The five of them sat around the dining room table, the air very sombre as Marissa informed them of what had passed. She laid out all the information and was discussing the options everyone had when Daniel dropped a bombshell of information.

"I can get us to the Citadel." Everyone exploded. Demands of how, when, why.. Everything under the sun was thrown at him. He just shook his head and pulled a map out of his pocket.

"I found this on one of soldiers on the battlefield. That's where I went when I left you guys. I wanted to see if I could find anything of use. I pulled this out of a guy's pocket and it's got different sections circled in different colours- I think that yellow one is for the Citadel." He laid the map out on the table and pointed to a circle on the other side of the continent. Marissa clenched her teeth as she looked between the map and Daniel.

"And you didn't think to tell us about this map earlier?" Daniel gave her a look.

"When did you want me to tell you? When we were running or when you were unconscious? Because I don't see either of those being very effective." Marissa scowled. Jax rubbed his face with his hands and looked down at the map.

"Okay so now we know where to go." He said, rubbing his fingers together now. Marissa looked down at the map and noted the distance. They were so, so far away. "And we have a car."

"Yeah, about the car. It's not going to die on us, is it? If we get in it, it's not going to run out of gas?" Jax paused his hand rubbing and seemed to be counting, mouthing something as he moved his head.

"I mean... It should get us some of the way there?" Lincoln narrowed his eyes.

"And how far is some?" Jax gave him a look.

"As far as it needs to, granted you don't destroy it." Lincoln started to react to that but Marissa put a hand on his arm and cocked an eyebrow. He looked at her and shut his mouth but glared at Jax. "It's not like we have any equipment anymore- it's just us. And I mean, five of us is a lot but I think this baby can take it." There was a mischievous look in his eye that made Marissa question the sanity of his thinking. And the safety of either one of the boys that Jax held some disdain for.

"Okay..." Marissa said slowly as she looked back down at the map. She frowned and pointed the multitude of smaller circles that were on the map, a lot of them within the distance they had to go. "What are these?" Daniel shrugged.

"I don't know. They could be areas the soldiers have been as they've made their way through. They could be hot-spot areas for something or maybe they are places they avoided? The options are endless." He shrugged. Marissa nodded.

"Okay them so we avoid these areas because we don't know what they mean." It sounded stupid, even as she said it. The circles were close together and all over the place, it wouldn't be surprising if when they tried to slip between two circled zones and ended up dealing with whatever they meant.

"Look, the circles are different colours so maybe they mean different things." Ellie Rae pointed out. And she was right. There were blue, white, black, and grey circles over the area.

"So one colour could resemble a safe zone while another could mean danger? Isn't danger usually red?" Jax asked. They all looked at the map for a moment.

"Well, there's no use staring at it. Maps don't talk, we'll just have to find that out for ourselves. Marissa pushed her chair back and got to her feet. "This is ya'll's last chance to back out of this. If you don't want to do this, there will be no judgement." Jax stood up, scoffing. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her, grinning.

"Ain't no way I'm backing away from this. I'm ready to kick some Horsemen ass." Marissa nodded at him, eyes crinkling as she smiled. Ellie Rae stood next.

"I'm not going home." There was an edge of defiance in her voice. Lincoln and Daniel both stood to their feet as well. Lincoln looked down at Marissa and smiled.

"As long as you guys are going, I'll be there too."

"Not going to run off and leave us to die?" Jax piped up. Lincoln slowly turned his head towards him, giving him a look.

"Not this time." Jax appraised him before nodding his head. Lincoln looked back at Marissa. "As long as you don't shoot me." Marissa rolled her eyes at him and made a tsking noise.

"Don't sneak up on me then."

"Deal." They looked at Daniel who had been watching the exchange quietly.

"You can go home, man. I'm sure Tavvy would be happy to have you back." Jax clapped Daniel on the back. Daniel cleared his throat.

"Yeah, this seems much more worthwhile." He eyed Jax. Jax's expression strained a tad but he managed to hold back whatever he wanted to say.

"Well then. Guess you're in the club. Now can we go see my car?" And just like that, the five had agreed to travel together. Marissa watched the back of Daniel's head as they followed a very excited Jax out the motel room, the latter practically bouncing off the walls out of pure excitement. Hadn't he said that his job was to just get the away from the gang, return back and report they were gone? So why was he staying?

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Lincoln murmured as they walked outside, following Jax as he took them towards the front of the motel.

"I... Don't worry about it." She shook her head and sped up, trying to keep up with Jax. Lincoln frowned as she disappeared around the corner. Ellie Rae came up beside him.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know. Marissa was thinking extremely hard about something and I think it's to do with Daniel." Ellie Rae tilted her head.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. She tends to overthink things when something unexpected happens." Lincoln looked back at her.

"This whole thing has been unexpected and yet, I haven't seen her struggle with it as much as I did just now." Ellie Rae looked over to where Marissa was as they rounded the corner.

"That's because you have to be exceptionally well versed in thew ways of Mar to know when she's struggling." Ellie Rae gave him a thin-lipped smile before they came to a stop by the car Jax had found and made his own.

Marissa was looking mildly concerned at the sheet covered car.

"When did you have time to cover this?" Daniel asked. Jax shushed him, waving a hand at him.

"A magician never reveals his secrets." Marissa looked past the car and bit her lip. Whatever he was about to show them, she was sure it was not going to be pretty.

But man was she wrong.

"BEHOLD... My pride and joy... THE NIGHTMARE" Jax exclaimed, ripping the sheet off to reveal his newfound love. A now blood orange, heavily modified '66 'Stang.

"Get it? Cause it's a Mustang which is also a horse, Mare which is an adult female horse, Nightmare... whatever." Jax danced giddily on the spot. " My baby here has been equipped with one focus in mind, getting us wherever we need to go... as fast as we possibly need. But before we get into the speed let's look at what she has that'll stop us from having to slow down." Jax opened the door and plopped himself in the driver's seat "Maybe just stand to the side for a second." He motioned for the group to stand back. No one but Ellie Rae moved and he gave her an appreciative smile before shaking his head at the rest of them. " Your funeral. SO! Our first upgrade that I discovered on the beauty comes in the form of this. " They watched Jax press a button, causing a large device to extend out from under the front of the car that then unfolds to become a metal snowplough. Marissa, Lincoln, and Daniel all jumped back as the thing came out, narrowly missing their legs. Jax grinned. "I'm not sure what new weird things we'll face but I can be damn sure that this thing will run it through. Also, I want to kiss whoever made this thing. If they were still alive. I'm pretty sure I found his skeleton when I walked into the workshop." Jax frowned. Daniel cocked an eyebrow.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, for Riley's sake." Jax just speared him with a look and went back to pressing buttons. The plough retracted back into car and he pressed another button, revealing two one and a half meter blades to extend out on either side of the plough device. "The Nightmare also has fangs for stabbing cause apparently we like that in this team." Jax retracted the blades before pressing a few more buttons which cause the car to lift itself higher giving the tires enough room to expand, becoming near truck size. "AND SHE GOES OFF ROAD!" He sounded like a showman, showing off the newest toy in the store. Marissa looked at Ellie Rae and Lincoln, their faces mirroring her own. Jax had officially lost the plot. And he hadn't even built this damn thing.

"How much time did you spend with this car before attaching a flagpole to it?" Marissa asked. Jax looked back at her, face bright as he considered how to answer her question.

"Do you want the truth or the truth you want to hear?" Marissa shook her head and waved for him to continue. He grinned.

He pressed a few more buttons again and the car dropped down to its normal height. Jax excitedly stepped out, leaning against the car with a proud look on his face.

"On the subject of tires, anyone got a gun?" They all looked at Daniel who shrugged.

"I threw my gun at the creatures when I had no bullets left." He looked at Marissa.

"I did the same thing." She looked back at Jax. "Sorry man, no guns." Jax deflated a little but that didn't stop him.

"That's okay, I tried to stab the tire earlier only to discover that the tires have a bullet proof, stab proof lining. How cool is that!?" Jax was grinning like a maniac and said it a little over enthusiastically. "Moving on! This baby has a T-Top Roof which basically means we can remove these acrylic panels on top if it gets hot. Fun fact, that thick acrylic is what was once used on shark tanks, tough stuff, bloody brilliant. I am a tad annoyed- bloody horseman got his arrow stuck in it." Jax sniffed, a little unimpressed. Marissa's brain was starting to overload.

She was not built to understand car geek.

Jax opened the front door again to reveal three-gun barrels protruding slightly from the exposed ends. "These, my good friends... and Lincoln," Lincoln scowled. "Are door guns. As you can see. the trigger is here on the inner panel and it fires about 600 rounds per minute... from each barrel... on both doors... doing the math that'd be... 3,600 little metal balls fired every minute." Jax slammed the door shut and moved to the back seats, opening the door to reveal the back seats.

"It looks as though the gentleman- or gentle-lady, I couldn't tell from the skeleton- was very much like me in wanting to provide maximum backseat security and entertainment for passengers of all ages." Jax reached into the back seat and pressed a button on the roof, revealing two mini-guns. "This reminds me so much of The Duke." He put a hand to his heart as he thought of his previous car. "May she rest in peace."

"More like pieces. If there's anything even left of her." Marissa elbowed Lincoln hard in the side, causing him to wince. Jax paid no attention to him, clearly enamoured with his beloved Nightmare.

"Y'all back seaters will have the pleasure of controlling these babies, which I have named 'Misery' and 'Torment' respectively." Jax then rattled off a couple more items he had discovered during his inspections of the car. These included and were not limited to an oil slick machine, super-bright high beam lights and..

Marissa zoned out. It was only when Lincoln pinched the back of her arm that she zoned back in to hear Jax say,

"... Armor on the inside of the body panels! So the car isn't a depressing reminder of the world we live in that requires us to be protected at all times! WOO!" Marissa looked at Ellie Rae and Daniel.

"Have ya'll had to listen to this before?" Daniel shrugged.

"I think he was saying something about this while we were driving for our lives into one of the creatures?"

"Yeah, and then Pestilence turned up."

"Excuse me, no talking while I'm telling you about this baby." Jax interrupted. They looked back at him to see that he was standing at the front of the car, hood up and was pointing to the engine.

"Sorry." They all muttered and turned their attention fully to him. He nodded and started talking again.

"Now for the nitty-gritty, this baby appears to run on a 427ci twin-turbo fuel injected V8, everything completely forged from the pistons to the block itself..." The blank expressions on everyone's faces suggested that he had lost them. He sighed. "Forged means that every piece of the engine was cut from a block of metal instead of being made in a mould so that it comes out stronger and we can drive faster without it blowing up, make sense?"

"We know what forge means." Marissa pursed her lips together.

"But thank you for the explanation." Ellie Rae added, seeing that Jax was unimpressed with Marissa's comment. He looked over at her and smiled sightly before turning back to the car.

"RIGHT, so this engine plus the new headers, cams and intake... As well as what looks to be new 'engine parts and add-ons'... pushes out just under 820 Horsepower giving us a top speed of 294 Miles Per Hour... it's really fast. Well it should be. I need open road to test it on. " Marissa rubbed her head as he talked.

"The chassis is a Chromemoly steel tube chassis with a carbon fibre body... So that means that the skeleton of the car is very strong and the body is lighter to counter the weight of the armour."

"Is he almost done?" Daniel muttered. Jax looked up at him.

"Almost. The Nightmare has front coil overs and a four-link rear suspension... which means when we drive fast over bad surfaces the car won't break." The group noted the condescending tone that had crept into his voice. Marissa crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh fantastic, that's exactly what we need."

"You know, Mar, you absolutely right. It is what we need. Now, to bring this all to a close, my girl here has a seven-speed manual transmission, which basically means if you can't drive stick," He glared at Lincoln. "Then don't touch my car." Lincoln didn't say anything, electing to look at his shoes instead of at Jax. Marissa looked at the car, then back at Jax.

"Right." Her brain felt like someone had just poured a ton of information into it that she may never need but it was there regardless of whether she wanted it or not. Jax looked quite proud of himself for finding such a car. Clearly someone had pulled out all the stops with living in this hell hole and this car.. This car might just keep them safe a little longer. "When do we leave?"