“Whoa! What are you doing?” Conner yelled, the sound of his body crashing into the passenger window only partially registering.

Shit, the fog was thickening again. Better gun it. “Getting us out of here. Didn’t you see all the bodies?” God, just the remembrance caused bile to rise in her throat. She’d only seen death of that scale in movies or on TV.

“Bodies? What bodies? I can’t see anything.”

Her voice came out a hysterical sob. “You couldn’t see them? Be glad of that.” She wildly stared through the haze, praying that the demented steel tunnels and pitch-black darkness would take them once more.

Conner remained silent. As the moments ticked by, her nerves stretched until they were held together by a mere thread. Where was that damned tunnel, and how crazy was she for wanting to venture into it again? If desperation could equate with insanity, then she was right there.

A glint of steel snagged her focus, and her heart soared. Please, let that be it. She chanted those words to herself for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly, the sensation of tires rolling over ground disappeared and that weightless feeling of being shot through a tube rushed over her. Success! She couldn’t wait to hug Aiden to her and never let go.

Oh, God, what if this spit them out somewhere else, someplace as equally fucked up as the hell they’d just left? Or even returned them to said hell? The possibility caused her throat to swell with tears, but she swallowed them back. She couldn’t lose her control, not yet. Not until this was all over, one way or another.

This time, neither she nor Conner reached for each other’s hand, even as silver and blackness threatened to devour them. Some part of her dimly realized they’d passed that stage of initial alarm and were now heading into some kind of numb shock where it was easier to not move.

Finally, after another period of silver walls whizzing by, the sensation of tires against solid ground rattled into Avery’s horror-soaked brain. She gasped, half choking on the sound. Fog obscured the path before them, so she punched down on the brakes until they came to a halt.

“Are we…” Conner trailed off, the question apparent in his tone.

“I...I don’t know.”

She couldn’t rip her gaze away from the sight that she prayed would spring up in front of her car—a good, old-fashioned highway. At this point, she’d take nearly any road in the United States. No, make that the world.

The fog melted away inch by slow inch until the beloved sight of white-and-yellow-lined asphalt was revealed. That was all the encouragement she needed. Without a moment lost, she pressed on the gas, and the car lurched forward through the haze still surrounding them.

“Green Meadow?” Conner asked, his voice dripping with fearful hope.

“I hope so. Only one way to find out.” She sped up. They needed to get out of this fog. Only then could they determine anything.