The armored vehicle growled across the cracked plain, headlights cutting pale tunnels through the darkness. Sinn claid the front passenger seat. rcury gripped the wheel, shoulders tight, eyes bloodshot. Harmione squeezed into the middle front, her body pressed against both of them, one arm draped awkwardly over the seat back.
In the rear, we packed in tight but not crushed. Code claid the far left, already sealed off, head against the window, long hair curtaining half his face. May sat beside him, posture still sohow precise even in exhaustion. Sherry slotted between May and , her warm thigh pressed firmly against mine. I took the right end, window glass cool against my shoulder.
The map glowed soft green on the dashboard. The plain stretched endless ahead, flat, black, indifferent. Behind us, the boot held the specin, those bright blue eyes still burning behind my own eyelids.
I was still replaying the way she’d blinked, deliberate and urgent, when the car lurched violently.
rcury overcorrected hard. Tires screeched across loose gravel, the whole vehicle sliding sideways in a sickening drift. Dust billowed past the windows in swirling clouds. She yanked the wheel back, knuckles white, and slamd on the brakes. The car jolted to a dead stop in the middle of the plain. Everyone snapped awake at once, bodies tensing, hands grabbing for stability.
rcury started laughing. Low at first, then louder, shoulders shaking as she leaned forward over the wheel. "I was asleep," she gasped. "Actually fucking asleep."
She restarted the engine, the growl cutting through her laughter.
"Rest," I said from the back, voice rough. "We need to stop and rest."
"No ti," Sinn answered imdiately.
"General." I kept my tone flat. "We just pulled two high-level infected out of a fallen city with no backup and half a team. One night doesn’t break the mission. Driving half-dead across the plain does."
Sinn exhaled through his nose, then popped his door open. Cold night air rushed in. "I’ll drive. rcury, switch."
They swapped seats without another word, rcury sliding over the console, Sinn dropping behind the wheel. The door slamd. The vehicle lurched forward again, tires spitting dirt as Sinn guided it back onto the faint road. The map kept glowing. The plain swallowed us once more.
One by one, exhaustion claid them.
Code went first, head lolling against the window, breath slowing into deep, even rhythm. Sherry followed, her body softening as her head found my shoulder with the familiar weight of old habit. May leaned back, eyes already closed, too drained to calculate anything anymore. Harmione’s head dropped forward in the front seat, red hair spilling across her face.
rcury folded her legs up beneath her in the passenger seat and twisted around to look into the back. Moonlight caught the sharp line of her jaw.
"May," she said quietly into the heavy silence.
"Mmm," May answered without opening her eyes.
"Have you ever had your pussy hanging in the sun?" rcury asked, voice low and raw. "Legs tied wide, nothing underneath, plain sun burning everything?"
A long pause stretched through the car.
"That rarely happens," May murmured, voice thick with the edge of sleep.
"It actually does," rcury said, almost smiling. "Happened to today."
I closed my eyes before she finished the sentence, letting the vibration of the tires and the endless black plain carry us forward. The weight of Sherry against my shoulder, the low rumble of the engine, and the mory of blue eyes blinking in the dark all blurred together as the walls waited sowhere far ahead.
****
Voices reached before my eyes did. Multiple voices, speaking in clipped, rough tones just outside the armored shell.
Consciousness returned in pieces. First the crushing weight across my body. Then the dry heat of morning sun blasting through the armored windows, pressing against my eyelids like it wanted to cook where I sat. Sweat had already glued my shirt to my back.
I opened my eyes.
Sherry had claid most of during the night. Her head rested heavy in the crook of my neck, warm breath pulsing against my throat in slow, sleepy waves. Her breasts pressed soft and full against my chest, one arm wrapped tight around my ribs, the other draped across my stomach. A leg lay thrown over mine, thigh hooked possessively between my knees.
May’s leg had crossed over from the other side, calf resting across my thighs, her skirt bunched high enough that bare skin touched bare skin. At so point in the dark hours the back seat had turned into a tangled pile of bodies without discussion or permission.
When the hell did this happen.
I turned my head slightly. Front seat: Harmione was out cold in the passenger position, red hair spilled wildly across her face and shoulders like fire frozen mid-burn.
Sinn’s forehead rested on the steering wheel, mouth slightly open, explaining why the car had stopped.
rcury had folded herself completely across Harmione’s lap, legs tucked up, face buried against Harmione’s stomach like she’d simply fallen there and surrendered.
Code sat at the far end, arms folded, eyes closed, sohow still looking ready to cut sothing even in sleep. May was twisted into an impossible angle against the seat, completely gone.
I had told Sinn we needed to rest. He had driven anyway. And now here we were.
Then the voices outside sharpened. Multiple. Close. And underneath them, a deep, rhythmic creaking, like massive cables under strain.
The car was not on the ground.
I looked out the side window. The plain dropped away beneath us in terrifying clarity. Cracked earth and sparse scrub thirty feet below and getting further with every second.
The armored vehicle swayed gently, suspended in the air, its full weight, seven people plus the specin in the boot, being carried like a child’s toy.
Sothing enormous had us. I snapped my head toward Sinn, still snoring softly against the wheel.
The ground kept falling away. Wind whispered against the undercarriage. The voices outside grew louder.
Wake up.
My heart slamd against my ribs. Sherry’s breath was warm on my neck. May’s leg was heavy across mine. I tensed every muscle, trying to shift without startling them.
Everyone needs to wake up right now.
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