The water silenced everything.

All of my troubles and worries all just disappeared and melted away. I was relaxed and almost okay with sinking further down the freezing cold depths. It was like forgetting who I was, what was happening to the people around me, and even worse what I let happen to Lily and Ray.

But the silence was slowly eating away inside me the more I was submerged. Suddenly I was yanked out of the water roughly by my arm. The burst of fresh air hit my lungs so hard that I couldn't stop coughing

How long was I down there for?

My eyes focused on the woman earlier and she was dragging us in strokes, pulling us beneath the bridge.

"What are you doing?" I asked in between gagging mouthfuls of water.

"Taking us under the bridge. They won't be able to find us over there."

I was too tired to fight back or say anything. My mind was so restless and I just wanted this nightmare to end.

I wanted it to be normal again, back when I was playing concerts with my band mates and eating ramen and jalapeno cheese with my little brother.

How the hell could this have happened in a matter of two days?

As we paddled across, a few people from those creepy vans climbed down to the spot we were at before and were using flashlights to check the area. One of them scanned their lights over the slippers that I left behind.

I sighed softly with heavy eyes.

"You alright? The girl whispered as she eyed me cautiously. "You're a lot quieter than before."

"Yeah...just tired." I respond back softly.

We slowed down and hid in the shadow of the bridge. The sun had gone down for the day and night had taken over, and with the giant ramp over us, it was so dark that I could barely see her despite how close she was.

"What do you think should we do? Want to get some sleep and try again in a few hours?"

"No." I said too quickly. "Not until I find Ray. Aren't you worried about your little brat?" I shook my head. "Shit, sorry I meant sister...slip of the tongue."

Her face softened at my correction. "Yeah, it's just... no offense chica, but with the condition you're in, you're proving less useful to me by the minute. You sound like you're falling asleep. Maybe you should take a break."

"I'm fine, don't worry about me."

"She says as I dragged your ass through the water." She responded, rolling her eyes.

"You didn't have to do that for me." I snapped at first but then added, "but...thank you. I'm Sasha by the way."

Even in the dark, I could sense a smile on her lips. "Camila, or Cami for short. Glad to see you're not a total bitch."

"Only to the ones who hold a gun on me or my brother." I stated, flatly.

She shrugged. "Just protecting me and the misses. She's a damn handful at this age with all the shit going on but I'm doing what I can to keep her safe."

We were quiet for a moment before I asked softly, "With her taken like this, how do you feel now?"

She hung her head slightly. "To be honest, not so good but, I have faith in the Lord that he would keep her safe and that's what keeps me going. I'm the only person she can depend on right now until we find our way out of this mess."

"So you believe in him huh...?" I trailed off.

"And what, you don't?" She asked surprised.

"It's not that, it's just...I haven't really seen any evidence of one."

"Wow. What about all the life around us? What about the fact that you're still alive and breathing now out of so many who ARE dead?"

I held back my tongue. I wasn't in the mood to debate something like this, especially here and now.

"Shit! Duck down!"

Out of the corner of my eye, white lights trailed over our direction and I held my breath before ducking underwater as fast as I could. The lights danced across the water, brightening up over my spot for a moment before leading away and leaving me in darkness. I waited a few seconds before swimming back up for air.

I brushed the wet strands of hair out of my face before swimming to Camila.

"Do you think they're gone?"

"Maybe, just stay low for now."

We waited under the bridge for another 10 minutes before the group of people finally went back up to the top, closed the doors to their vans, and took off into the night.

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"Let's go."

I clung onto her shoulder as she swam across and after a few minutes she let out a frustrated cry.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just...how the hell ARE we going to find them?"

"My truck is parked on the other side of the bridge." I told her. "That's how we got into this whole mess in the first place. We were trying to find a way to lower it back down and get home."

She stayed silent.

"What's up?" I asked, raising a brow.

"I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's so damn loca. I've taken this route all the time to get to work. The one time I decided to sleep in and suddenly all shit went loose. I don't understand, why did they raise the bridge now? As far as I'm concerned the bridge hasn't been up in years. So why now?"

"I don't know, we only ended up here to take our friend back home."

When we finally made it to shore Camila asked, "So, where are they now?"

My heart sped up.

I didn't want to admit that we basically abandoned Lily.

"Oh, we ended up going our separate ways before this happened." I lied.

"Well I hope they're okay" She nodded sincerely while ringing out her brunette hair. When she was done, she did a silent prayer across her chest.

"Yeah..me too." I agreed.

"So what's the plan then?" She asked with her hands on her hips. "You want to stay here while I go up and lower the bridge?"

I raised my hands up. "Whoa I don't trust you THAT much to get my truck alone." I admitted. "Also, if one of us ran into trouble, we would be SOL."

She looked at me with a blank stare. "Excuse me? What's Sooul?"

"SOL? Oh something my dad used to say. Means shit outta luck."

She gave me a grim smile. "So how are we getting your bony ass up that cliff then?"

I had one idea but I doubt if she was gonna like it.

******************************************************************************

"okay, one-two-three go."

We both grunted as we shared one foot, mine balanced slightly over hers just for the boost. We gripped onto each other's shoulders with one hand and climbed up the hill with the other.

It hurt my pride to rely on others, especially a complete stranger but it's been too long since Ray was taken and I wanted to find him as fast as possible.

At least the pain in my foot wasn't so bad and this is still better than staying down at the bottom alone, in the dark, for who knows how long.

"Geez, good thing you're a skinny ass chica or this would have been impossible." Camila complained through huffs. "I've been picking up Sofia so many times that I'm starting to think you weigh less than her."

We paused for a breather until we finally reached the top. I couldn't believe we managed to make it up here. Yeah my left foot hurt like hell but we were one step closer to rescuing Ray.

As we trotted over to the small office that was connected to the toll booth, I noticed a familiar dark spray painted marking on the wall.

It was an odd looking spray. A painted logo of what looked like an angry black bull inside of a faded red dark circle with steam coming out from its nose.

"Weird." Cami said aloud.

"Yeah I think my brother mentioned that there was something like this on the other side of the bridge too."

Camila went up to the door and jiggled the handle. She let out a gasp.

"It's actually unlocked!" She shouted excitedly and carefully slipped inside the dark room. I stayed watch outside and slouched against the cool concrete wall, shifting from one foot from time to time.

I was freezing badly from my soaked clothes and I covered my arms and rubbed them for warmth. I could really use a cigarette about now to really warm me up.

"See anything that could lower it?" I called out to Camila.

"No, looks like the power's out in here too. Oh shit wait! One sec."

"What is it?"

"I said one sec." She snapped with a slight attitude.

Geez alright then.

A few moments later, I jumped when a light flickered on above me and a loud engine erupted from inside the room she was in.

"What the hell?"

One by one all the lights on the bridge turned on with a loud click and lit up the path all the way across to the now lowering ramp.

"Nice! How'd you even do that?"

Her face appeared out of the room as she exited with her phone. She turned off the flashlight and looked at me with a glimmer in her eye. "There was some kind of generator in there with a note on it on how to turn it on and everything. Pretty convenient right?"

A little too convenient if you ask me. "What exactly did the note say?"

She shrugged. "It told me how to plug it in and which buttons to push. Had that weird symbol that looks like the one out here at the bottom of the page though, like a sigil. Never seen it before though."

"Neither have I."

The long wide ramp lowered down completely giving us a clear path to the other side of the city. When it stopped, it made a loud, rickety and almost obnoxious sound to the point that I had to cover up my ears to the deafening scrape of concrete. I really hope that doesn't draw any more attention to us. I haven't spotted any of those Biters since we got here but it was way too dark to see to be sure.

Once it finally stopped, we walked across the brightly lit road. About halfway across, I had to stop for a moment.

This was bad.

"What's wrong mija?"

I was getting all kinds of dirt, bacteria and God knows what from literally every step I took and the amount of rocks digging into the skin of my feet was beyond painful.

"I need to stop for a second." I reached into my pocket and brought out a soaked lanyard with my keys on it. "Here. My truck is parked at the start of the bridge. Bright red beat up Chevy, you can't miss it."

She stared at me for a minute before taking them. "You want me to drive it...?"

I nodded and stood on one foot against the side railing of the bridge. I reached down and ripped the ends of my pj pants exposing both of my ghostly white knees.

Damn I really needed to get a tan sometime.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Camila asked and I have to admit, it was hard not to laugh at the expression she was giving me.

"I'm going to try and patch my foot up. Too much rubble is digging into my feet."

"Ah, I see." She said, still watching me with skeptical interest as I did the same to the other pant leg. "Okay I'll go get the car then. Be safe."

"I should be the one telling you that. It still looks like it's super dark over there. Just, hurry up and try not to get caught."

She smiled and nodded. "Of course. Ahora vengo"

I raised a brow as she jogged off, assuming that meant something about bringing the car over.

I wrapped the fabric over the cut in a bow knot tight enough to stop the blood flow. I should be good to go for now. At least until I can find a doctor. Though, it was pretty ironic that we narrowly escaped the one place that had all the shit I needed to fix this.

A ping of annoyance struck me as Camila came rolling up with a cocky grin, with her arm casually hanging out of the window.

Just until we get Ray, I told myself. Then I will be able to get Lanora back.

"You better not get my seat soaking wet." I complained and hopped on one foot to the passenger side before getting in and closed the door behind me.

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