Around the same time, a group of shady-looking and very tired men scrambled out of a cheap motel by the highway, glaring murder at anything and everything including the sun. Especially the sun. It wasn't nearly as bright as it would be at home at this time of the year, but to a group of sleep-deprived and cranky men who had just been served terrible coffee at breakfast, it might as well be hellfire.

"Can't believe we had to pay for that," Angelo muttered around a yawn, stumbling into the passenger seat of the car again. "Didn't I glare at that woman enough? That's always worked before."

"People here are a different breed, signore," the kid remarked in the backseat. "They have to deal with wild animals and bizarre travelers on a daily basis, so they're not scared of people like us."

Angelo glanced over his shoulder. "Definitely not of you," he remarked, studying the boy's face up and down. "Hard times we've fallen on," he continued, adjusting himself in the seat and fastening the seat belt. "Back in my day you could walk into any location wearing matching suits and sunglasses and people would give you whatever you wanted."

"Like enough beds," Luca said around a yawn.

"For free," said Angelo. "Even if there hadn't been enough beds, they would've kicked some guests out to make room for us."

Luca nodded and rubbed his back. There had been exactly two queen-sized beds available at the motel, technically big enough for their entire group of five to sleep in with some squeezing and shuffling; but no one had volunteered to share a bed with Angelo, and no one had even dared to mention the idea to the boss in the first place, leaving him alone in one bed and the entire rest of the party in the other. Not that it had helped him sleep any better; the bed he'd had for himself had been the one with the bad mattress that slouched horribly in the middle.

"Where to now?" Pietro asked, taking the driver's seat again. "Do we have a destination?"

Abruptly reality caught up with Angelo again. He groaned. "Further towards Los Angeles," he said, simply because he didn't have any better ideas and he had to say something. "How long before they arrive there?"

"I can't say," the kid replied, but he was already on his phone, calculating. "Do we have any men on the car rental in L.A.? They're bound to drop off the car there eventually, right?"

Everyone—including Pietro at the wheel—turned around to stare at him.

"…Not?" said the boy. "Sorry, I just thought—"

"Hey, boy," Angelo remarked, lowering his phone. "Is this your first time on a job like this?"

He sat straight in his seat. "Uh, yes," he said. "Sorry, signore. I was just suggesting—"

"You're hired on all future jobs," Angelo interrupted him. "Yes, we have men in L.A. Why didn't any of us think of that?"

The boy stared.

"You—you didn't think of catching them at the car rental?" he said incredulously. "Not a single one of you?"

The adults exchanged a look, all of them feeling like a group of well-seasoned, peer-reviewed scientists who had suddenly found themselves upstaged by some kid fresh out of college who didn't even have a PhD. All four, however briefly, caught themselves wondering if they might not be getting too old and stupid for this job.

"I'm too old to think well on no sleep and bad coffee," Luca muttered, stifling a yawn. "You need a young mind to pull that off."

The others didn't say anything, but they all silently agreed that, yes, that was indeed the reason. Not that it explained why none of them had thought of it yesterday, but someone could surely come up with an excuse for that bit if the kid tried to ask.

"Yes, of course," Angelo muttered, picking his phone back up. "Let's give them a call. But if possible, I still think we could catch them before then." He tapped through his contacts. "We don't want to risk them finding the suitcase and calling the cops."

And after that, he thought, back to the kittens.

~ ~ ~

The world kept moving again.

Neo was driving again, defending his spot behind the steering wheel against all of Zeke's nagging and pestering. He was still going at a speed that should frankly be illegal, except it was illegal already, not that Neo cared. That was just the sort of thing people said when they meant that something shouldn't exist: should be illegal. Like it being illegal had ever stopped anyone from doing a cool thing.

Well, that wasn't fully true. Neo was still going fast, but he wasn't going as fast as before, and he was keeping an eye out for police cars as he went. Breaking all traffic laws known to mankind was one thing, but doing it in front of the cops when your car was hiding a suitcase full of what might just be mob money was another thing entirely. Neo was reckless, but he wasn't a maniac.

The landscape drifted by. Plains, plains, plains…ugh. For how long could a goddamn road go past endless identical plains without the drivers losing their minds? And without any landmarks or signs of life either. Just plains, the endless road, and other cars. The occasional rest stop. What the hell did America have to be so big for? It was enough to put a grown man to sleep.

Beside him, Zeke was drifting in and out of a doze, idly watching the world roll by. Every so often he remarked on a few cows by the roadside, or the occasional horses, or a car with a funny license plate. After a while he roused from his daze and plugged his phone, now fully charged, back into the aux.

"Don't start playing shit now," Neo warned him without much bite.

"Who do you think I am?" Zeke retorted. "I would never. I'm just putting on Avril—that's fine, right?"

Neo made a face.

"Come on! She's a legend," said Zeke. "Like you didn't have a crush on her growing up!"

Neo's face went through the entire spectrum of human emotion in less than a second. "Did you?" he replied.

"Well, duh. Everybody did!" Zeke hit the play button. "Are you saying you didn't?"

Neo took a sharp curve around an overlong truck. "No," he said, which was actually true for a change. "She was never my type."

"Oh, look at me. I'm Neo, I'm so cool and special even Avril isn't good enough for me," Zeke replied with a roll of his eyes. "Then who was good enough for you? Miss Universe or something?"

Entirely too many faces flashed through Neo's mind, too many musicians he had looked up to in his youth, and like hell he was going to admit that a good chunk of them had been men. "Not your business."

"Suspicious."

"Suspicious how?"

"You're not telling me something." Zeke studied his face with entirely too much glee. "I bet you were busy liking someone really embarrassing, huh? Like your English teacher who was young and kind of pretty in a nerdy way, but she also had a husband and you were, like, twelve."

Neo snorted. "That sounds really specific," he said. "Is that what happened to you?"

Zeke was silent for just a moment too long before he answered, "…No."

"The little boy likes older women," Neo continued to needle him, speeding up once more. "Sounds like mommy issues."

"You have mommy issues."

"Mature."

"You started it."

Neo opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment a familiar riff started playing, and he forgot what he had been about to say.

"Hey!" Zeke burst out, rudely interrupting the flow of the song a moment later. "Why are you jamming out? You said you didn't like Avril!"

"I never said that!" said Neo. "And this song is great. Deal with it."

"I'm not disagreeing," Zeke answered. "I'm just surprised!"

"What's so surprising? It's fun to play!"

Zeke sighed. "I know, right," he said. "I could play it right here and now! But my stupid guitar's on the stupid tour bus!"

Neo grimaced. "Mine too," he replied. "The moment we get to L.A., we cover it!"

"It's on! And I bet I'll be better than you!"

The chorus came on. Both guitarists sang along at the top of their lungs, ignoring, for the moment, the fact that they weren't the band's vocalists for a very good reason. And just for a moment, they really weren't part of any band at all. They were a pair of teenage girls back in 2004, brandishing their SingStar microphones with their friends and belting out off-tune lyrics about skater boys.

The song ended, and just for a split second, Zeke and Neo exchanged a glance and they were strangers again. There were no years of animosity between them, no complicated history; they were just two idiots who had walked into the wrong karaoke bar and bonded spontaneously over the nostalgic childhood song neither of them actually knew how to sing. Neo smiled. Zeke smiled back, and without any good reason they both burst out laughing.

"You know what," Zeke remarked, placing a casual hand on Neo's shoulder, "your singing's kinda shit."

Going very still under his touch, Neo scoffed and smirked back. "Yours too."

"We're on a road trip. It's no fun if you don't sing badly," Zeke retorted, picking the phone back up. "Maybe we can do one more?"

Neo's brain still had to be fried from the stressful night and all the driving, because otherwise there was no logical reason why he said, "Bring it on."

Zeke's grin widened, and—okay, maybe that was the reason why Neo had agreed all along. "But I choose the songs," he said.

"Whatever," Neo retorted. "I'll still be better than you."

"Bet you won't!"

"Bet I will!"

And just like that, from one moment to the next, the drive was no longer boring.

Sure, they'd still have to find the rest of the way and figure out what the damn hell to do about the suitcase under the backseat. But that could wait.

Right now, they were having a road trip, and they were going to enjoy the living hell out of it.