The Last City

Chapter Nine: Working Together

I was inside the car, sitting up with my back against the door and my legs stretched out in front of me when I saw it.

Headlights.

"Abel," I said warningly, looking at the lights as they got closer. "Abel!" I screeched when he didn't wake up.

Both him and Jax woke up with a jolt. They looked back to see what I was screaming for them to wake up for and immediately saw why. They fixed their seats so they were sitting up and put on their seat belts in a hurry. Abel put the car in drive and stomped on the accelerator.

I jolted backwards and realized that I didn't have my seat belt on. I grabbed my seat belt to put it on when the car slowed to a stop.  Abel had the car on all night, but hadn't been charging it. We couldn't go anywhere unless it was on foot, but that wouldn't help as the headlights were approaching quickly.

I looked over to see that Abel had started to pull on his hair and had a panicked look on his face all the while breathing heavily and staring at the steering wheel in disbelief.  Jax was watching the lights with wide, scared eyes as they came to a stop no more than three yards behind our car.  I watched it all in horror as I could only think one thing: this is it, this is the end.

I saw two people get out of the car and started walking towards our car. There was a girl and a boy. They both looked to be around our age.

The girl had straight brown hair with streaks of dark blue and olive skin, she was taller than me by at least a few inches; she wore a long, black coat and a black t-shirt with jeans and running shoes.

The boy was barely taller than the girl and had black hair that was curly and short. He was wearing a black sweater and dark jeans with running shoes. He looked curious and I wondered if they were actually a threat.

"What do we do?" I heard Jax say from the passenger seat.

"There's nothing we can do." I say, hopelessly.

They came to a stop right beside our car and knocked on the window. I looked at Abel and Jax, not knowing what we were going to do to get out of this situation. Were we supposed to talk to them? Fear them? 

"What do we do?" I heard Jax ask again, "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to get out of the car and hope that they don't try to kill us." I heard Abel pipe up.

"Okay." I said while Jax nodded in agreement.

We all opened the doors and got out of the car, not taking our eyes off of them for a second. We were cautious and on guard. 

"So..." said the girl, "we aren't the only ones that left our cities, huh?"

We all relaxed and I saw Abel grab the car as he almost collapsed with relief, while I brought my hands to my head and took deep breaths, and Jax closed his eyes and leaned against the car. All the while the two strangers smiled and laughed at how we reacted to them being harmless. I suppose they could have been a threat even if they weren't sent to kill us, but at the time the only thing we were worried about was that they were going to kill us. 

"I'm Cadence." I said after a little while of catching my breath.

"Jax." He waved.

"Um, Abel." He introduced himself, still slightly cautious.

"I'm Melody and this is Rory," the girl said as the boy smiled. "He doesn't talk much, only when he has something that needs to be heard." 

"What are you doing out of your city?" Abel asked seriously.

"We could ask you the same thing." Melody laughed.

"Yeah, but we asked first." Abel replied, not letting it go.

"It's a long story." She looked down.

"We have time." 

"Fine, I just don't want to talk about it." She snapped.

"Why?" He wasn't going to stop questioning her.

"Abel?" I spoke up. "Why don't we just let it go for now."

He gave me a look saying he didn't want to, but dropped the subject anyways.

"How long have you been outside of your city?" Jax asked.

"Um... about three months I think." She answered.

"Have you come across any other cities since then?" I couldn't stop thinking about this.

"I came across one, once, it was beautiful-filled with lights and I could hear music and laughing coming from the walls.  We stayed just outside the walls for a few days, it was the most amazing thing we'd seen in weeks. Then one day- it just- I couldn't believe it."

"What happened?" I asked.

"It was awful," She started to tear up, I could see that it was painful for her to talk about, but she kept going.  "There was a huge fire, I could hear the screams and cries and I could see the fire, it all happened so quickly. I-I don't think that it was an accident though."

"Why?" 

"I saw some people walking around the wall a little while before the fire started, but it was dark, I could have been imagining it."

I thought about the possibility that it was actually an accident. It didn't seem like it,  there should be more cities here than there are. As far as I know it could be the same people that captured us not too long ago. 

"We need to think about the possibility that the cities are being destroyed." I turned to Jax and Abel. "And they obviously have some information."

"So?" Jax asked.

"So," I say. "We should think about working with them." 

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I am so sorry for not updating, I am going to try to write more often and get into the habit of taking some time to write. Thank you to all of the people that are still reading this or are starting to read this. I know it is definitely not the best book on Wattpad, but this is my first book and I am trying to improve as I go, so hopefully it will get better along the way. Please give me some feedback and I will try my best to write more chapters more often that are better. Also I've noticed that I write a lot of dialogue so I'll try not to write too much of that. Thanks again for reading!

-Grace