Excerpt:

Looking out of the window of the car had gotten boring after about half an hour or so, and with a total lack of any kind of entertainment in the closed space, Elle had resigned herself to listening to her parents discussing menial topics such as cake, what was on TV last night and the man down the street with the unpainted fence. Life in the suburbs was a thrill a minute. Although it wasn't like life in the car was any better, with a dazzling array of things to look at like cacti, rocks and slightly different cacti. Yep, it's an adrenaline rush alright.

Resting her hands behind her head, she leaned back against the leather of the back seat and closed her eyes. If she had been allowed to bring her phone she could have at least talked to her friends, or listened to music or something but she wasn't even permitted that luxury. Well, at least not in the car anyway. Unbeknownst to her parents, she had covertly sneaked it into her backpack despite their assertions that she wouldn't even be able to get a signal where they were going.

Where they were going...now that was a different story all together. She didn't really understand most of it and wasn't going to pretend that she wanted to either. But to cut a long story short, the entirety of Arizona had been ordered to underground shelters in various locations around the state. She had half-heartedly wondered how long such an arrangement would work before people resorted to cannibalism, went crazy, or both but she quickly disregarded these thoughts for something more important such as what colour lipstick to wear today.

The midsummer afternoon slowly descended into early evening, with no immediate sign of the end of their journey. During that time, she had fallen asleep at least twice, stretched across the entirety of the back seat, although only for about half an hour each time. Nonetheless, she estimated that they had travelled at least a couple of hundred miles. Stretching out slightly, she rested a hand on the back of each of the front seats, poking her head between them and staring out the front window.

“How much longer do we have to go? This is a lot more boring that I thought it would be. Which, by the way, is an achievement” Her mother's hand playfully reached up and tapped her on the nose, a slight frown on her face.

“Don't be sarcastic, Elle. We'll be there by tomorrow at the very latest. We were the last wave of people to be evacuated so there won't be much traffic. Ian, dear, do we have enough gas?”