Cassie drove off. Derek was navigating with the map, guiding her to the nearest ruins, which appeared to be at least seven miles from their location.
"We still got six miles to go." Derek said. "I am just letting you know ahead a time."
Cassie smiled. "Thank you D-Man!" She said nonchalantly.
Just as she continued to drive up a dirt road, a large pickup truck painted white suddenly materialized beside them. "What the hell?" She mutters.
Derek gazed at the driver, his face was obscured by the tinted windows. All of a sudden, the large pickup truck rammed into the jeep, knocking Cassie off her course. She jerks the wheel to the left to try and get back on the course but the pickup truck was trying to run her off the road. "Who in the frickin world is our guest?"
All of a sudden, in the rearview mirror, there was another pickup truck, but was painted black. The black pickup rammed into the back of the jeep, knocking off the spare tire. "Man, these guys are crazy!" Cassie shouts at the top of her lungs. "We gotta lose them!"
Derek stares at her in disbelief. "You are the one driving! You gotta shake them off!"
"Thank you curly fry." Cassie said and she was referring to his curly brown hair.
The black pickup truck rams the jeep again, but Cassie was prepared this time. She jerks the wheel to the right and barely dodges a tree, but the two pickup trucks were still in hot pursuit.
"That's it, we gotta take these guys out." She says to herself before talking to Derek. "Show them who's boss."
"Sure thing." Derek grabs the AK-47 from between his legs and checks the magazine. "Lock and load."
He sits up and aims the gun at the window film of the white pickup truck. He squeezes the trigger. Bullets go flying right into the windshield and blood painted it. The blood however, was not from the driver's side, but from the passenger's side.
Derek squeezes the trigger once more and this time, blood splattered all over the window from the driver's side. The white pickup truck veered off the road and went crashing into the tree before flipping onto the side and catching fire.
"One down, one to go." Derek says to Cassie after reloading his gun. He then takes aim at the windshield of the black pickup truck. He fires.
Although the bullets hit their desired target, no blood painted the windows. "Oh crap, this truck is bulletproof!" Derek shouts.
"Since that's the case, I will try and lose this punk." Cassie says in a very unusually calm voice. "Do you want to drive Mr. Chivalrous?"
"No, you are doing just fine." Derek answers, putting his AK between his legs. "Just don't kill us."
Cassie risks driving right over a log in the road, but the pickup was still in pursuit. She jerks the wheel several times in different directions in hopes of dodging every attack the pickup truck threw at them.
"Can you go a little faster?" Derek asked, clutching the barrel of his AK.
"Yeah, that's what she said." Cassie says, chuckling.
"Why do I even bother?" Derek asks himself, putting his free hand to his forehead.
Cassie looks in the rearview mirror, just before it is shot. She risks a glance over her shoulder and saw a gunman hanging out the passenger window and is armed with a uzi pistol. "Derek, take that punk out!"
Derek picks up his AK and turns back. Once the gunman was down firing his uzi, Derek brought his gun up to his shoulder and aimed right at the man's head. He readies himself to pull the trigger, until Cassie drove over something very bumpy that it threw of Derek's aim, but when the pickup drove over the bumpy part in the road, it also threw off his aim and his reloading time.
Derek fires and the gunman falls out through the window, dead.
Derek sits back down and checks his magazine clip, he has only seven bullets left and he knew he was not going to waste them on a bulletproof pickup truck.
"Hang on tight and make sure your seatbelt is fastened!" Cassie warns as she gets ready to drive off a hill.
Cassie felt her heart sink as she drove the jeep right off a hill and down a steep slide. She pulled the emergency brakes and turned the wheel to avoid crashing into the trees. "Could have gone better."
They were going to crash into a big tree, and this time, the wheel was locked into place. "JUMP!" Cassie shouts before spontaneously jumping out the jeep. Derek followed, abandoning his gun.
"Crap!" Cassie shouts. She and Derek began rolling down the hill, hard. Mud, dirt and plants consumed them and they even tasted their own blood in their mouth.
Derek falls forward and crashes into a bush, but continued to roll down the hill. Cassie on the other hand, hit her knee against a tree trunk, but that did not stop her from sliding down the hill.
They both scream in terror.
Cassie hits her head against, what felt to be a tree stump, but she did not feel the pain directly. She was already in pain, everywhere!
Derek went crashing right into Cassie and they both hit another tree stump, hard. But this time, Cassie managed to cling on to a small branch with one hand, while using her other than to hang onto Derek. "Man…" She spits dirt out of her mouth. She found the taste of dirt to be extremely foul. "...I don't know how, but we always manage to survive even the most ridiculous situations yet."
Then the branch she held on was no match for her and Derek's weight combined. It snapped right off and they both went rolling down the hill once more. "Crap!" They both shout once more as they prepare to endure another rollercoaster of pain.
But then the rollercoaster of pain ended. They landed on the flat and solid ground, albeit painfully, since they both landed hard on their backs. They landed near an edge that lead to a river with rapids below.
"See, told you we always survive." Cassie said, massaging her ribcage and knee, which was beginning to hurt a lot.
Derek, lying on his stomach, moans in pain. He did not hear a single word that Cassie said.
"D-Man, are you alright?" Cassie asks, sitting up. She gasps in fear when she felt something land right near her, their jeep, which was now totaled and going nowhere. Not even Derek nor Cassie's guns were in there, but their equipment was still in there.
Cassie stares at the totaled jeep before getting up to her feet, slowly though. Her entire body felt like it was on fire and she was hurting really badly. Cassie goes to the flipped over jeep and searches the glove compartment and the satchels in the back, which managed to stay attached to the jeep somehow, even when rolling down a hill.
Inside the satchels were two pitons and two grappling hooks. "Look what we have here." She comments as she pulls them out. "Luckily for us, our equipment was unharmed." She clutches her ribs again, the pain intensifying. "Man I'm hurt." She says to herself, but loud enough for Derek to hear.
"I can make you hurt even more." A familiar Irish voice said.
Cassie slowly turns her head to her right and sees Derek being held at gunpoint by none other than Damian O'Brien and who was with Damian was his boyfriend Jack armed with a shotgun and Gail armed with a pistol, but pointed towards the ground. "You know, Miss Davis, it was much easier getting down. We took a path, we did not take a slide down a hill."
So, it was Damian, Jack and Gail in the black pickup truck, Cassie thought.
Cassie raises her hands and smile. They were still under the impression that their names were Cassie Davis and Derek Lambert. "Hahaha." She chuckles, throwing the two grappling hooks and pitons to the ground and near the edge.
"Miss Davis, I believe you have something that we want." Gail says. "Hand over the inscriptions." He orders.
"How did you know about the inscriptions?" Cassie asked.
Gail gave a can-you-believe-this-guy look. "We planned it. We knew you would figure out the puzzle for us, so we let you do our dirty work so we can steal it later." He explained, "Simple. You shot me in my belly back at Mesa Verde." He pointed out, fueled by anger.
"I was feeling somewhat sympathetic, if it makes you feel better." Cassie told, raising her hands above her head. She was being honest, to some degree.
"Enough stalling." Jack aims his shotgun and leans in. "Give us the inscriptions or we will kill Mr. Lambert here."
"Correction Jack, I kill him." Damian says proudly.
"Hey, Damian, let me ask you something. Back in Mesa Verde, why didn't you just push me off the mountain?"
Damian did not hesitate to answer. "That would have been a quick death. I was going to shoot you in the stomach and let you die slowly and then push what was left of you off that mountain." He tells. That would explain the suppressor. "I'm not a person who grants quick and painless deaths. I kill people slowly and painfully."
"Here's an idea, how about we all walk away and die in our beds as old people?" Cassie suggested, putting back on her humor persona.
"Inscriptions!" Gail demanded firmly.
"Fine then, you win." She slowly reaches into her pocket to pull out not her journal with the inscription, but a grenade, which she took from a dead shooter earlier. She winks at Derek, who instantly remembered the grenade she took.
Cassie quietly pulls the pin and throws it at the villains. Derek kicks Damian in the groin and runs towards Cassie. Gail and Jack made no attempt to stop them, only to get as far away as possible from the grenade.
Instinctively, Damian runs for his life as well.
Cassie and Derek grabbed a piton and grappling hook each and jumped over the cliff and into the rapid waters, confidant that they will survive the encounter.
The grenade went off, but all three villains managed to get to safety in time.
Cassie and Derek struggled to keep their heads surfaced. No matter what they did, they would always have their heads going underwater.
Cassie remembered the time in India when Derek and herself were caught in rapid waters.
After having to deal with several second so rapid waters, they finally entered calm waters. They both swam to shore while each held a piton and grappling hook in each hand.
Cassie coughs up the water that filled her lungs as soon as she made it to shore. "Man, we've had worse times, especially in India."
Derek coughs before answering her. "That was a swim in the park compared to this." He puns.
"You got weak puns Derek Lowell." Cassie says before sitting down on a large rock.
"What the hell was that?" Derek asked, outstretching both of his arms. "Are you trying to get us kill? You drove us off a hill and now we were forced to literally jump into the water." He says angrily. "And earlier you said I was trying to kill us."
Cassie smiles. "I'm sorry Derek. The whole thing was on me, but we survived. We always survive. We are immortal." She then sets her tools down on the rock before pulling out her journal from her back pocket. She did not need to worry about the water in the pages, they were waterproof. It was expensive, but worth it.
She turned through several pages before remembering that Derek was the last one who had the map and inscriptions, but she copied the inscriptions and map into her waterproof journal. Always be prepared.
"Okay, so according to my journal. The next step to finding the Cold iron is to find the other two inscriptions and our original desired ruins location is just along this river." She reads to Derek. "All we have to do is follow this river and we should make it to the ruins."
"Go ahead, lead on Miss 'Davis'." Derek says jokingly.
"Hey, why thank you Mister 'Lambert'." Cassie responds in a flippant, yet funny voice.
Who knows what horrors await for Cassie and Derek in their adventure. Don't forget to review.