The distance between places shrank like they had never been there in the first place.
They drove through regions that had nearly killed them the first time around, and nothing rose to meet them now. Not a single ambush. Not a single lab, or military, or drug lord, or general. Just the road, the sky, and five people who had finally found the time to breath.
Whatever had been standing in their way before was either no longer interested in dealing with them or no longer breathing.
Either way worked for Sera.
The truck made it exactly forty-seven feet past the edge of the old highway before a new reality seemed to slap them in the face.
Ashkar eased it forward carefully at first, the tires crunching over broken asphalt and creeping vines that had swallowed the road in long, thick green ropes.
The air around them was already wrong…too warm, too wet…and the smell of earth pressed in through the open windows causing Sera to wrinkle her nose.
