“Do you know how to hotwire cars?” Marcus glanced at the cars parked beside the road.

 

“I know only a little, what about you?” Gloria narrowed her eyes and fixed her eyes on the oldest looking one.

 

“I know very little. Never really got any practice.” Marcus shook his head.

 

“Okay, so we go for that one.” Gloria pointed at the oldest car along the road: “Old car, should be most easy to hotwire.”

 

People came in and out of the camp from all different directions. It appeared that whoever these people worked for had mobilized a lot of resources just to find him and Gloria. 

 

There was still no signal on their phone. And at this position it became somewhat clear that their signal was being jammed instead of purely bad reception in the forest.

 

There were still some trees, bushes and other sources of shade around the camp, which allowed both of them to circle around and make it to the road, though it took quite a bit of time.

 

With their footsteps lightened and stances lowered, they snuck behind a fancy looking jeep with thick tinted windows, decorated headlights and dark green doors with a matte paint job. This jeep was just one car away from their target.

 

Just when they decided to move forward, the jeep beeped. They froze for a mere moment then shot to the front of the car and hid behind it. A man approached from the back of the jeep, breathing heavily and mumbling.

 

“These fuckers. These assholes. Motherfucker.” This man cursed and spat on the ground. “What the hell is this? All these people at this hour and no additional pay? Fuck this.”

 

The man almost fumbled his keys when he tried to open the door. But just when he shut the driver's side door and pulled out a box of cigarettes, a strange female face appeared before him. And with a quick knock on the back of his neck, he passed out right where he stood. Marcus took his keys, while Gloria patted him down and took the man’s wallet, his phone and a small butterfly knife.

 

“Let’s bring him along.” Marcus pulled out the handcuff he took back from the two dead men as Gloria put the man down on the side of the jeep: “Hope he knows something.”

 

“Hey! What the fuck!?” Another man came over, staring at Marcus and Gloria and the man lying on the ground.

 

“Shit! ” Marcus cursed and opened the driver’s side door: “Get in!”

 

Gloria opened the back row door of the jeep on the driver’s side and hopped in, Marcus jumped into the driver’s seat, jammed the key into the hole and started the car. The man who discovered them just realized what happened and started calling out to his cohorts while waving at the people in the camp.

 

The jeep burst out of its parking location and shot full speed into the direction it was already facing. The road ahead was winding, and the feel of the steering was not what Marcus was used to. Marcus almost drove it off the road twice before he managed to handle it.

 

“Is his phone locked?” Marcus asked as he checked the rearview mirror. The cars parked on the sides of the road all started and began their chase. Though there was still some distance between them.

 

“Yes. Unfortunately.” Gloria swiped through the screen of the phone: “Also - this phone looked kinda weird - it’s thicker than normal…”

 

“THROW IT OUT!” Marcus immediately yelled.

 

Gloria knew what Marcus meant in an instance, without a moment of hesitation she rowed down the window and tossed it at the road behind them.

 

The phone with extra thickness than normal phones bounced on the ground, and just when the first car behind Marcus and Gloria ran over it, a ball of flame jumped through its back, the outer shall turned to tiny shrapnels and shot everywhere.

 

“These fuckers - ” Gloria looked back: “Speed up! They’re gaining on us!”

 

“This is the fastest I can go! This is a jeep and not a high speed car!” Marcus bashed the steering wheel in frustration.

 

“We’re going the wrong way.” Gloria crawled to the passenger’s seat from the back row: “This road will lead to the Northern District. But not into the actual district, just some place around the outskirts.”

 

Marcus looked to his left, the area to his left was a slightly hilly grasslands, with fences and trees in sight. “Hold on! Fasten your seatbelt!”

 

“Holy shit!” Gloria held onto her seatbelt and pushed her feet against the footrest so that she would not be thrown around the interior of the car from the incoming bumps.

 

The jeep’s hangers whined and some hard objects in the glove compartment bounced around as Marcus swirled the steering wheel and turned sharp left. The jeep sped into the hilly lands on the left side of the road. He tried his best to drive on the less bumpy and uneven area. The shock absorber of the jeep was not that great, and Marcus almost banged his head against the ceiling of the car a few times.

 

Three cars also rushed into the hilly area, in an attempt to catch up to the jeep Marcus was driving. The old car they were targeting before was among them. But two out of three cars were not built for this kind of road at all. The oldest car soon broke down, then another normal sedan fell behind due to its lack of running at a consistent speed. The final car still behind Marcus and Gloria was a mini truck with large wheels and therefore high ground clearance. It did not have high speed on flat roads, but similar ability to traverse uneven grounds like the jeep.

 

“Check the glove compartment for guns. ” Marcus took a look at the rearview mirror then fixed his eyes on the road ahead: “And see if you’ve got a signal on your phone.”

 

“No signal. How the fuck can they jam the signal at this place?” Gloria almost threw her own phone out of the window. Inside the glove compartment, there was indeed a gun in a detachable leather holster. “Marcus. Gun, pistol, leather holster.”

 

“You wanna switch? ” Marcus nodded. “Can you handle it?”

 

“I’ll try if you can get that truck off our fucking tail.” Gloria loosened her seatbelt.