That night we slept in the jeep, parked in the lot of a run down, abandoned Walmart. Manda situated us beside a couple of abandoned cars and trucks and we bunkered down and tried to catch a few hours of sleep.

 I curled up and slept as best I could on the back seat, and Jai and Manda tilted their seats back. Neither of them seemed to have trouble with it, and Manda was out nearly instantly, her mouth wide open, snoring.

I stared at her in dismay for a few seconds before turning away to face the seat, curling my knees up to my chest with a sigh. It was going to be a long night. I was already stiff and sore from hours of driving, and Manda seemed determined to drive non-stop the rest of the way. She drove like a crazy person, and we’d only stopped twice in the last six hours. I was pretty sure the only reason we were stopped now is because she was too tired to drive through the night and didn’t want Jai to take the wheel.

Manda clearly had control issues.

I stared at the leather seat for awhile, listening to the duet going on in the front. Manda’s chain-sawing was accompanied by Jai’s deep, even breathing. Occasionally he mumbled something I couldn’t catch. I turned to look at him, careful not to make any noise. His seat was tilted back far enough for me to be able to see his face clearly, illuminated by the light of the moon that was beaming through the skylight above us. Manda had decked the skylight out with mesh as well, and the wire created a criss cross pattern over Jai’s cheeks and throat. He looked peaceful now, and I felt another stab of guilt at what I’d said earlier, about not remembering. It obviously bothered him. I resolved not to mention it again. I couldn't stand the look of guilt and sadness that crossed his face when I’d said that. I didn’t want to be the cause of it.

Questions were still crowding my thoughts though. Earlier, when we’d first met he’d mentioned something about being there when Thanatos took me, but in another form. What the heck did that mean? Did we look different in the Realm of Time? Did the rules of gravity apply there? Where did we live? If I was reborn every three hundred and sixty five years, did that mean they were immortal, or were they reborn too?

I sighed again, rolling over and squeezing my eyes shut. My brain was too full to go to sleep, but my body felt exhausted. But I would never get to sleep with Manda snoring like that. It was like an animal growling, like a dragon. I decided dragon suited her. If she was an animal, that’s what she’d be…

Yeah...a fire-breathing dragon... 

Light was glaring through my eyelids, and I shifted with an annoyed groan. I didn’t even remember falling asleep last night. Mom must have forgotten to close the curtains again…

No. I sat bolt upright, nearly smacking the side of my face on the window. In the front seat Manda started awake with a gasp. Jai groaned and swatted at her. “Calm down. It’s fine.”

I blinked furiously until the blur of sleep left my eyes and found Manda staring at me, a long, wicked looking knife in one hand.

“What’s that for?” I stammered.

“You scared the crap out of me, bursting up like that.” Manda rubbed one hand over her eyes and crouched forward to put the knife back in her boot. “I thought we were being attacked.”

“Really?” I stared at the back of her head in astonishment. “Do you seriously sleep with a hunting knife in one hand?”

“Nope, I’m just a fast draw.” Manda stuck the key in the ignition and turned to Jai. “Ready? Want anything from Walmart? Rubber hose? Kiddie pool? I hear they have just about everything.”

“I’m not interested in rubber hose, but I could sure use a coffee.” Jai yawned and mumbled, “But I’m sure the store has been totally ransacked. There’s probably nothing left.”

“Onwards it is then.”

The jeep started with a roar, and I sighed and settled my sore butt back into the seat again. By the time we got to Toronto my muscles probably will have wasted away.

As we pulled out of the parking lot Manda instructed me to open one of the boxes at my feet. “The smallest one on the left side,” she said. “It’s got some army rations in it, and some beef jerky.”

“All part of a nutritious breakfast.” Jai sighed.

“I know.” Manda stepped on the gas harder and we shot forward through a red light. “I would do horrible, unspeakable things for a Tim Horton’s coffee and a donut right now, but the stores are all rubble and the employees are mindless zombies.  So we’re out of luck.”

I discovered a packet of beef jerky on top of several bottles of water, and Manda ordered me to pull out one bottle of water to share. We each got a handful of salty, tasteless jerky.

“We’ve got to ration it out,” she said grimly. “It won’t last long. Once we get to Toronto we should be able to stock up. There might be some abandoned stores and stuff that haven’t been looted. We’ll have to be careful though. The renegades will be full force in the bigger cities.”

I swallowed a big chunk of beef jerky, grimacing. “What renegades?”

Manda’s voice was grim. “Groups of people that have formed gangs, basically. They’ll take whatever you have off of you and kill you in the process. That’s partly why I armoured the jeep like this. And I don’t stop for anyone.”

I went quiet after that, chewing the beef jerky until my jaw was sore. My stomach was upset, but I honestly wasn’t sure if it was all the talk of renegades and killing, or the jerky. Maybe both.

“Don’t worry.” Jai turned and smiled at me, and it was the same savage grin I’d seen once before. “You have us.  Manda’s an old hand at handling the renegades, if they tried anything they wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.”

Now Manda was grinning, and her smile was even more wicked. “Oh, they’ll know. I’ll make sure they know.”

It took us another six hours of driving at break-neck speeds and then we began to enter the outskirts of the city. The houses were closer together now, but still ramshackle and obviously abandoned. In the distance we could see sky scrapers towering, and there were thin columns of black smoke rising into the sky here and there. Activity. People.

Was the black smoke from the renegades? My stomach felt really sour now, and I wished the scythe was more accessible. If I craned my neck I could see it in the back, the blade resting on a couple of boxes behind me. If I really scrambled I might be able to get it. But not fast enough.

I had to be satisfied with holding the hourglass in my lap, and found myself clutching it so tightly it was a miracle that it didn’t break.

We were on a highway now, and Manda had to drive around cars that had been abandoned on the road. I stared out the window, transfixed, as we went by a wreck. A truck had plowed into a telephone pole on one side, and the front hood was crumpled, shoved up into the cab. We were driving slowly now, weaving our way in and out, and I could see the driver of the truck clearly. He lay back in his seat, head back, eyes glassy. He’d clearly been dead a few days, there were flies crawling all over his face.

I clapped one hand over my mouth, turning away.

“Don’t you be sick in my jeep, girl.” Manda said sharply, but when I glanced up at her, her expression was concerned.

Was Manda worried about me? That didn’t seem likely, so I could only guess she must be worried about something up ahead.  The idea of Manda being scared of something was actually sort of terrifying.

“See the smoke?” She said quietly to Jai. “Looks like the city is in even more chaos. We’re going to have to be careful we don’t get the vehicle jacked from us. They’ll be desperate for transportation and weapons.”

I eyed the boxes of ammo at my feet. If they were looking for weapons then we were the jack pot.

“They’ll try to take the jeep from us?” I said nervously.

“They might try.” Manda’s fingers were noticeably white on the steering wheel. “They won’t get it though.”

My grip tightened on the hourglass as we drew closer to the tall buildings, to the pillars of smoke that floated up into the blue sky. The houses were right next to one another now, the neighbourhoods were dirty and there were hardly any trees. Run down apartment buildings cluttered the streets more frequently the further we went, and stray dogs darted across the road in front of the vehicle, making Manda curse and jam on the breaks several times. She began to slow the jeep as we took a bend in the road, muttering more curses under her breath.

“What the hell is that?” she growled. “Crap, I don’t like the look of it.”

I leaned over to the middle seat, trying to spot what she was going on about. Way down the road was a number of wrecked cars and trucks clustered in one spot.

“It’s just more abandoned cars, right?” My voice went up a couple octaves and ended in a squeak, because I was pretty sure if it was just a few abandoned cars and no big deal, that Manda wouldn’t be swearing like that.

“That’s what you’re meant to think,” Manda said. “But I’m pretty sure that’s a blockade.”

“Shit,” Jai hissed. “What are you planning?”

"Maybe the hourglass..."

"Absolutely not," Jai said, his brows furrowed. "She'd have to get close for it to work, and there's no way we're risking her."

"What do you suggest then?" She glared at him.

"I thought you were the one with all the plans. You know, all the big talk about renegades and stuff."

Manda was quiet for a moment, and I thought maybe she'd stop the car or pull over. But instead of slowing down she pressed on the gas again, gaining speed.

Jai’s voice was sharp. “Manda?”

“Buckle up.”