“You’re right,” I say.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know, we will have to think of something.” I frown.
I hadn’t thought about all of this. Even Zac is too young for a war, but he wouldn’t have any of us trying to keep him out of it. He loves and wants to protect Syl and Shae just as much as any of us do.
Mar and I sit in silence for a while, both of us staring up at the stars, looking over the horizon and behind us every now and then.
The rest of the night has been a bit hazy. Both Mar and I drift off and on, back and forth into sleep. We talk a bit more about what we think we should do about Dia, and neither one of us seems to think there is much we can do.
I know there must be a solution and that she deserves so much more than this, but there isn’t a thing that can change what has happened to her, any of us for that matter.
“We might be better off keeping her with us,” I whisper to Mar as the sun shows itself over the horizon. “After all, we don’t have a very good history with us being apart.”
“I’m not going nowhere,” Dia says, stretching her arms, arching her back, and yawning.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” I say, “and it’s anywhere!”
“Well, I’m not going ANYWHERE,” Dia corrects herself, sure of what she says.
“It might get rough,” Mar whispers.
“I know dat,” Dia says charismatically, “and don’t you think I am a baby, cus I’m not!”
“No,” Eli’s sleepy voice pipes up, “you are not a baby, but you are still so little.”
“I will prove to you that I can be bid dirl and help out,” Dia says bravely. “Have I not pulled my heaviness yet?”
“You mean weight?” Eli laughs.
“Whudever.” She smiles with a playful eyeroll.
“Yes, you have pulled your heaviness.” I smile. “We just want you to be safe and taken care of.”
“But you take care of me, Lizzie… All of you do.”
“We try.” Mar hugs her from behind.
By the end of our conversation with Dia, all the members of our family that are in the back of the truck are awake. We all try to stretch, or even stand to work out all the kinks that stress and what little sleep we have gotten has put there. At this point, our bodies have been through so much they don’t know how they are supposed to react.
“Where are we?” Jake shouts into the window.
“We are here,” Zac points to a location on the map.
Before any of us see where he is pointing, the truck lurches forward and begins to make a horrible clanking sound.
“Out of gas,” Samantha groans while punching the steering wheel.
Chapter Thirty-One
The truck comes to a complete stop in the middle of the broken road. We haven’t seen any other vehicles since The Elected truck, and that was hours ago. Any luck we would have getting gas for this truck would be little to nothing.
Working gas stations are hard to find, as in, you never see one.
“I guess we are walking from here,” Jake grunts, hopping out of the truck with his gun in one hand and backpack in the other.
We all jump out of the truck, dispersing all the contents of it into bags and things that are more easily carried. Magi and Cara pull all the medical supplies together, trying to put as much into their bags and the medical kit from The Elected box. Shawn, Leah, and Zac work on checking food supplies as well as count and distribute bottles of water.
Jake, Samantha, and I take inventory of our guns and ammo, passing weapons back out after they are loaded. Mar, Eli, and Dia gather clothing and blankets and place them into packs for taking with us.
For good measure, Jake, Shawn, and Eli roll the truck down a hill and into a nearby ditch so that it is less visible to anyone that might be behind us or come through here looking for us.
After making sure the truck is out of sight, the eleven of us start walking down the broken road, Jake and Zac at the lead. We have left as little behind as possible.
“How much further?” Jake asks Zac.
“We are about twelve miles from RV926 which use is to be Richmond, Virginia.” Zac grins. “From there, we will have a little over one-hundred miles left to go.”
“That’s great,” Mar says with a smile on her face.
A few miles down the road, Zac stops in his tracks, mesmerized by the map in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” Cara asks.
“Give me something to draw in the dirt with,” Zac says still looking at the map.
Dia runs and grabs a short stick from the side of the road and hands it to him.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
Distracted, Zac bends down and begins to draw something in the dirt on the side of the road. He does it in complete silence. Once a blown-up version of the map is in front of him on the ground, he draws a huge circle around a spot on the map and a few dots to the south of the circle.
“What is this?” Leah asks.
“Shhhhh…” Zac shushes.
He then begins to draw lines through the circle with letters and numbers around the perimeter of the sphere. After he finishes, he looks back and forth between the map in his hands and the portion of it that he has put on the ground.
“Come on, crazy,” Samantha frowns, “are you going to clue the rest of us in on what’s so spectacular with a
