It was almost as great as I had imagined it to be. The only thing that would make it better was if I could roll down the windows and let my hair down. But since that was a safety issue, I didn't. The force field wouldn't cover the empty space of the open windows, so an accurate shooter could easily shoot Anna or me.

Everything goes back to watching your back, I thought. Everything I did ultimately had to go back to a single question: Can/Will this put you in danger? I was paranoid all day, every day. Well isn't that a nice way to live.

Initially I was going 300 mph, which wasn't even as fast as this truck could go, but since Gabe had an average truck that only went 225, I would have lost him. So I had to slow down.

We drove for about half the day before Anna complained about going to the bathroom. I put my taillights on and slowed down to a stop.

"Anna has to use the restroom." I said as I crawled out of my truck, and took the opportunity to stretch. Everyone else had the same thought as I did apparently, because everyone else climbed out and started stretching.

"Just say-" Sven started. "That Anna has to pee, like a regular person." Kristoff finished. They did that so flawlessly, like they practiced exactly what to say in the truck on the way here. Sven stopped and Kristoff just picked it up without missing a beat.

It was going to take me a while to get used to that. But all I did was raise an eyebrow at them.

"Anyways," I said, turning my attention to Gabe. "My GPS says there's a city coming up. It's called Houston? Anyways, we can pick up more supplies there too. The only food we have are some canned beans and vegetables."

Sven perked up at vegetables. "Do you have carrots?" When Sven said carrots, Kristoff perked up.

Good luck getting used to them, Elsa. I sighed.

Gabe looked at me and leaned in and whispered, "I had to live with them." As if he read my thoughts. I suppressed a smile at that.

Then Achan walked up. "How far is… Houston? Is that what it's called?" I nodded, and then answered, "About 200 miles. I could be there in about 25 minutes…"

"Hey! Don't hate on my truck." Gabe scowled. "Come on, let's go to Husten." He turned, and Achan followed him.

"No man, I think it's Houston." Achan corrected.

"Who cares?!" He yelled back.

We made it to Houston in around an hour, give or take. We stopped a little ways before the actual city (which still looked very much intact), and I parked my truck next to these trees and turned on the stealth mode on the truck, which made it blend in with its surroundings. Not completely invisible, but at a first's glance you wouldn't notice it. You'd have to really study it to find that it was there.

Then we all piled in Gabe's truck. If I drove mine in, people would probably get suspicious. But in Gabe's truck, we fit right in. Besides all being crammed in.

"Man, your truck has everything." Kristoff gave a longing glace towards the trees where my truck was.

"And it even has a cup holder!" Anna added in.

We drove through the city, which was packed. People were everywhere. Some dressed nicely, some dressed casual, some jogging through the streets. I didn't see anyone carrying weapons. I didn't even see any homeless people. And there wasn't blood on any of the walls of the alleys.

Cars flowed through the streets; parked on the side of the road (Kristoff told me that that's what they were called. And they were paved, that's why they were smooth.). Even when my dad worked in the government and we were living nicely, we didn't have roads, and people weren't so bold. It was strange. I was more than a bit out of my element.

It was the opposite of where we all lived. There people stayed indoors. The streets were dangerous. Here, it seemed like no one stayed in their home during the day.

We found a grocery store (which had a sign telling exactly what it was and no bodyguards), and parked on the side of the street as close as we could get to it.

"Well, okay, Sven, Kristoff, Gabe, stay in here. Achan, take Anna to a bathroom somewhere, and don't let anything happen to her." I saw Anna roll her eyes from my peripheral vision, but it wasn't as dramatic as usual.

"Ben and I will go in," I finished, drawing three 20 dollar bills out of the bag that everyone had dumped their money in. I hadn't counted how much we had, but it seemed like we a pretty good amount. Hopefully that would be enough to get a good amount of food.

Ben, Achan, Anna and I got out of the very crowded truck, Ben and Achan tripping over each other's feet and almost falling, while Anna and I landed gracefully.

Men are so clumsy, I thought, with a mental eye roll. Anna stifled a giggle, but put on a neutral expression when they both looked at us.

Achan and Anna went into this bookstore in search of a bathroom that was two stores down from the grocery store. Ben and I walked farther along the sidewalk to the grocery store.

It was a good temperature for winter outside, pretty warm in fact. But then again, cold didn't bother me, so I wasn't a reliable source for temperature. But we were also farther south, so who knew.

I took the lead and we walked to the store. Inside, people were going about their business as if there was no threat. They left their shopping carts unguarded (with their money in them!) while they wandered over to browse a shelf.

It was small things like that that just baffled me. I get that some cities were safer and had lower crime rates that others, but I mean really. Did they not hear the announcement?

I walked right up to the first person I saw. It was an old man, probably in his sixties.

"Excuse me sir, but did you hear a radio announcement? About an experiment?"

He turned, startled, then calmed down when he saw it was just a girl. A 5'7, petite girl that couldn't do anything to him. I wanted to punch him, but then I realized that I literally made up that whole thing in my head. He probably just was startled since no one was behind him a moment ago. He was pretty old, anyways. It looked like anything would startle him.

I just needed to calm down. Get rid of this paranoia. I took a deep breath as he answered.

"Oh, the three year experiment? Oh, yes. Well, I watched it on the T.V. instead of listening to it on the radio. But same thing. Kind of." He said it pleasantly, like it was a good thing.

"Well," I began in a curiously polite tone. "Aren't you scared then? He said all crime was legal." I put one of my hands on my hip, and turned my head slightly to the side.

"Oh, well, people are… friendly? People don't rob here, unlike where you're probably from. I bet it's not as big a deal as you think, dear." He patted my shoulder and gave me what I guessed was a reassuring smile, then scurried off with his basket.

Ben walked up as the old man walked away.

"He doesn't seem worried. Like at all." I said without looking at Ben.

"Yeah, that was weird. People don't seem the least bit worried here… Maybe it's because they're not used to being worried?" He said it more of a question.

We both looked around, observing. He was right, no one seemed worried. Well, except for that old man I freaked out. But he didn't count.

Are we overreacting then? Maybe it's not as bad as I thought?... I started rethinking everything I'd done in the last 36 or so hours. My brain was so scrambled from taking so much information in, I wasn't really sure what to do. Except buy some food and regroup.

"Well, if they aren't, we probably don't have to be. For now." I looked around the store, looking at how neatly the aisles were labeled. "Here, you go look around over there for cereal or something that will keep well. I'll look over here."

We split up; since we decided that we were in no immediate threat. I picked a random aisle and walked down it, not really paying attention. My brain was still on overload.

Which resulted in me running right into one of the store attendants.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention." I jumped back, and ran my hands through my bangs, as I looked up.

What I saw made the strangest thing happen. I caught my breath and my heart skipped a beat. I looked up to a boy taller than me, with hair like mine. Except his seemed to be… silver. I wondered what motivated him to dye his hair like that. It looked good though.

He had a pale complexion, like mine. And his eyes. They were blue, like mine also, but they were so different. It seemed so intimate, when I looked straight into his eyes. Like I was intruding on something private. I had never experienced that before.

I observed all this in a few seconds. Snap out of it. What's wrong with you? My thoughts interrupted our intense 3 second eye contact.

I shook my head, and sized him up. He was about 6 feet, a bit on the skinny side. I could take him, easy.

He was wearing this blue hoodie, but it was inside out. I wondered why.

The whole time he was staring at me, as if I just came out of the picture on one of the cereal boxes.

"No, it's my fault." He smirked, but his eyes weren't in it. They kept studying me, as if trying to place me.

I looked at his chest and read his name tag. "Uh, ok, Jack." It came out all choppy, as if each word were it's own sentence.

"Can I help you find anything, Elsa?" He murmured, still staring at me.

I looked up to meet his eyes, and gave him a hard stare. "Excuse me?"

"Uh," he started, and snapped out of whatever daze he was in quickly. "I-I uh… I heard your friend call you that! He was talking kind of loud. My bad." He put his hands up in a joking surrender, with this crooked smile.

He seemed like a totally different guy now. Like a different persona. But this side of him seemed more natural. Better than the brooding, mysterious guy earlier. Though that one wasn't bad…

I shook my head as an attempt to clear my thoughts.

"Well, I'm just looking for food." I said stupidly.

"Well, you're off to a good start. We sell food." He smirked again, and this time his eyes did too. He gestured with his arms to the food, and leaned against the shelf.

Why are you being such an idiot? I asked myself. I took a breath.

"I'm looking for nonperishable food that's good for traveling. That better?" I asked, with a bit of attitude, and a small smile. "But not canned food. And not carrots." I threw in.

He chuckled, and it was a nice laugh. It had a hint of deviousness behind it, as if he was used to laughing at people, instead of with them. Like he pulled a lot of pranks.

I was good at reading body language, and I was pretty sure I had him accurately pegged as a class clown kind of guy.

"Yeah, better. Here, follow me." He started to turn to lead me, when there was an explosion somewhere to the side of us, and one the entire walls blew in.

Jack immediately turned and threw himself on top of me, shielding me from the blast. Thankfully, it was the wall farthest from us, so only a few boxes and a part of the ceiling fell. At least, thankfully for us.

Screaming and a child crying followed the explosion.

Jack was up on his feet quick, and turned to help me up. But I did a kick up as soon as he was off of me and was on my feet almost as quickly as he was.

"Thanks," I said, referring to him shielding me.

All he did was give me an appreciative once over, and said, "Nice," with a nod.

I rolled my eyes, but then remembered I wasn't here alone.

"Ben!" I yelled, totally forgetting that maybe I shouldn't yell. Someone cause the explosion. Or something. I shouldn't be yelling and letting them know exactly where I was at.

Nice going, Elsa. You're officially an idiot in Houston.

My realization was a little late though. A guy in a black leather jacket with bright red hair and a dark complexion (it was a strangely beautiful contrast) literally slid and blocked the exit of the aisle.

I turned and was about to run the other way, but there wasn't one. A few shelves had fallen over along with part of the ceiling, blocking the exit.

I could have climbed them pretty easy, but that would require me to turn my back, and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of turning my back to this guy. Whoever he was, he obviously wasn't here to shop.

"Where ya going, sweetheart?" I turned my head back to focus my gaze on him, and saw that he was smirking. It wasn't anywhere as cute as Jack's was.

Seriously, focus Elsa. I took a deep breath. Jack still stood there, looking from me to the guy blocking the entrance. Obviously he wasn't going to be much help.

Around the same time whoever this guy asked me that, I heard a few other guys in the other aisles saying something along the lines of, "And where do you think you're going?" It was creepy how they all said it close together.

But it told me that this guy wasn't alone. And that they were blocking everyone in.

I hoped Ben was doing okay.

Then I thought of Anna. What if there were more of these guys, and they were where Anna was. She wasn't very far away from here. That made me furious, and I turned it on. I kicked it into gear, just like I had learned to do and perfected.

"Move." I said simply, but defiantly not in a ladylike voice.

The guy looked at me like I just grew horns. "Excuse me?! What did you say?" He sounded offended, but it was fake. It was like an act. Like a cat playing with a mouse before he ate it.

But in this case, the mouse was more deadly than you'd think. And the cat was just pissing the mouse off.

"I said, move. It's not a hard word to grasp. It means to get out of my way." I needed to stop having so much attitude, but I couldn't help it. Everything happened so fast. Running into Jack, me being an idiot, the walls exploding, and then this idiot blocking me in. It all happened in minutes, and my brain was already a little fried. I was not in the mood to deal with this.

He took a step towards me, and I heard more screaming. I guessed that the other guys took a step in too. Did they choreograph all of this?

"That's not gonna happen, sweetie. Okay? Now be a good little girl and put your hands behind your back. Or I'll kill you slowly and painfully." He turned his head and spit, then turned and smiled at me like he hadn't just threatened me.

Be a good little girl?! Oh, that pissed me off to no end.

I turned my head too, but instead of spitting I said, "Jack, just stay back."

I didn't see his response, because I quickly grabbed a can off the shelf and flung it hard and fast at the guy's head. He didn't even have time to duck, I did all of that so quick.

It hit his temple, and knocked him out cold. He talked pretty big for a guy that just got knocked out by a can. It might have even killed him, but I didn't care. I ran past him, kicking his head while I ran past just for good measure, and slid out of the aisle.

Ben ran out too, at the same time I did.

"What the hell just happened?!" I asked.

"I don't know! Some like Indian guy with really red hair asked me where I was going. Ya know, after the wall exploded and all that. Then he took a step towards me then just collapsed. Just like that." He said that whole thing really fast, and snapped his fingers for emphasis. I stared at him for a moment, about to explain how the same thing just happened to me.

But then, I froze. "Don't move," I instructed him.

"Elsa?" I heard him say, but I kept running. I ran past all the aisles, and glanced down each one as I pasted them.

All of them had a dark skinned man with bright red hair and a leather jacket, passed out.

I walked back over to the guy I hit, and picked up his left arm. I pulled the sleeve back, and there it was.

A tattoo starting at the middle of his forearm and ending at his wrist that read: 766537GEDO.

The tattoo that belonged to experiments. And apparently this one could be in more than one place at once, or something along those lines. Or there were multiple versions of him. Or something like that. Who knew?

If I needed any more conformation that the 3 year experiment was real, here it was. An experiment was loose in the city, wreaking havoc. Who knew how many more there were. And not just in Houston. On the entire continent.

Experiments with much worse abilities than this one. One's that probably weren't as stupid as this one, too.

I turned to the old man I talked to earlier. He was shaking, and a younger lady was holding up so he wouldn't fall over.

"It's a big deal." I said. Then I turned back to Ben. "Come on Ben, we need to go." I headed to one of the aisles and grabbed a bunch of food, and went over to Jack.

"Here." I said, holding the money out to him. It was way more than the amount of food I was actually getting, but I just thought of it as contribution to fix the now blown in wall.

"No." He said, fixing those eyes on me. "I want something else."

I sighed, and turned and threw the food at Ben. As he caught it I said, "Take the food to the truck, tell them what happened. I'll be there in a second."

He didn't move at first, so I yelled, "Go!" That did the trick. But I wasn't sure why I made him go. Maybe I just wanted to talk to Jack alone. The store had cleared out by now, everyone had scrambled out the big hole in the wall to run to their homes I guess. It was just me and Jack.

I turned back to him, but he was suppressing a laugh.

"What?" I asked him, with my hands on my hips.

"Nothing. Just, does everyone do what you tell them to?" He wasn't laughing anymore, but he was giving me that crooked smile of his.

"Yes." I said simply.

"Oh, well excuse me, Your Highness." He put his arms out and bowed really low, still with that crooked smile on his face. He never broke eye contact throughout the bow, and besides that, the bow was actually very good. Almost exactly like how my dad used to do it.

Don't think about him. Conceal, don't feel. I turned my thoughts back to the matter at hand.

I stared at him, trying to look unamused, but I couldn't help the smile that tugged at my lips.

"So you can smile!" He said in an overly dramatic voice, getting up from his bow.

I just rolled my eyes, pushing my bangs back with my hand.

"What do you want?" I asked him, getting back to the point.

He dropped the smile, and looked at me intently. "Take me with you."

"You can't be serious." I said as I stared back at him in disbelief.

He crossed his arms, and said, "I'm not letting you leave until you say I can go."

I opened my mouth to tell him no, he absolutely couldn't go, that he was crazy for thinking that he could, but it came out a little differently than that.

"Fine." I stood for a second, and then realized what I just said. My eyes widened. "Wait, no, you can't-"

"Too late." He smirked, then went over behind the counter, and pulled a backpack from behind it.

I just looked at the backpack, and then asked, "Were you planning on coming with us?"

"I-uh-no. I didn't know you were, uh, coming. It's an emergency pack, in case something like this happened and I had to leave quick." He shrugged the backpack on, and went over to the nearest shelf and picked up a bag of chips and said, "So, we should get moving, huh?"

I shook my head and sighed. I uncrossed my arms and turned around and motioned for him to follow, thinking of ways to explain this to everyone else.

Here ya go! It was a long one! Hopefully yall like it!(:

And thank yall for the reviews! They really help, and yall are too nice!

But thank you again! Love yall!(: