3.2
"Is that Mike's truck in the back?" one of the uniformed men asked.
"I think so," a second one said after reading the laminated sheet in his hands. "But, man, his driving is terrible."
Mike's truck was jerking back and forth, alternating between sudden lurches forward and screeching halts.
"Literally looks like he's sleeping," the first one said, squinting at Mike through the windshield.
"Should we go check on him?" another soldier asked.
"Nah, just leave him be," the paper-holding soldier said. "He does weird shit like that all the time."
On the floor of the truck, Echo teetered back and forth with the vehicle as she alternated between gas and brakes, but she zeroed her focus on the truck in front of her and did just enough to make it through.
"Try to drive a little a little more smoothly," Jelani suggested, catching Mike's head, which had suddenly lurched forward as Echo slammed on the brakes.
"Shut up," she growled.
After a drive that seemed to go on forever, the trucks finally turned into a covered parking lot, and Echo somehow navigated her way into a parking spot without destroying the vehicle.
As if resurfacing out of ice-cold water, she shook her head with a huff and turned the key, causing the whirring engine to power down.
"You think we can just wait for everyone else to leave?" she asked Jelani.
"Yeah," he replied from his horizontal position across Mike's lap, "but they might want to come say hi."
Thankfully, that was not the case, and all the other drivers left without attempting to interact with Mike and Kyle.
"I'm gonna take Mike's shirt," Jelani said, slipping the dirty white T-shirt over Mike's head and sitting up to pull it over his own.
"Good idea," Echo replied as she scanned their surroundings, trying to determine the best course of action.
"What the hell?!"
Mike's eyes had flown wide open, and he yelled in shock when he saw the strange woman in his truck.
He then noticed Jelani's presence and spun towards him, but Echo knocked him in the side of the head before he could recognize his former comrade.
"Let's hope he doesn't remember this," Echo muttered as she pushed the driver's side door open. "Come on, let's go."
The two of them climbed over the limp men and leapt down onto the hard asphalt. The parking lot was covered with a rusted, ribbed metal roof, and when the two invaders stepped out from beneath its shadow, the bright afternoon sun illuminated them in a brilliant yellow.
Jelani was still wearing his camo army pants from weeks earlier when he'd first encountered Blake's squad, and Echo's outfit–a torn white T-shirt with tight black pants–wasn't exactly a normal Hoodsdale civilian's attire, but perhaps they wouldn't be taken as criminals.
"You think we could get some underwear?" Echo wondered, mostly to herself. "And I haven't taken an actual shower in months."
"I took a bath in a lake," Jelani recalled, "and that worked pretty well."
"It's not the same," Echo replied with a shake of her head. "People in here are living the good life."
Under Jelani's direction, they crunched along the gravel trucking road for a few hundred yards before turning onto one of the main streets in Hoodsdale. Not far ahead, they could see huge crowds of people hurrying up and down the sidewalks.
"Why are there so many?" Echo murmured in astonishment. She turned to Jelani and asked, "Did you have an apartment?"
"No," he replied. "I lived in the military housing."
"Can we grab some stuff from your room?"
"I'm sure they've assumed that I'm dead and cleaned it out," Jelani replied, "so, no."
Confident that they would fit right in, Jelani and Echo finally entered the hustle and bustle of daily life in Hoodsdale.
They navigated the crooked street, being careful to step around any metal garbage cans and wooden crates that were littered about on the sidewalk. Echo noticed a few thick pipes running up the side of a building, and she followed their snaking upward paths with her eyes, a bewildered look on her face.
"Watch ou-"
CRASH
With the sound of a massive cymbal, Echo's face smashed into a large metal sign that was hanging far too low over the sidewalk.
She clutched a hand to her reddened forehead and stood there, fuming silently.
A few people who had been approaching them from the other direction stopped in concern when they heard the commotion.
"Are you ok?" one of them called out.
Echo ducked under the sign and continued walking.
"Jelaniii…" she seethed.
"Yeah, she's alright," Jelani assured the strangers.
They passed the people, and Echo removed her hand from her face. "Why didn't you tell me about the sign?"
She was barely able to maintain her composure.
"You deserved it," Jelani replied.
"And what did I do?" she asked.
"From what I hear, you've done a lot of bad things."
She had no response for him, so she went back to just walking, keeping her eyes safely focused on the objects and people immediately in front of her.
Well, at least for a little while. Despite her recent accident, Echo couldn't help but admire the junkyard-like architecture found on every building that lined the narrow street. Their exteriors were a disorganized display of metal, wood, colorful signs, and plenty of other random scraps of material.
Most of the crooked, leaning structures were at least a few stories high, and there seemed to be a different shop on every floor of every building. Echo was lost, gazing at the eccentric collection of storefronts, but when she saw someone on the opposite side of the street exchange money for some sort of fried fish, she was reminded of their objective.
She turned to Jelani and, with the buzz of the crowds being obnoxiously loud, didn't even bother to keep her voice down as she asked, "You know anyone with a lot of money? Someone we can rob."
"Give me a second," he replied, searching through his memories of the distant past as he stared into a hoard of unfamiliar faces.
Someone with a lot of money?
His face darkened, and his legs stopped moving.
Although the people he shared the sidewalk with were completely unknown to him, they became the subjects of his intense hatred. Their faces morphed into twisted, leering grins, and they seemed to grow another pair of arms, hands outstretched as they reached for his vulnerable body.
"You good?" Echo asked, turning around to face her motionless companion.
"Someone with a lot of money," he repeated out loud in a dry, empty voice with just barely enough volume to be audible.
His mouth started moving, muttering something unhearable. He clenched his jaw, and the fingers of his right hand began scratching against the palm of his left.
"What're you doing?" Echo asked.
No response.
"Yo?"
She grabbed his wrists and pulled his frantically fidgeting hands apart.
Jelani jerked awake, staring at Echo with wide eyes.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze to his shaking left hand.
"Something there?" Echo asked, turning his hand over and leaning in to look at his palm.
"A scar?" She examined the long, whitish strip that ran from one side of his hand to the other. "Why're you so upset about it?"
Jelani looked away.
"I just… remembered something," he murmured. "And no, I don't know anyone with a lot of money… that we could rob."
"I was kinda joking," Echo replied, curious, but deciding against interrogation. "I figured we'd just rob a store."
Jelani nodded, but he said nothing.
"And once we get the cash," she continued, "I think we can safely chill out here for a day or two, living the good life."
"When are we going to Portland?" he asked. "Don't you think we're gonna be too late?"
On one of the first days he'd spent with Echo, he'd remembered that Blake had the intention of going to Portland. When Echo had heard this, she was determined to follow, even if it meant going into the old city itself.
"Let's go somewhere more private," she replied, placing a hand on Jelani's shoulder and steering him into the nearest shop.
With the bright ring of a door chime, they exited the chaos of downtown Hoodsdale.