“Alright, so we marked all of the places where the list said these people were,” Josh begins, unrolling the map of the U.S. on the coffee table. “It looks like the closest one besides Doctor Bryce is Doctor Elain Morrison, up in Knoxville, Tennessee.”

The early morning sun has barely risen by the time we all wake up, groggy and exhausted from only three hours of rest. I sit across from Josh at the table once we finished up grabbing as much food and gear from the house, which, admittedly, wasn’t much.

“It looks like we can take 75 all the way up,” Quentin points out.

“It’ll be a long walk all the way from here,” Sparrow adds.

“There might be a vehicle we can use in the area,” Matt notes, and everyone stares at him. “What? Why take weeks to get there when we could be there in a few days?”

I sigh. “That’s a good point, but we have to be careful. By now, the Widow’s know that Dani and Josh are missing, and I wouldn’t doubt that they’re crawling all over the place looking for us.”

“They won’t be too pleased to see that their two favorite prisoners are missing,” Dani grumbles. “Though I bet Grimm won’t be pleased with Jess when he sees that she lets us slip through. We might have a bit of a head start if we leave soon.”

I stand, nodding. “Alright, then let’s be quick. Pack up whatever you can find that’ll be useful, Dani and I are going to look for a car we can use.”

The boys nod, standing up to search the house while Dani and I head outside to the cars. The sun is beginning to rise over the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street. Dani and I walk down the road, passing by several broken down vehicles missing wheels, batteries, and several engine parts.

“We can try scavenging for supplies from the other cars and houses while we’re out here,” I suggest, peeking inside the vehicles we pass by. “There’s bound to be something here.”

Dani looks around with me, though most of the vehicles are pretty empty and unusable, and Dani seems unusually quiet.

“You okay over there?” I ask over the top of a car we’re searching.

Dani glances up at me, looking as though I startled her from thought. “Yeah, I’m good,” she says, sounding distracted.

I walk around the car to stand in front of her, hands on my hips. “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

She sighs, brushing her hands on her pants. “I’m just concerned about Matt, is all.”

“I know how you feel,” I nod. “The only reason he came with us was so that he could help us find you, and he won’t willingly go back to the Valkyrie.”

“I’m concerned about his intentions in joining us,” Dani continues. “I know that he helped you find Josh and I, but the fact still stands that he willingly rejoined the Widow’s, and…” she trails off, wringing her hands.

“It’s okay, Dani, you can tell me,” I urge.

She glances up at me, unsure. “Leon wasn’t with Matt at the Valkyrie camp, was he?”

I pause at the mention of his name, but shake my head. “No, he wasn’t. And I didn’t see him at the camp, or the facility, or the CDC.”

Dani sighs, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “I know you don’t like or trust him, but ever since we left him at that warehouse, I’ve been worried about him. He’s like a father to me, Cass, he took care of Josh and I when we first met, and he kept Cottonwood safe for the better part of three years, and-”

“Dani,” I interrupt, holding her hands in place to stop her from swinging them wildly as she rambles on. “It’s okay, I understand.”

She pauses, eyes wide. “You… do?”

I smile, nodding. “Of course. Leon and I had our differences, and while we never saw eye to eye, I knew how much he meant to everyone, especially to you. Just because I personally don’t trust him doesn’t mean I want to turn everyone against him.”

Dani’s smile is soft and she squeezes my hands. “Thank you.”

We share a tender kiss, and Dani’s smile widens. Something catches her eye off to the side and she wanders over to the side of an abandoned vehicle.

“What is it?” I ask, walking over to see what caught her eye.

She scoops up a discarded bag from under the car and holds it up. “Feels like there’s something inside.” She unzips the bag and rummages around, pulling out a canteen of water, a wind-up flashlight, a suture kit, various MRE’s, a grappling hook, and a combat shovel.

“Looks military,” I note, grabbing the bag as Dani hands it over. I dig through the smaller pockets and dig out some other supplies, including a set of dog-tags. “Connor M., Sargent First Class.” I read.

“Hope he doesn’t mind us using his stuff,” Dani comments.

“We can find more uses for this stuff than he would, that’s for sure,” I reply, slinging the bag over my shoulder. “Let’s see if we can find anything else around here, I doubt he was alone.”

We continue looking around, finding several more bottles of water, some ammunition, and food. We keep away from the other boarded up houses, the idea of them being full of Feral’s not ideal, especially since Dani and Josh are still injured. Eventually, we a rundown pick-up parked in the carport down the road.

“Think we can get this one up and going?” Dani asks, checking out the tires.

“I’m no mechanic, but we can take a look at the engine at least,” I reply, popping the hood of the truck. All of the fluids seem to be fine, but there’s a bunch of grime all over the engine and all around it looks to be in rough shape. “I don’t suppose you know much about cars, do you?”

Dani shakes her head. “Just medicine, but Josh has a way with engines, he might be able to do something about it.”

“That’s a good idea. We should head back to the others and let them know what we found,” I reply, gathering up the supplies we scavenged and putting them in the bag.

We head back to the house we’re staying at, where we can hear loud arguing from the inside. Dani and I exchange worried glances and we take out our weapons, worried that the Widow’s have found us again. We burst through the door, weapons at the ready, and the arguing stops. Standing in the living room, nearly nose to nose, is Matt and Sparrow. Quentin quickly steps in, dragging Sparrow away from Matt before anything gets violent.

“What the Hell is going on in here?!” I demand, lowering my knife.

“I was just saying,” Matt growls, “that maybe instead of tracking each individual locket, all we have to do is find the person who made the cure, and have them make it themselves.”

“That’s selfish!” Sparrow spits, fighting against Quentin’s arms. “We have to make sure that Atlas doesn’t get ahold of any of the lockets!”

“We don’t even know where any of these people are now! Cassandra said it herself, this is just the last known people and places! There’s no guarantee we’d even find them, or even if they still have those pieces with them!”

“And what if Atlas gathers the pieces before we find Emily, huh?” Sparrow demands. “You didn’t think of that, did you?”

“They’d have to take Cassandra’s piece in order to do that,” Matt growls. “And I’m pretty sure she isn’t one to give it up without a fight.”

“You’re right about that last part,” I growl, stepping forward, “but why the Hell are you over here yelling at each other over this? What if someone else heard you? Maybe you forgot, but we still have the Widow’s on our asses.”

Dani touches my arm, and I scoff, sheathing my knife.

“This is Cass’s mission, and she’s in charge of it,” Dani declares. “If there’s a problem with that, the door is over there, feel free to leave.”

I shake my head. “It’s not a dictatorship, Dani. We decide as a group what the best course of action is, and if someone has an issue with it, we talk through it,” I address. “No one is forcing any of you to do any of this. But Dani is right, this is my mission, and I’m going to see it through. If you don’t want to do this, you’re welcome to leave and go find safety, but you’re not going to stop me.”

No one moves to leave, and I nod. “Very well, then. Matt,” I turn to him as he slumps down in a chair, clearly annoyed, “If you would like to discuss an alternate plan, I’m all ears.”

Matt glances up at me, his eyes flicking over to Dani, then the others. He sighs, sitting up with his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced together. “Rather than waste our time with finding each individual piece of the cure,” he starts, glancing at Sparrow who is glaring daggers at him, “we should find your mother instead. You said it yourself, she was the head researcher in developing a cure, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a back-up in case any of the pieces were compromised. We find her before Atlas finds the pieces, and we have the cure in our hands.”

“It’s a sound plan,” I confess, “but the only problem is the fact that no one knows where she is right now. She’s been under the radar ever since she left the CDC, not even David could find her.”

“But you know her better than David does,” Matt remarks. “Right? Where would your mother flee to in order to get away? Where would be the one place she would go that David would never find her?”

I pause to think, considering his idea. He is right though; Mom hardly ever called David for the holidays, and she always spent more time with Felix, Octavia, and I on the rare occasion she’d visit us. She would never talk much about her job – and now I know why – but she would always go on about how she wished she could go on vacation again, though she would never specify where to.

I sigh, shaking my head. “I don’t know for sure, but I have a few ideas. Doctor Bryce said that she gave these lockets to the people she trusted the most. Doctor Bryce has one of them, and I have the one she gave to Uncle Tommy, and she has another.” I gasp, realization hitting me like a train. “Wait, if she trusted the other people she gave these lockets to, maybe they know where she is!”

“Are you sure?” Matt counters.

I glare at him. “She trusted them enough to give them pieces of the cure, and she wouldn’t be able to go into hiding without help. Someone is helping her, and Doctor Bryce said that she left with a hand-full of other people from the CDC. If we can find one of these people on the list, they might be able to point us to where Mom went.”

“And maybe we can collect their locket while we’re there,” Josh adds.

“Maybe, but we have to be careful about that,” I counter. “We know that Atlas and the Widow’s are all searching for the lockets, and they know that we’re also looking for them. If we gather all of the lockets and end up captured, then Atlas wins, and we’re in no position to beat them.”

“So what are you saying, then?” Sparrow asks. “Just ditch the lockets and look for your mom?”

“Not entirely,” I assure him. “If we can gather more of the pieces than Atlas, we can hide them for safe keeping, and mark them on the map in code, that way if someone gets ahold of the map, they can’t follow the directions to the pieces, giving us more time to get ahead.” I unfold the map and lay it out on the table. “Look, we should still head for Knoxville and see what we see, find out if this Doctor Morrison is still there. We can get the locket, hide it, and ask her if she knows where Mom is. Depending on the answer, we can look for more of the lockets on our way to wherever she points us to.”

“That’s assuming Doctor Morrison tells us the truth, and lets us take the locket,” Quentin speaks up.

We all glance over at him, confused.

“Why wouldn’t she? I’m her bosses daughter,” I ask.

“I know these people pretty well, and Doctor Morrison is one of the most paranoid people on this list,” Quentin comments. “It’s going to be a lot more work than just going up to her and asking where the most important woman in the world is hiding.”

“Well, then we convince her to trust us,” I say. “We have to try something, this is too important to waste the opportunity on.” I glance around at the others. “Is everyone okay with this?”

They exchange skeptical looks for a moment, though Dani looks confident in the plan, and everyone nods. “Let’s go pay the good doctor a visit, then.”

“Quick question,” Josh asks, looking to Dani and I, “I don’t suppose you two found a vehicle out there that works, did you?”

“We found a pick-up that needs some work, but Dani thinks you might be able to fix it up enough to get us out of here,” I reply, folding the map back up and stuffing it in my bag.

“Well, if Dani thinks I can get it working, it’s worth taking a look at,” Josh says, standing up and wincing.

“Alright, let’s pack up and I’ll take you to the truck.”

It’s a short walk to the pick-up Dani and I found, and there’s still no sign of Feral’s or Widow’s in the area. I’m not sure if I should count ourselves lucky for that, or if this is just the calm before the storm. Dani shows the truck and he pops the hood, checking out the engine.

“Well, it looks like it’ll run,” he comments, wiping his hands. “Is there a key, or are we going to have to do this the fun way?”

Sparrow, who had been snooping around in the cabin of the truck, hops out, twirling a key ring on his finger with a proud grin on his face.

“Huh, that was… Convenient?”

“I wouldn’t ask why the universe is giving us a stroke a good luck, I’d just go with it,” Sparrow says, handing Josh the key.

He hops into the cabin of the truck and turns the key. The truck sputters several times as Josh attempts to turn it over, and after the third try, it finally roars to life. We all let out whoops and hollers, and the engine promptly dies.

“Aw,” Sparrow slumps against the car, defeated.

“Well, the good news is that the battery is still functional,” Josh says.

“And the bad news?” I ask.

“It’s pretty drained. We’ll have to find another vehicle to jump it.” He wanders over to the gas cap and opens it up, grabbing a long discarded towel and twisting it, feeding it through. When he pulls it out, he sighs. “We’ll also need to get some gas, too. It’s bone dry in there.”

“Alright, so let’s split up and grab what we need,” I say.

“There might be a usable battery in one of these cars,” Josh says. “You can test them with this.” He grabs a weird device from on top of the tool box and hands it to me. “Just connect these wires to the battery and it’ll tell you if it’s live. Let me know when you find one, and we can push it over here to be jumped.” He hands an empty five gallon container of gas and a hose to Sparrow and Quentin. “See what you can cipher from the other vehicles around here. Luckily it’s not diesel, so you don’t have to worry about mixing fuels.”

With our tasks given out, Dani follows me to help find a working battery while Sparrow and Quentin wander in the opposite direction in search of fuel. Matt sticks with Josh as Josh points out the different parts of the truck, teaching him some basic mechanics.

“How long do you think it’ll take for us to get to Tennessee?” Dani asks me.

“Well, it took me about four years just to get to the CDC,” I sigh. “But this time we have a map, and a plan, and we have a better idea of what we’re working with. Hopefully a few days if we’re lucky.”

“We all know how well our luck works when we need it,” Dani grumbles.