As they reached each other, Stella brought both women into a fierce embrace, the media swarming like a barrier between the women and the guard.

With reporters and photographers in their faces, yelling questions while dictating the events into their phones and cameras, Stella led Lynn and Roxy towards her Volvo.

As the furious agent tried to muscle through the cluster of cameras and microphones, Stella threw open the door and ushered them into the back seat. The agent broke through, reaching for her.

She swung open her own door, his hand slamming against her window. She slid in and ignited the locks.

The agent pounded on the window, ordering her to stop.

With the cameras pointing in, Stella uttered a curse so offensive that, if it could have been heard through the windshield and above the chaos, would have caused the networks sensors broadcasting the event to scramble to bleep. Instead, the world of social media scrambled to make a GIF of it, ending with Stella throwing the car into reverse.

For a brief moment, Lynn caught the agent’s eyes. She knew he was remembering her words from the day before. You don’t know what I’m capable of doing.

Lynn nodded once to him as the car backed away.

The surreal feeling of being the only vehicle on a highway in the middle of the day, an experience usually reserved for weary overnight truck drivers on holidays, was heightened by the repeated, crackling, robotic voice on the radio.

It didn’t matter the station—WNOE, B-97, WKBU—it was everywhere on a continuous loop: Hurricane imminent, evacuate the city.

And yet, with the gray skies looking down at them in disapproval, the Jeep Cherokee, with 210,000 miles and drained of windshield fluid, resulting in an army of slain mosquitoes blurring the view, continued its solo journey towards New Orleans.

The girl at the store had happily agreed to Steven’s offer to trade the boat for the car, especially when he’d thrown in an additional hundred dollars. She’d pointed out that the Jeep needed new tires, but that she’d driven it just last week, and it got her back and forth to the beach.

So far, it chugged along. William had rightly feared they’d be pulled over almost immediately, spotted by a state trooper as the only vehicle on the road headed in a dangerous direction. Thus, whenever he saw a vehicle approaching in the distance on the parallel interstate, he would swerve over to the shoulder and come to a stop, telling Steven and Lily to duck. Only when the car had passed, perhaps thinking theirs was an abandoned vehicle, did they once again rise from hiding.