Mr Irving pressed his foot down on the clutch, swiftly shifting up a gear. He could feel Ms Smith watching him, feel the silence weighing heavily on his shoulders, and he squirmed.

"Yes Ella?" Anthony snapped. Instantly he regretted it. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head, orange curls raining into her eyes, and looked away quickly. "Don't be. This is very... stressful for all of us."

Anthony frowned at her. His hand drifted from the wheel, catching hers lightly in his and gave it a soft squeeze. "That's no excuse."

A few rows behind them, leaning against the side of the van moodily, Carrissa made a gagging gesture. Angling her head away, she rolled her eyes.

Hazmat snorted at her, leaning into the aisle of the bus. "Are we there yet?"

"Obviously not," Mr Irving snapped, continuing under his breath, "You deranged half-wit."

with a light chuckle, Ms Smith glanced out her window

"Finnegan?" Coach asked as he stopped at a set of lights, "Where am i heading?"

The boy jerked upright. "Um, yeah. Just keep going straight and turn left at that big corporate building."

"Which one?"

Finn shrugged. "The one on the left."

Ms Smith gasped suddenly, her eyes fixing on the side of the road. Two black sedans were angled onto the footpath, motors running. and she jerked away from them.

"What's the matter?" Mr Irving asked, dropping her hand and raising his knuckles to her cheek. "Are you ok?"

Forcing a smile, Ella laid her hand over his. She spoke through her teeth; "Don't react. I think I can see suits."

Anthony stroked her cheek. "Are they watching?"

"i don't know, but they're facing this way," She reached into the back as if looking for her bag. Instead, she glared at the others. "Get down and stay down. As of now, you are not in this van."

Turning back to the road, she glanced briefly at the red light and then pulled a compact out of her pocket. she checked her makeup and settled back into her seat. Mr Irving clutched her hand again.

"If they connected Maggie to us, they might be looking for the van," he murmured, very deliberatly keeping his head angled away from the cars. Ella glanced at them again, carefully not focusing, but saw no movement.

"Do you think...?" She drifted off, meeting his eyes. They were intense, drilling into hers, and she gulped suddenly.

Mr Irving took a deep breath. "Go with me on this."

Leaning forward, he removed a hand from the steering wheel and slipped it behind Ella's neck, drawing her closer to him. a few centimetres from her lips, he hesitated, his eyes darting from her eyes to her lips. For a moment Anthony wondered what the hell he was doing, why he was in this position. Then Ella closed the gap, pressing her lips to his, and all his thoughts were forgotten. All he could feel was her lips on his, as his hand slid from her neck to her cheek, tangling in the hair beside her temple.

There was a loud honk, and Mr Irving jerked away, trying to look sheepish as he drove through the intersection. In truth, he was hiding a furious blush that was eating at his cheeks. He couldn't believe he just did that.

Carrissa coughed loudly and Ms Smith stared out the window, hiding her embarrassment by studying the passing trees. She fisted her hands in her lap just to stop them from drifting to her lips.

"Well," Finn had a brow raised as he tried to hide a smirk, "This is the park, up here on the right... if anybody cares."

Ebony stumbled on a rock, crashing to her knees with a grunt. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and spilled across the ground. Letting out a sigh, she picked up her bottle, but instead of putting it away, she took a swig.

sitting on her heels, Ebony wiped her mouth. "Can we rest for a moment?" she snapped, glaring at Austin's back.

The teen stopped in his tracks. The angry words on his tongue died as he spun quickly, hands fisted on hips, and saw her on the ground. He nodded.

Phitz avoided his friend's gaze and he squatted down, picking up ebony's things and shoving them in her bag. She smiled at him.

"Thank you."

Grinding his teeth, Austen looked away. "Moment's over, time to move."

Yanking her bag out of Phitz's hands, ebony shoved her bottle viciously back inside. "Why the hell are we moving so darn fast through a..." she glanced around, "what is this, a national park?"

They'd scampered straight from school grounds into the park, staying away from the road but moving parallel to it until Phitz directed them otherwise. Then they'd found themselves in bushland, hurrying over browning leaves, twigs and stones, and avoiding trees.

"I think it's just 'protected land' actually," Phitz murmured with a shrug as he friend let out a growl.

"I don't know if you've noticed," Austin snapped, dragging his fingers roughly through his hair, "but we are being followed by large men with guns. Men who, to my great surprise, don't want to bring us milk and cookies."

Glowering up at him from the leaves, Ebony dragged a heavy breath through her teeth. "My god! You are such a..." her sentence trailed off into a squeal of rage, and she made a throttling motion with her hands.

Austin opened his mouth to retort, probably something childish along the line of 'well, you're a bigger...', but a rustle to the side caught his attention. All three heads whipped to the side, and none of them dared breath. Ebony could feel the blood rushing to her face, feel her lungs sweeling angrilly, but she didn't dare move. When the second crunch came, all the air left her chest very quickly.

"Oh my God," she breathed, digging her fingers into the leaves, "They've found us."

Phitz swept her bag off the ground easy, stumbling away, as Austin grabbed her hands and heaved her to her feet. "Not yet they haven't," he insisted, pulling her over to a tree. the lowest branch jutted out almost perpendicular to the trunk, before sweeping up dramatically.

He dragged her closer, ducking under bows until they were hidden behind the foliage. To his surprise, she didn't protest, even when she stumbled and a branch whipped across her cheek. There was a resounding crack, a boot snapping a twig, and on reflex Austin raised a finger to his lips.

Ebony scowled at him and pointedly turned to face away. He sighed; girls.

There was another rustle in the forest, much fainter, and Ebony's shoulders slouched in relief. She made to step forward just as the crackle of a walkie talkie resounded. Off balance, Ebony's arms spiralled for a second before an arm snaked around her waist and tugged her gently back into the shadows. Her foot met the ground in near silence and to their relief they soon heard the owner of the radio reply.

"All clear here."

Much too close for comfort, barely 10 metres away, a suited man clambered up a rise, pausing to lean against a tree. He went to drag a sleeve across his forehead but stopped, seeming to think better of it. Instead, he straightened his jacket and continued on. His big strides quickly carried him from one side of the teens gaze to the other and he disappeared into a gully.

No one moved.

Eventually, after several tense minutes had passed, Ebony let out a sigh, leaning backwards gently. It was only as the hand on her side gave a gentle squeeze that she realized that gesture had pressed her up against Austin. very quickly, she tensed.

Reluctantly, he craned his neck forward so his mouth was just beside her ear. "We should continue on. they might do a second sweep. And who knows, they might be a bit more thorough this time."

Ignoring the tingles that shot down her spine, Ebony swallowed. "Do you get the feeling that this is to easy?"

"I wouldn't exactly say that..." he chuckled.

"No," Ebony tilted her head and bent her neck awkwardly to meet his eyes. "It's not easy. But it should be harder."

"Well..." Austin gave her another gentle squeeze and wiggled his eyebrows. "That can be arranged."

She ignored him. "We're teenagers, well, six teenagers, two teachers and a guy called Hazmat, but these guys..." Flummoxed, Ebony gestured away from them, "They're wearing suits! they're professionals. How have they not caught us? How are we all still alive and its one of them whose dead? In what reality does that make sense?"

For a moment, Austin paused, considering her questions. She had a point; a very uncomfortable point. No matter how indestructible teenagers thought they were, it didn't make sense that they had evaded the suits for this long.

"The way i see it," he murmured, dropping his arm from around her waist so he could spin her to face him. "is that there are four possibilities; firstly, they could be watching us right now and fooling us into thinking we have the upper hand for some despicable reason; secondly, they could have caught the others already and don't care about us as much; thirdly, they could have underestimated us because we're teenagers and this isn't a video game; or, finally, this is a communal dream/afterlife that we're all sharing and none of this is actually happening." fairly chuffed with his responses, Austin grinned down at her. "Personally, i'd like to vote for number three."

Ebony begrudgingly let a smile meander onto her lips, rolling her eyes. 'I'll take 'dream' for 5000, Eric."

"Uh, uh, uh," he scolding, waving a finger in front of her face, "you can't just choose sleeping. option 4 is sleeping or death."

"Cheery."

"Thank you for noticing," Austin winked at her, but he was already staring over her shoulder, to Ebony;s relief, as her blush waltzed in. "Looks like Phitz resurfaced. Let's join him and get this dream-death-game on the road." Without hesitation, Austin took her hand, leading her out from under the branches purposefully.

For that second, Ebony relaxed into her role as the normal teenage girl being led along by the popular teenage boy. She tried to smile, to feel at ease, to be anything other than scared witless, but the results were unsuccessful. From the moment she crawled over a dead man, Ebony knew her life had changed; if only that fact that huge psychologist bills had just piled up on her future doorstep.