As soon as the sun started rising, everyone started to wake up. Noella was getting the car ready, Misa was packing The Book along with anything else, Dayle was stocking the trunk with weapons and ammunition, Larkin was trying to get a grip of his hangover, and Arizona was roughly waking up anyone who was still snoozing.
As soon as everyone was up and ready, they started heading for the Hummer. Exie counted heads. "We're all here, but do we all fit in there?"
Arizona stepped up next to her. "I don't think we do." But luckily, the seats were movable and turn able. They turned the seats so they were facing each other and moved them apart so there was enough space in the middle for anyone left over to sit.
Noella drove and Dayle rode shotgun. His rifle ready, just in case they had any trouble. The rest of them managed, with much squishing, to get as comfortable as one could get when there were not enough seats for everyone to sit. Misa sat on the floor and spread out The Book and stacks of paper, Larkin sat on the floor too but as far as he could, puking into a bucket. Exie sat on Jet's lap, which wasn't so unusual. Arizona sat with Misa on the floor trying to figure out as much as she could. Destin and Vladis were squished way to close to each other for their liking because Erastus took up the whole other seat to sleep, which nobody found fair, but nobody was willing to go into more arguing about the matter.
Larkin tried to reach for a beer, but Arizona moved them away from him. "Don't drink while you've got a hangover, Larkin." And she went back to The Book.
Eventually the formation changed. They stopped and Jet took up the shotgun position, but Dayle still held his rifle ready from the back seats. Exie joined the others, sprawling out on the floor, taking part in the dissecting of The Book for the first time. Erastus woke up and sat with them too. Vladis and Destin had nothing better to do, so they each lay down on one of the seats and pitched in whenever they felt like it.
They kept rotating and changing place, falling asleep and waking up. They all got so tired and figuring out The Book was too hard to do. They just hoped that they'd find a solution in New York.
Half way there. Noella pulled over at a gas station with a tiny cafe. "This will be your only meal for the next five hours, and that's the minimum," she announced. And they all knew it.
They ordered and ate like no tomorrow. They didn't even worry about how much the bill would cost if ten people were to eat all three meals at once.
In an hour, they were all filled to the brim. "Alright," Larkin said, slamming his hand down on the table. "Who has cash?"
Everyone was forced to cough up all they had to get the food paid for. They had a little bit left, so they used it at the retail store.
With all their money wasted and their stomachs full, they headed back to the Hummer with whatever junk food they got from the store.
"What if," Exie started to suggest, "we stop trying to figure everything out and just let things happen?"
Arizona shrugged. "We've been doing this for three months now, we just feel like we need to."
"Yeah, but you don't want to waste your whole life on it, right?"
"Right. But do we have anything better to do? No, I didn't think so."
"Besides," Dayle chipped in, "it gives us a reason to go to New York."
The five hours passed by quickly because they all got too drunk and bored to keep track of time. In no time, they found themselves in New York City.
Noella waited for them to sober up just enough to be able to pay attention to what they were doing, and then they went down to the subways. They split up to try to find any clue to anything they might think could be related in any way to The Book. Exie and Jet stuck together, Arizona went with Erastus and Misa went with Destin so they could instruct them along the way, Dayle went with Vladis because he was under the impression that she'd be helpless on her own, and Noella and Larkin paired up at the beginning but split up later.
