Chapter 219: On the Final Way to Atlantic City

Our group, accompanied by the entirety of Margaret’s community, was now on the road heading toward Atlantic City—and this time, we were all traveling together as one unified convoy.

We were leading the expedition in our camping van, which had become something of a mobile command center and symbol of our group’s presence. Behind us stretched a long trail of vehicles—cars, trucks, vans, even a few motorcycles—all filled with members of Margaret’s community and whatever possessions they’d managed to salvage from their previous life. The convoy must have looked quite striking from an outside perspective, or from an aerial point of view if anyone had been watching from above. A serpentine line of vehicles winding through abandoned streets and overgrown highways, a caravan of survivors moving together.

Inside our camping van, the atmosphere was a mixture of cramped discomfort and oddly comfortable familiarity. All of us were present: myself, Sydney, Rachel, Rebecca, Christopher, Cindy, Mei, Daisy, and Ivy. Nine people packed into a space really designed for maybe five or six at most, but somehow we’d made it work.

Despite our various differences and the interpersonal tensions that occasionally flared up between certain members of the group, there was an undeniable truth that none of us could ignore—we all felt safer and more secure when we were together. Even Mei and Ivy, who tended to maintain a certain emotional distance from the rest of us and rarely showed overt affection or attachment, seemed to gravitate toward the group. There was comfort in proximity, in knowing that you were surrounded by people who would watch your back when things inevitably went wrong.

The interior of the van was undeniably cramped, with bodies occupying every available surface, but everyone had somehow found their preferred spots through an unspoken process of territorial negotiation.

Sydney and Mei had claimed the two beds that were attached to the ceiling of the camping van, positioned adjacent to each other like bunk beds but running parallel along the length of the vehicle’s interior. Mei was sprawled on her bed with a book in hand—of course she was reading, that seemed to be her default state when she wasn’t actively engaged in conversation or some task. Her expression was focused and serene, completely absorbed in whatever text she’d chosen to lose herself in.

Sydney, meanwhile, was lying on her bed with her head tilted down over the edge, hanging upside down so she could better interact with the people seated below. She was engaged in what appeared to be a spirited discussion—or more accurately, bickering—with Christopher and Cindy, who were seated on the U-shaped sofa directly beneath her position. Their voices rose and fell in animated debate about something I couldn’t quite make out from my position at the front of the van, though Sydney’s occasional laughter suggested it was nothing particularly serious.

Rebecca had also claimed a spot on the U-shaped sofa, positioned at the opposite end from Christopher and Cindy. Daisy sat beside her, and the two of them were engaged in their own quiet conversation. Thise two unexpectedly became close and I was happy for Daisy after she had lost Elena and Alisha who were best friends.

Ivy, true to her nature, sat apart from the more animated conversations. She’d claimed a seat near one of the windows and was gazing out at the passing landscape with her characteristic calm, inscrutable expression. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking as she watched the abandoned world scroll by—whether she was lost in contemplation, observing for potential threats, or simply enjoying the view in her own quiet way.

At the front of the vehicle, Rachel occupied the driver’s seat, her hands steady on the wheel and her eyes focused on the road ahead. She was undoubtedly the best driver among all of us.

I sat in the passenger seat beside her, leaning slightly forward with my gaze fixed on the road ahead and the vehicles trailing behind us when I checked the side mirror.

Call it paranoia if you wanted, but I genuinely could not relax while we were in transit like this. I felt a constant need to remain vigilant, to scan for danger, to anticipate problems before they could fully materialize. Too many things could go wrong during a convoy operation like this—Infected could stumble into our path, vehicles could break down, we could encounter hostile survivors, the road itself could become impassable. I wanted to catch any issue early, before it could escalate into something catastrophic.

“You know you can rest in the back with everyone else, right?” Rachel said, glancing at me briefly before returning her attention to the road. Her tone was gentle, slightly amused. “You don’t need to sit up here on guard duty the entire trip.”

“I think I’ve rested enough already,” I replied.

I mean after having sex with Sydney and even though I had slept sitting in the hampingvan, it was unexpectedly a good rest.

“And I just want to make sure everything’s going smoothly. Keep an eye on things.”

“Does that mean you don’t trust me behind the wheel?” Rachel asked, jokingly.

“That’s absolutely not it,” I said quickly, offering her a reassuring smile. “Actually, the real reason I’m sitting up here is because I didn’t want you to feel lonely driving alone. Seemed like you could use the company.”

Rachel laughed in response. “You seem to be in a particularly good mood today. That’s nice to hear.”

“I’m just relieved that we’re finally moving forward with a concrete plan,” I admitted. “After all the debate and uncertainty, it feels good to actually be doing something, taking action instead of just talking endlessly about options.”

“Do you think…” Rachel trailed off for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully. “Do you think we can finally find a real home in Atlantic City? Maybe even the place we’ll stay in forever, the last move we’ll ever have to make?”

That was an excellent question, and one I’d been avoiding thinking too deeply about.

If I was being completely honest with myself, the answer was no. At least not for me personally, not in the long term.

When Rachel noticed my hesitation—the way I didn’t immediately agree with her hopeful vision—she sighed softly. “I know you’re planning to eventually go to Europe alone,” she said, her voice taking on a more serious tone even as she kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “But I want you to understand that we won’t let that happen. We’ll be following you, whether you like it or not.”

“Rachel—” I started to object.

“Just listen to me for a moment,” she cut me off, her tone becoming firmer, more insistent. “You’re not the only person who misses Elena and Alisha. They’re important friends to me too, and to Cindy, and to Sydney, and to everyone else in our group. We all care about them. So regardless of your plans or your desire to protect us by going alone, we were always going to help rescue them. That decision was already made.”

“Even though attempting a rescue operation like that could put everyone in extreme danger?” I asked. Even knowing we’d be traveling to an entirely different continent, entering hostile territory controlled by their father, with no guarantee of success and every probability of things going wrong?”

“Everyone has their own voice in this matter, Ryan,” Rachel replied with a slight smile. “Everyone gets to make their own choices about what risks they’re willing to take. You won’t force them to do anything they don’t want to do, would you? You wouldn’t make that kind of unilateral decision for everyone?”

“I won’t force anyone,” I acknowledged quietly. “I just think this whole endeavor seems incredibly dangerous—maybe suicidally so.”

“It definitely is dangerous,” Rachel agreed readily. “Crossing the Atlantic Ocean and then traveling from wherever we land all the way to Russia in a world where all modern infrastructure has stopped functioning—where there’s no air traffic control, no functioning ports, no reliable maps, no communication networks—it seems completely impossible. But that’s only if you attempt it alone, trying to handle everything yourself without support or backup.”

She glanced at me briefly, her expression gentle. “Together, as a group, with everyone contributing their skills and abilities? It becomes merely extremely difficult instead of impossible. That’s a significant difference.”

“You seem to have had quite extensive discussions with the others about this when I wasn’t around,” I said.

Sydney and Cindy, despite using different words and approaches, had essentially been telling me the same thing in our recent conversations.

“Well, we all independently reached the same conclusion about you, yes,” Rachel said with an amused smile. “We’ve unanimously decided that you’re an irredeemably stubborn person who needs constant supervision to prevent you from doing something heroically stupid.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” I said, though I couldn’t help smiling at her blunt assessment.

My gaze drifted to Ivy, who had apparently grown interested in our conversation. She’d left her window seat and approached closer to the front of the van, positioning herself where she could look ahead through the windshield alongside Rachel and me.

I couldn’t help but seek her perspective as well. “Do you think I’m an irredeemably stubborn person too, Ivy?” I asked her directly.

In return, she fixed me with a look that very clearly communicated what kind of ridiculous question is that?

“You are,” she stated simply. “And if you continue being this way—constantly taking unnecessary risks, refusing to accept help, treating yourself as expendable—you will march straight toward your own death. And when that moment comes, none of your supernatural powers or enhanced abilities will be able to save you from the consequences of your own stubborn stupidity.”

The bluntness of her assessment landed like a slap and I winced.

“Hey! Ivy!” Rachel spoke immediately, clearly not having expected such a dark pronouncement. “That’s way too harsh!”

“Damn, Miss Ivy,” Sydney’s voice called out from behind us, laced with surprised amusement. She’d clearly been eavesdropping on our conversation from her elevated position. “That was extremely dark, even for you. Didn’t know you had it in you to be so brutally honest.”

Sydney leaned further over the edge of her bed, her arms draped over the guardrails as she grinned at the scene playing out at the front of the van.

You look far too amused by that assessment, don’t you, Sydney?

“Well, if that’s really how you think about it…” I trailed off, genuinely uncertain how to respond to Ivy’s brutally honest evaluation of my character.

What could I say that wouldn’t sound like empty justification? If my stubbornness—my willingness to shoulder risks and danger that others shouldn’t have to face—at least succeeded in keeping everyone else alive and safe, then wasn’t that outcome worth the personal cost? That calculus made sense to me, even if nobody else seemed to agree with it.

And that fundaental belief was precisely why I didn’t want anyone following me in my eventual attempt to retrieve Elena and Alisha from Russia.

Ivy continued staring at me for a long moment, her dark brown eyes searching my face as if looking for something specific. Then, without warning, she reached out her hand and placed it gently against my cheek.

The unexpected physical contact made me raise my gaze in surprise, my eyes widening as I met her intense stare. Her palm was cool against my skin, her touch surprisingly gentle. She held my gaze with those penetrating dark brown eyes that seemed to see straight through all my soul.

“That is your destiny and your karma, I suppose,” she said softly. “An inevitable consequence of having inherited Dullahan and everything that comes with it.”

I fell silent at her words, something about the way she said it, felt so strange.

Then I slowly reached up and placed my own hand over hers where it still rested against my cheek, covering her fingers with my palm.

“That’s the karma of everyone who has a Symbiote living inside them,” I replied quietly, holding her gaze as I spoke. “As long as the Starakians continue to exist and continue to hunt us, unfortunately. This isn’t unique to me—it’s the burden we all share.”

All of us who carried the Dullahan parasite and other ones were being actively hunted by the Starakians with vastly superior technology. We were prey in a cosmic game we’d never asked to play, marked for capture or death simply by virtue of hosting an organism we hadn’t chosen and couldn’t remove.

Even Wanda, who was half-Starakian herself, was being relentlessly pursued by her own people. They’d cornered her so thoroughly, pushed her into such desperate circumstances, that the confrontation had resulted in the complete destruction of Jackson Township and all the innocent lives that had been lost there.

So what was the solution? To endlessly run and hide, always looking over our shoulders, never establishing anything permanent because we might need to flee at a moment’s notice? Or to eventually turn and face the threat directly, knowing that confrontation would almost certainly result in casualties?

Either path seemed destined to result in people dying around us. The only question was which deaths we could live with.

At my words, something changed in Ivy’s expression. Her lips curved upward almost imperceptibly—the movement was so subtle that someone not watching closely might have missed it entirely—but it was definitely a smile. A real, genuine smile from Ivy, who almost never displayed such overt emotion.

The sight surprised me so much that I nearly forgot to breathe for a moment.

“What’s happening up there?”

Rebecca’s voice suddenly rang out from the back of the van, breaking the intimate moment as she tilted her head to get a better look.

“Oh, just Ryan seducing another woman,” Sydney called back bored. “You know, the usual routine. Nothing to fret over.”

That sentence snapped me back to reality. My senses, which had been entirely focused on Ivy and our quiet conversation, suddenly came rushing back to full awareness of our surroundings and the multiple other people present in the confined space.

I pulled away from Ivy’s touch immediately, a bit embarrassed that I had been so enraptured in her gaze.

“Right, anyway…” I turned my gaze forcefully back to the road ahead, focusing on the cracked pavement and abandoned vehicles we were navigating around.

Ivy continued staring at me for several seconds longer, her hand still raised in the air where it had been moments before. Her expression had returned to its usual calm inscrutability.

Finally, she lowered her hand slowly and returned to her seat near the window, settling back as if nothing had happened.

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