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"DO YOU KNOW where you're going?"
Parker, with his eyes glued to the littered streets ahead, averted his attention for just a moment to look at Derek in the passenger's seat. Focusing mostly on avoiding a collision with an abandoned car, he mumbled a small, "I guess not."
He heard Derek breath out a small laugh, though it sounded mostly like just a sharp breath with a hint of his deep voice beneath. It was a sound Parker was already familiar with. Derek seemed to find a lot of amusement in Parker's mere being, in the things that he said and how he said them - and for once, it didn't feel like belittling. Derek was the first person Parker met from Maxson's group - though Parker himself couldn't remember much of their first encounter.
He remembered lying in the snow. He remembered feeling and being lost. He remembered that he wasn't sure if he'd ever pick himself back up. The other details evaded his sense of relevance.
Derek drew in a deep breath, shifting in his seat. "I offered to drive," he reminded the younger man.
"I can drive," Parker assured him, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as he let his attention flicker away from the road for just one more moment. "You could be my navigator, y'know."
In his peripherals, he saw Derek slowly nod. "Fair enough," he commented leisurely. "In that case, to where do you wish to be navigated?"
Drawing in a slow breath, Parker haltingly shrugged his shoulders. Somehow, they'd already found more than half of The Dozen (excluding the ones who didn't make it.) They were now just looking for Jasper, Ellie, Alexa, Scarlett, and Kellin. Parker had no clue if they grouped up like Carson and Adelaide or Lucas and Clara did, or if they broke off separately as he himself did. Were they even in the city anymore? It was a bold assumption to make to think that they all stayed in the mess that was D.C.. "Well, okay," Parker began slowly, clearing his throat, "if you were just getting out into this new world for the first time and was scared away from The White House by a big helicopter firing into the crowd there, where would you run to? Again, with basically no knowledge of the area or anything-"
"Hold on," Derek interjected, holding up a finger to hush the younger of the two as he leaned forward in his seat. "Helicopter?" he confusedly questioned, his voice raising an octave in a way that Parker found himself noting. "Did you get a good look at it?"
"No," Parker shook his head. "I was busy." I was trying to stop a slit throat from bleeding. "And it was shooting at us."
Diverting his attention from the road just one more time - the last time, he told himself - he watched Derek's eyebrows furrow as he visibly tried putting the pieces inside his head together. "Well, it might've been military. Those are the only people around who would have a helicopter, I think. That doesn't explain why they'd shoot into a crowd like that, though... Was it peaceful? The crowd there."
