Like a hunting dog after a fox, Carissa's feet had carried her directly to her prey. She repeated her question.

"Do you want to know what I think?"

Ebony and Phitz had spun around the first time she had spoken, startled out of their wits, but now both had calmed down and stood in silence. Phitz had his thick arms folded across his chest, a bushy eyebrow raised as he stared flatly at Carrie. He let out a deep sigh as she spoke again, shaking his head. 

"Not really, Carrie."

But she didn't hear him - her gaze was fixed on the smaller girl. Ebony's arms were wrapped around her stomach, her breathing deliberately slow and steady, and her chin set at an angle that made it look like she really wanted her hang her head but was fighting the instinct.

"What about you, freak?" Carissa demanded, stepping closer. She was well-versed in intimidation tactics, and when Ebony stepped back instinctively, she laughed. "I didn't think so."

She walked past her, deliberately slamming into the girl's shoulder and strutted towards the fast-food resturant, a self-satisfied smirk etched in place. She was almost to far away to hear when Ebony spoke. 

"What do you think?"

Carissa froze. Very slowly, she swivelled on one heel to face the girl again. Her hands had fallen into fists at her side, her chin raised uncomfortably high to make a point, and her burning glare fixed on on Carrie's face. 

"Excuse me?" she demanded, the words dripping acidically from her tongue. 

Ebony flinched, but didn't look away. "I said what do you think?"

She laughed coldly,  rolling her hips as she sauntered back towards the other girl. "I think that you are an unloveable, undesirable, unimportant coward. I think that you get a kick out of being noticed by people like me and Austen. I think that you'll do anything for attention. But I know..."

Phitz snapped. "Carrie!" He grabbed her arm, pulling her back and putting a few inches between the shaking Ebony and her antagoniser. 

"Let go of me, you jerk," she shook her arm free, "the brat asked for it."

Before he could reply, Ebony spoke. Her voice was so quiet, so flat, that he took an immediate step away. "Let her finish, Eric."

Carrie straightened her shirt, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She met Ebony's stare, ignoring the tears that welled in the bottom of the girl's eyes. "I know that no matter where you go," she shuffled forward and the girl flinched back, finally letting her eyes fall. Ebony's arms returned to her waist, hugging as if to shield. "no matter who you're with," the girl was growing considerably paler but Carissa carried on relentlessly. "No matter what you do, you will never amount to anything because you are a waste of space and I'm not the only one who wishes..." Some part of Carrie knew she should stop talking, that she was crossing a line, but it was the part buried beneath the fear and anxiety of the day, her rage at whoever had interrupted her afternoon and a strange certainty that Ebony was to blame. So she didn't pull her punches, didn't shy away from her words, but rather leant forward to whisper them directly in the other girl's face. "...that you didn't exist."

Phitz had never been so sure that he disliked Carissa than in that minute. For the entire time he had known her, she had always simpered and pouted and gotten her way, and most things she said turned his stomach somehow, but he had never seen her be as much of a bitch as right that second. But for some reason, his jaw wouldn't work. For the first time in his life, he was frozen in place and unable to leap to the defence of his friend. He could have blamed it on the fact that she was a girl, or the fact that what she was saying was so ridiculous that he was stunned, but the truth was quite different: he wasn't feeling nauseous.

He didn't know what that meant, but it was making him feel sick in a whole different way. 

Ebony's lips were clamped together tightly, as if they were the only thing composed, but a single tear escaped her barricades and rolled across her cheek. As it reached her chin, dragging itself free and falling towards the ground, she drew in one shakey breath and shut her eyes. "You're right."

Then she disappeared. 

Carissa blinked once. Twice. Then she screamed. 

Dazed, Austen sat up slowly, his vision blurred as his eyes swam around his skull. Someone had said his name. Or at least he though they had. What was his name?

"Oh my God, Austen! Are you all right?" a blurry figure knelt down beside him, grabbing his hand and clenching it in an iron grip. He winced, but they didn't seem to notice. He closed his eyes and groaned, but the person still didn't let go. 

There was another crashing in the bush, louder than the one he'd heard before his world got turned upside down, and he opened his mouth to call out - maybe that person could get this person to let go of his hand. As soon as the thought had entered his mind, his fingers were released and that iron grip was fixed across his jaw. His protests were muffled, but as his thoughts were settling back into place, he thought that might have been the person's intention. 

They shushed him, hot breath coming out against his ear. "It's a suit. Be very, very, very quiet." 

Suits. Hazmat. Athleticism. 

His brain snapped back into place, his eyes flashed open, and he tapped at the palm across his face until it was removed. Angling his head, he met Salena's frightened, dialated eyes and smiled slightly. She tried to return it, but the crashing - perhaps a person running, Austen thought - drew nearer and she balked. 

Somehow they'd ended up tucked beside a fallen tree, nearly under the end that was propped on a boulder. The patch of forest got quiet suddenly, as if the suit had recognised that he was the only one running. Now he knew they were hiding. And now they knew he was looking. Austen massaged his brow, trying to kickstart his bruised head into thinking. What were they going to do next?

Atheleticism.

The single word had Austen wanting to grin and cry at the same time. Could he... He didn't even know how to finish that thought. But maybe he didn't need to: he'd boxed, he'd wrestled, he'd taken karate and played rudgby and soccer. With or without whatever Hazmat had suggested, he should be able to get Salena and himself out of this mess. 

But he needed more information. 

Holding up one finger, he cocked his head at Salena and hoped.

She nodded. 

Unfortunately, that was about the extent of his sign-lanuage abilities, and he struggled to think about how to mime: 'what does he look like?' 

"what does he look like?"

Salena had been watching Austen, unblinking, as he thought something over, and she knew he hadn't spoken. She shivered. But she had heard him! Taking a deep breath and dragging her hair out of her face, she decided that now was not the time to worry about hearing voices. 

She tapped him on the arm, gaining his attention, and then played the most scary game of charades she had ever attempted. 

Palms close together, sucking in her stomach: thin.

A hand raised as far above her head as she dared: tall.

Her fingers formed a gun and she shrugged: possibly armed. 

The she crossed her fingers, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and tried not to cry. 

Austen assumed that the mime was over, and fixed his attention on the suit, trying to identify where he was. The cemetery was too silent, the small of breezes creating a rustle that made him twitch. But then there was a crunch from behind them, so close that Austen's breath caught in his throat. He swallowed heavily, breathing shallowly in a desperate attempt to hear the man's movements. A few more twigs snapped, practically in his ear and Austen felt reality dawn on him in one, cold flush: the suit was on the other side of the log. 

Beside him, Salena came to the same conclusion. She bit her lip, terror evident on her face, and she was quaking where she sat. Austen laid a hand against her shoulder and she flinched away, slapping a hand against her mouth to stifle her whimper. The clap of palm against lips seemed to echoe and both teenagers stilled instantly.

Pebbles grated against pebbles, a foot twisting quickly in a new direction, and the third footstep landed so close to Salena that she knew a tilt of her head was all that was necessary for her to see a shoe. She didn't dare look, instead raising her other hand to her face to hold the hysterics in. Something appeared at the top of her vision and she pressed herself back against the wood. It was a shoe, lowering towards her slowly but steadily. She looked desperately at Austen, who was watchign the foot with as much horror as her, and silently begged him for help.

"don't touch it!"

As soon as she heard the words, Salena's legs were separating, inching apart and back towards her as she sought to give the limb space. Just in time, the shoe hit the dirt in between her thighs, so close that she could smell the sweat drenching his trousers. Wedging her eyes tightly shut, Salena threw a prayer out into the universe, to anyone or -thing that was listening, that they could somehow make it out of this.

Austen watched the man's weight shift on to his now grounded foot, desperately searching for anything resembling a plan. He ground his teeth, eyes flicking to his terrified peer and back to the suit. He should be able to do something! Anything! But what could he do? He was a sixteen year old boy who struggled to pass biology and worried about whether coach was gonna play him as striker or whether he was going to get sack-whacked in the locker room.

His head whipped up imeasurably quickly. Slowly, his eyes traced the man's leg, up the seam, until he was staring directly at his jewels. Trying to ignore the awkward, he wrestled with himself, but as the man's torso started to appear, towering over them, he realised it was a late-night-miracle that they hadn't been seen already. So, he did what anyone would do.

He raised his hand and punched the guy in the balls. 

I couldn't resist ending with that. hehe. 

xo SwimmingUpstream