“Best I’ve got right now,” she said without apology.
We drove.
The construction detour appeared without warning: asphalt ripped open to the gravel beneath, heavy machinery abandoned mid-operation. A roller lay canted across the shoulder, and cones scattered in patterns that had ceased to mean anything.
I stopped the Suburban and stared for a long
moment. “Not happening,” I stated.
“Left turn up ahead,” Libby said immediately, already scanning, already problem-solving. “There’s another road—it should loop us back around and connect.”
I looked at her. She met my gaze steadily.
“Alright,” I conceded. “We’ll try it.”
The road we found was so narrow that branches brushed both sides of the vehicle in places. It was a service road, a farm access road, or simply a road that existed without particular intention. The asphalt gave way to packed gravel within the first quarter mile, and trees pressed in close from both sides.
“I keep waiting for something to jump out at us,” Lily whispered, almost to herself.
“Don’t,” Fiona snapped, sharp and immediate.
I kept my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel, saying nothing. Lily wasn’t wrong, and acknowledging it wouldn’t help anyone.
Ahead, the trees opened up, and the bridge appeared.
It was an old steel-frame construction, built for function rather than aesthetics. Girders ran along both sides in a lattice that caught the light, throwing it back in fragments. It wasnarrow—one lane, maybe wide enough for two vehicles moving slowly and carefully. A single way on. A single way off.
And empty.
Completely, perfectly, absolutely empty.
My thumbs pressed hard into the wheel’s worn grooves, a reflex I noticed only after the fact.
“Yeah,” I said, low and quiet. “I don’t like this.”
“Then we find another—” Libby began.
“There isn’t time. The longer we’re out here, the more we risk it. If we move now, we can be on a boat before nightfall,” I cut her off, the flatness in my voice conveying everything the words didn’t. We’d been backtracking and rerouting for the past hour. The fuel we’d just siphoned wasn’t infinite. Night wouldn’t hold off forever.
Empty wasn’t safe. Empty was unknown. But the unknown had to be weighed against the certainty of running out of gas or being stranded when darkness fell.
“Stay low,” I instructed the backseat. “Both of you.”
I rolled us onto the bridge at low speed. The sound changed immediately—tires meeting steel grating instead of asphalt, the engine’s hum bouncing off the frame, altered, louder, more exposed, advertising our presence to anything within a quarter mile. Every yard forward felt like a commitment I couldn’t walk back from.
Halfway across—
They stepped out.
Three figures. Forward position. Spaced across the lane with the practiced precision of people who had done this before and knew exactly how far apart to stand. Masks covered their faces. Rifles were up and level.
I stopped. The Suburban screeched to a halt so abruptly I heard Lily catch herself against the seat in front of her.
I dropped it into reverse—
And they were already behind us. Same number. Same positioning. Same weapons. Blocking the exit with the same deliberate, unhurried confidence as the group ahead.
“Fuck.” The word came out quiet and controlled.
