As I watched tree after tree in silence I thought about the note I received not that long ago. Over the weekend I'd done some research and... nothing, just about everything was a dead end. All I had to go on was that note, which only confirmed that Leigh was probably not dead, and for some reason had chosen me as the person to contact. Why? I guess I'd have to wait to find out.

For now I tossed an extra spicy, "nuclear" buffalo nacho chip into my mouth as I propped my feet onto the dashboard. Grayson hated it when I propped my feet on his dashboard. He didn't say anything of course, but I could tell by the short, barely noticeable glares of death, that it bothered him. I don't even know why I got a thrill out of it, perhaps its just inherent to being a younger sibling.

"So... are the chips as spicy as promised?" He asked. We'd been on the road about two hours, which meant we were about halfway to our grandfather's in Charleston. At the last town we were in, I'd incessantly begged to stop at a continence store, firstly so I could pee, and secondly so I could get snacks. Ever since leaving that town all we've seen are trees and ancient, rundown houses, so it was fortunate that we stopped when we did.

"Eh, its not that spicy." I said. The "nuclear" part of the flavoring was undoubtedly overhyped, these weren't even as spicy as mild queso dip let alone Chernobyl. Otherwise they weren't terrible as chips go, and since my phone couldn't even get a 4G signal out here pretty much all I had to do was eat and annoy my brother. "Are we there yet?"

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Grayson gave me a look, which sadly only rated about a 3/10 on the annoyance scale. He merely turned his head and lowered his eyebrows in a manner that more suggested really, you thought that would work? rather than a you are being so annoying look. "I know you can see the GPS, we're about three hours away. So we are not THERE yet."

Resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get any entertainment out of this I merely stared at the trees passing by out the window. This continued for a solid ten minutes of silence, not even the radio worked out here. We really were in the middle of nowhere.

It was at that exact moment that fate decided to rear its ugly head. At the very worst possible time it could happen, as if predetermined by whatever god or devil to be the most hilariously ironic turn of bad luck in the history of ever... the car died.

Of all the times it could have happened, it had to be when we were literally in the middle of nowhere, no cell service, no wi-fi, miles from the nearest town, and not a single car that we'd seen for ages. This was just about the definition of "screwed."

We got out of the car to assess the damage. My brother had me get the map out of the glove compartment my feet had just been resting on minutes earlier. Nearest town was about... 50 miles away... great.

Grayson popped open the hood and attempted to figure out what went wrong. I didn't even have my license yet, let alone knew anything about the inner workings of cars, so I merely stood on the edge of the road and watched. At least it was early enough in winter that the cold wasn't too bad, and having my hoodie on helped.

Eventually my brother walked to my side, obviously defeated by whatever had gone wrong. He took the map out of my hand and looked at it for himself. "Damn. We are a long way away from anything close by." My dumbass brother said.

"I hate you." I said, even though I couldn't help but smile.

"I know." He replied, smiling back at me.