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Mackinac Bridge stretched north to south as the yacht sped east, with other boats directly on our tail. Its looming shadow cast over us as I stepped out from below deck. The suspension bridge glowered down at us like a giant metallic archway. It stretched north and south, each tower seemingly piercing the low clouds.

The wolf beside me saw something he didn't. "Hit the floor!" He screeched.

Like déjà vu, I found myself covered by my canine boyfriend as loud booms and the sound of splashing waves surrounded us. Another boom. A louder thunderstrike to the starboard side, followed by gunfire into the wooden deck in front of us. His body tensed against my back.

A gush of lake water soaked my lower half, but I ignored it in favor of trying to make sense of things. Lowell knelt off me and fired his weapon into the air. One, two, three, four, five, six. He stopped, cursing under his bared fangs.

"Fuck, I didn't think they'd drop ordinances from that fuckin' bridge!" Lowell uttered, then murmured into my ear, "We're safe get up, Adam!"

"This is unbelievable, unbelievable, I can't believe we're--"

"Focus, Adam!" Lowell pulled me back to Earth by yanking me up and along the empty, bullet-ridden bow. The wind slapped our faces. He gripped his assault rifle in one paw before letting go of me from his other. "I need ya here, right now! I can't watch both my back and the front. Watch for me!"

Watch for him, I did. Even as my ears rang from the explosions earlier, even as my paws trembled, and even as the sunlight burned my feline eyes. Watery, I wiped my vision with an elbow and narrowed my eyes to the rear starboard and port side with Lowell's back to mine. In the meantime, Mackinac Bridge loomed behind us, faraway enough to ease my worries for the moment.

From where I stood, I couldn't see anything beyond the Sunset Evanescent's stern wakes, but I could hear other boats. I could hear an occasional exchange of gunfire, and maybe a shout belonging to either Nancy or Hector. The ones screaming out vengeful Spanish obviously belonged to the Mexican fennec.

I could also make out the echoes of a loudspeaker: "You will surrender, deviants! A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful! The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies! You will either die as righteous believers or die as sinners cast to Hell forever!"

"Biblefucker's still going on about that?!" Lowell groaned over the ambience.

"It appears so," I shouted back, laughing.

"We're comin' between the islands, Adam!" He informed me. "Be ready to drop down when I say. For all we know, more boats'll show up around them."

I smirked, "Yessir!"

Ahead of us and the uncompromising yacht going at top speed, stood two bodies of land. One I surmised to be Mackinac Island, as well as a red-and-white, box-shaped lighthouse perched along the rocky shores of another island. Between them were several smaller vessels watching us. A pontoon boat, a sailboat, a motorboat decked obscenely in religious flags; the latter directly sat in the path of the incoming yacht we stood on.

Fifty yards or so.

"Get out of the way!" Lowell barked in vain. He raised the assault rifle to fire several shots. Most hit the water in front of the motorboat. From what I could see in my blind spot, the passengers on board stood tall and proud. "Fuck, they need to move!" He fired again. My ears rang much more harshly, to the point I barely heard Lowell scream, "Move, goddammit!!"

Suddenly, as I turned to the wolf, he gripped my paw again, and I didn't let him pull me down. Instead, I joined him in jumping down to the heated, wooden floor of the bow. We braced for impact, holding each other.

It never arrived.

Well, not in the way we expected.

CRASH!

The large yacht quaked without slowing. Glass and metal and screams collided against what I felt was the port side. Further gunfire from the stern grew louder. An explosion came and went, but consciousness didn't leave my body. If I was going to be tossed down to the ground one more time within the next several hours, me and Lowell were going to have a serious talk.

I stood up first, ignoring my wolf's protests. The pontoon passed us alongside the lighthouse. Lowell stood up with a raised assault rifle, and without a word, we returned to the previous position. In hindsight, I felt sorry for not asking if he was okay. We had pressing matters though, such as another vessel closing in from the starboard side.

On instinct, I hunched my back. Lowell fired several shots at the front of the speeder boat (another one, not with the Coast Guard's logo on it), leaving bullet holes and a shattered windshield. Above my half-perked, half-folded ears that continued to ring, Lowell growled.

"Shit!" He patted my tense shoulders, and I turned to the timber wolf as he examined his rifle, and the empty magazine. "Adam, I'm going to need you to hand up extra ammo from the kitchen!"

"Which ones?" I shouted back.

"Look for these ones!" He handed me the emptied magazine, and the smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils with sea breeze. "Grab as many as ya can and don't get shot!"

"I won't!" Without thinking, I leaned forward to peck him on the lips.

The adrenaline coursing into my legs didn't allow me a chance to see his smile or reaction. I sprinted with the wind into the kitchen deeper in the yacht, past the lounge room stripped of furniture.

I kicked at the ground until I reached the kitchen, then skidded to a halt while examining the light magazine in my paw. Among the drained stockpile of ammunition in the kitchen, it didn't take long for me to find the correct size and make. It looked correct at least. Not wanting to waste any more time, I threw aside the empty magazine...only to stop.

Over the gunfire and shouting above and around us, I felt something strike the port side. I rushed out of the kitchen into the small corridor leading out to the other side of the yacht, and saw the top half of a boat's cabin, as well as a figure climbing up from it. A ravenous, bare-fanged wolf in half-assed military gear gripped the railing, trying to climb in. The gunfire I expected from Nancy or Hector on the stern side or Olivia above me on the upper deck didn't arrive. In the back of my mind, I heard the sounds occupied elsewhere. Possibly at other vessels.

My eyes steeled back at the wannabe-pirate. Without thinking, I reached behind me for the handgun. Its weight nearly pulled my boney fingers to the shaking floor.

Unlock the safety. Aim for the target. Keep the muscles firm. Don't close your eyes.

Lightning thundered from the barrel. In seconds, I watched the mammal fly backwards off the railing. I fell backwards too, impacting my head against the kitchen island's siding. My ears rang loudly for several seconds as Lowell rushed over to me. He effortlessly snatched one of the magazines he needed, reloaded, and fired several shots at the boat keeping up with us.

I didn't see it, but I heard a small explosion. The wolf had thrown a hand grenade.

"Holy shit, holy shit, Adam!" He skirted over to me, pulling me up by the paw while frantically examining me, only to find no wounds. "Adam, good shot!"

How many men would I kill in the path to freedom? How many ghosts would haunt me as I prayed for forgiveness later at night? My baser instincts thrust those to the back of my skull, and mindlessly helped carry the magazines with Lowell back to the bow. Thankfully, most of them were in three storage boxes. As for me, I reluctantly snagged a few clips for my handgun, placing them in my pants pockets. My wolf didn't object to it.

"Make each shot count!" He barked over the ambience and crashing waves.

"No shit!" I hollered against the wind.

Lowell cackled proudly. "You're really cursin' like a sailor now!"

"I learnt from the best!" I replied after putting the safety to my handgun on. Then back to off again. On top of being clumsy against the handgun's recoil, I didn't want to shoot by mistake.

The ground suddenly shifted beneath us, and we braced as the yacht turned starboard without slowing. Lowell's eyes widened with mine, and I almost glanced back to wonder what Johanna and Nick were thinking.

"Fucking shit!" Lowell's paw grasped my shoulder for support. "Hold on, Adam!"

The yacht tilted sideways, almost at what felt like a forty-five-degree turn. It didn't slow down for a single moment, and I almost feared we would capsize.

"What the Hell?!" I pushed my feet against the bow so not to lean forward too far. Once or twice, my soles nearly slipped from the wet deck, and I would've fallen overboard had Lowell not held me in a death grip. "Why are we turning?!"

"Are they trying to kill us?!" My wolf agreed with me. We were supposed to go north, not south. "Don't let go, Adam! Don't let go!"

The tilted ground evened back into place. The gushing cold wind and sounds of gunfire and a furious loudspeaker in the distance slowly returned to my ears. As the Sunset Evanescent slowly balanced again, going north instead of east like earlier, it struck me. Johanna and Nick in the bridge weren't simply turning us south but making a wide turn! The vessel's bow now pointed to a narrow isthmus of water. To the left was the massive stretch of land I knew to be Michigan's upper peninsula, and to the right stood a large, forested island. Its name I couldn't remember, but I remembered someone mentioning what lay past that incoming isthmus.

St. Joseph Island. Canadian territory. The rendezvous point.

Distracted by the beautiful sight, I stared forward while Lowell spotted something I didn't, until too late. "Helicopters!" He let go of my hurting shoulder. "Shit, shit!"

Coming from the island were three hovering black dots. Neither looked like they belonged to civilians. No sooner could I spot the Devout colors did I see them fire at us. On cue, Lowell and I ducked for bullets only hitting the water in front of us, and we knelt up to fire several shots each at the arriving targets. None of us hit so much as a propeller blade.

Two of the helicopters evaded to our left while the right didn't stop. I didn't know why until I spotted Olivia on the bridge in my blind spot and witnessed her holding a bazooka. She fired, and a long trail of smoke bellowed from her weapon, impacting the remaining helicopter.

** BANG! CRASH!**

** **"Great shot, Liv!" Lowell shouted to the otter downwind. I didn't hear her reply.

It fell into Lake Michigan like a heavy stone to water. Luckily, the aircraft fell several yards away from the yacht's starboard side. Lake water sprayed everywhere, barely hitting us. All I could see were smoke and burst flames surrounding a sinking metallic husk. It disappeared behind us as fast as the other two helicopters reappeared. One to the port side and the other on the starboard side along the stern, each aiming at us.

Once more, we hit the deck amid a hail of bullets over our ears.

Lowell tugged my sleeve. "Adam, follow me!"

The two aircraft emptied their rounds into the yacht's interior. A small bang or two came from within the Sunset Evanescent. My wolf guided me quickly inside once the dual gunfire stopped. I didn't know how Johanna, Nick, or Olivia on the upper decks fared, but the inside of the lounge room and kitchen were filled with fresh holes. And the smell of used gunpowder.

Lowell stood up and fired at the port side helicopter from the kitchen window, creating spiderwebs across the windshield. A loud, familiar explosion on the starboard vibrated through the shattered windows, and we heard the second attacking aircraft disappear into Lake Michigan.

Speaking of which, the U.P. and the island now stood between us. Boats in the water gave us a wide berth. We were minutes away from St. Joseph. At the back of my mind, in the same suppressed place also considering the blood on my paws, I also partly wondered if the boats were aware of us. They had to be, right? Did they simply come out onto the lake to watch a rebel cell take on the might of Devout America's Coast Guard, plus some ragtag militia boats? Or were they secretly cheering for us to make it? Questions for another day.

My paw blindly grabbed another handgun clip as we passed the kitchen, only to discard it when I realized it was the wrong type for my weapon. A freeform curse brushed my frowning whiskers. Still, I followed closely behind Lowell until we hurried out onto the lower deck on the yacht's stern. From the end of the short corridor, we could see out onto the stern, as well as spot what looked to be not just a helicopter, but a trail of dozens of boats speeding behind it.

As Nancy continued firing at the perusing helicopter, hiding behind one of two pillars holding the upper deck, my heart stopped for a second. On the ground, Hector lay against one of the other pillar, facing us and clutching his bloodied stomach. He'd been shot in the abdomen.

"Hector!" Lowell almost dropped his assault rifle. "Hector, you're bleeding!"

"Wise observation, Low." He chuckled, then fiercely winced.

"Hold on, buddy!" My wolf almost knelt down, only to stand back up when a stray bullet hit the glass window behind us. He fired again at the helicopter. "Adam, get something!"

I silently thanked Abigail for handing me the spare roll of bandage tape. My fingers reached back and pulled the half-soaked roll from my pants pocket. Kneeling next to Hector, I ignored the fennec fox's growls as I wrapped half of the bandaging around his midsection, compressing the wound. A sweaty, pained Hector clawed at the water sealing of the wooden deck, tail thrashing against the pillar, and eyes glaring daggers into my very soul. He didn't bite at me though. Or pushed me away. He lay there, letting me help him.

Another gust of air from above, a trail of bellowing smoke, and an explosion behind the stern distracted me. The third helicopter smashed into the freshwater sea. Between the gunfire being exchanged and the chaos of the scene, I didn't know if the next thought would be our last.

Hector tried saying something, muttering out further blood.

"Stay with me, Hector!" I hissed when he started to close his eyes. "Stay with me!"

Impulse led me to slap him across the cheek. He jolted awake again, glaring despite giving a tired smirk. "It's been an honor, fighting with you and Johanna, Adam..."

"Please stay with me, Hector!" My trembling fingers tightly tied his bandages, and he groaned with half-lidded eyes. "Stay with me!"

Somewhere above us, Johanna spoke into a megaphone, "Sixty seconds till we beach! Everyone, brace for impact!"

I glanced from Hector's paling face and around the corner of the pillar. Beyond the random assortment of boats trailing half a mile behind us, I could see the outlines of the U.P. and what I would later learn was Drummond Island. We were entering Canadian territory, but not out of the woods just yet.

Hector continued coughing, and I vainly tried wrapping his abdomen with the rest of the bandage tape. Warm crimson still leaked through the layers, staining my claws as I tried to compress the wound with a nearby beach towel. Hector howled to the Moon and back.

"I know, I know, it hurts, but don't black out!" I quavered aloud. "Stay with us. We're just over the border, we're almost there! We're almost there!"

"Do as he says, ya fucker!" Lowell cried out, struggling to reload another magazine, only he could barely wrap his digits around the bottom. "I-If that cunt of a bullet doesn't kill you, I'll do it myself! Hear what I'm saying, Hector!?"

Blood dripped down his chin each time he spoke up. "Like to...see you try," he chuckled.

"Can't you see it's pointless, guys?" Nancy mentioned in a defeated, solemn tone, her weapon lowered. "There's nothing we can do for him!"

"Shut up, Nancy!" Lowell snapped at her. "Hector, we're so close! Stay awake!"

"Hector, we're almost there!" I tried reasoning too with the fennec, even as he used the rest of his strength to keep his eyes awake. "Don't you wanna see it?"

"Thirty seconds! Hold on!"

He strained to keep his lids open. "Also been...fun...fighting with you, mutt."

"Fuck!" Lowell let out a raw bark. "Don't you close those eyes! Don't you--"

"Twenty seconds!" Johanna's megaphone screeched. "Get ready to beach!"

I didn't leave him alone to die. Locking my eyes with a tearing up Lowell, we nodded in mutual understanding. With his quick help, even as Nancy protested at the futility, we carried Hector back inside the yacht. His howls rang our ears more than tinnitus ever could. Within the damaged kitchen, we carefully lay the coughing, sobbing fennec fox next to us. His clawed fingers dug into my skin, even after setting him down. Together, we sat between the granite island and the vacant spot where a refrigerator used to be.

"Fifteen!" Johanna spoke above our heads.

Nancy followed us inside, opting to take an empty broom closet. She left the door open to face us though. She muttered something under her breath. Whatever it was didn't matter.

"Ten!"

Lowell and I hugged each side of the shivering fennec fox.

His haggard breathing slowed as he told us one final time, "Take care...of your...selv...selves. For me, des...troy them...Destroy Devout Am...America!"

"We will, Hector." I firmly gripped his paw. "We will."

All three of us steadied ourselves against the kitchen island. We waited for the yacht to finally reach the beach. When it did, the collision with land hit harder than any armored truck.

CRASH!!