and sighed as she put away her walkie talkie. The Polynesian walked over to Camila and Ally, who were rolling out a tire.
"Bad news, everything is gone from the car. Someone took it."
"What? My machete was in there." Ally complained. "Did they at least get my hat?"
"Allyson, your hat is the least of our worries. A lot of our weapons were in there and the worst part is we don't know who took them." Dinah said.
"So what do we do?" Camila asked.
"For now fix the car. C'mon Lauren and Normani are waiting." Dinah said before turning around.
*****
Hours had passed and Lauren was laying on the hood of the car as she stared at the orange sky. Normani stood near the car, staring down the road looking for her friends. Her eyebrows were furrowed in worry as she began to grow concerned for her friends.
"Should I call them?" Normani asked with worry. Lauren simply shrugged nonchalantly as she continued staring at the sky. Normani took out her walkie talkie, "Dinah, are you guys alright? It's been a while."
Normani waited patiently for a few moments. Even Lauren hoisted herself on her palms as she began to worry for her friends. Normani was going to press the button once more, when she heard small static.
"If you wanna see your friends again, give us all your stuff." A mysterious voice said.
"You have all our stuff, dumb ass." Normani said through gritted teeth.
"No, we mean everything. The weapons you're currently carrying."
Normani sighed and looked at Lauren who was holding her own walkie talkie and looking at Normani with a worried look.
"Where are our friends?"
"You'll find us in the gym of the old high school just down the road."
"We'll be there." Normani said as Lauren hopped off the car and began leading the way.