Finn's tapping fingers were slapped to the table beneath Hazmat's open palm, and he flinched back, raising confused and afronted eyes to the man's.

"Stop that," Haz grumbled, glaring at him, "Now."

Ripping his hand free, the teenager sunk back into the booth seat, wedging himself into the corner. He dragged his hands down his face, peeking out from behind his fingers.

"Sor-ry," he said with attitude, rolling his eyes, "But just sitting here is giving me a headache."

"Well, your incessant jittering was giving me one, so..." Hazmat growled back, "stop that."

Grinding his teeth, Finn jammed his hands together, interlocking his fingers as he seethed. He'd always had a short temper. When you were as accident prone as he was, you caught a lot of flack. especially at sixteen. He'd been called a klutz, a girl, 'finnegan got-hit-again', or Carissa's personal favourite: punch bag. But the worst, he'd found, came from adults. Too many times he'd been in the nurse's office and they'd offered him a lollipop. For God's sake he was sixteen not six! And frail? Oh, how he hated the word. He was sick and tired of having frail bones and frail health and... It was a word used to describe an 18th century woman not a 21st century man.

Hazmat thumped his fist on the table, pulling Finn out of his thoughts. The man was glaring at him.

"You were doing it again."

He glanced down at his hands, twitching in surprise as he found them seperated and drumming frantically against the table. He stilled them quickly and met Haz's gaze. "Sorry."

The man's eyes narrowed at his tone, and they stared each other down, each willing the other to look away. After a few moments, it was Ms Smith's soft voice that interrupted them.

"Oh for God's sake, you two!" she snapped, waving a hand in between them. They blinked, squinted and rubbed their eyes, almost in sync, before frowning at her indignantly. "You're acting like bloody children!"

Mr Irving, who was sitting across from her beside Hazmat, stretched out his hand to lift her slim fingers off the table. He gave her hand a gently squeeze but she got the message: don't draw attention.

She swallowed, nodding sligthly at him but not pulling her hand free. Her hand in his - it felt so comfortable, so right. Shaking her head she quickly drew her fingers away, tucking them into a fist to try and retain his warmth. It was like stockholm syndrome or something, where a person began to feel attracted to the person who was keeping them safe from men with guns. Except now the man keeping Ella safe had a gun and she didn't mind.

When a slight blush licked at her cheeks, Ms Smith admitted to herself that that wasn't entirely true: Anthony hadn't suddenly become attractive in the last 24hrs - he'd been a drop-dead-gorgeous sweetheart for the last year. Unfortunately he'd also been the only single man under 55 on the teaching staff who hadn't asked her out, inlcuding a few prac students who'd mustered the gall after only three days.

Maybe he was gay.

Ella tsk-ed quietly, chiding her internal monologue: just because she was a young, available woman who flirted with him regularly and he was available but had ever asked her out didn't mean he was gay. He could just not be interested.

Or maybe he was dying.

She raised her gaze from her fisted hand, startled to find Anthony's eyes trained on her face. She blushed crimson, feeling the heat in her face as her eyes opened wide. "Sorry?" she squeaked.

Trying to hide a small, confused smile, Mr Irving said, "We were just talking about what we're going to do once the others arrive."

"I thought we were going to..." she paused to make air quotes, "...'we'."

"We are," he smirked, shaking his head, "It's just a matter of how we get to 'we'."

"Geez," Finn moaned, dropping his head into his hands, "Can't we call them something else? Something less confusing?"

"Them?"

"He means 'we'."

"Us?"

"No, them."

"Oh for God's sake!" he huffed, folding his hands across his chest. Adults were useless.

Haz coughed loudly, drawing the attention back to him. "A new car has been left for us in the next town over. We..." his eye twitched as he bit back the word, "the nine of us will drive down there tonight, grab some supplies, switch cars and keep travelling."

Ms Smith shook her head. "I'm sorry to ask this - you have no idea how sorry - but I'm confused: who left the car there?"

The three males sighed in unison, resigned to saying: "'We' did."

Phitz was currently immersed in what he could only call an 'awkward situation'. It was a strange feeling for him: he didn't usually notice them. But in this instance, walking along between a girl whose anger rolled off her in waves so strong you could almost feel the heat and a girl who slunk along in a dejected fashion as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders, the silence was almost painful.

"So," he murmured, coughing when his voice came out scratchy, "Are Macca's ice creams really made of pig fat?"

It was like he'd shaken a can of soft-drink and cracked the lid.

Salena burst into tears again, stopping still as she cupped her face and desperately fought to keep her shoulders from shaking.

"You'd know, you pig!" Carissa spat at him, shoving him roughly in the side. He barely moved, but that didn't stop her assault as she slapped her fists against his side. "You're an absolute arsehole, you know?" She let out a screech of rage. "How dare you stand up for that ragdoll - I thought we were friends!"

Phitz looked between them and sighed. He was too tired for this. He kept walking.

It wasn't until he was nearly ten metres away that he realised theey hadn't followed. In fact, it was eerily quiet behind him. He paused, pivotting on one foot, and stared at them. Their mouths were hanging open, bottom lips quivering - Carrie's as she mouthed insults, Salena's as she swallowed back tears - and Phitz just shrugged at them.

"What?" They continued to look at him blankly, as if expecting him to continue, and by the time Carrie had mustered her thoughts enough to compose a sentence, he had more to say. "What Carrie? You want me to be your 'friend'? You don't have friends. You have step-ladders with mouths." he flapped both hands towards his feet, "People you can walk alll over to get wherever you want and then ignore again. We've never been friends because I've never been useful." He couldn't hold back the ironic smirk, "Until now."

"And Salena," He smiled softly at her, so comfortingly that his next words shocked her, "Pull your head out of your arse. On any other day the damsel-in-distress-thing would be cute," he winked, "but, I don't know if you've noticed, they're aren't any prince charmings around today. So man up, or woman up, or whatever it is you chicks do and pull yourself into line."

Staring at their shocked faces, something occured to Phitz: "Please."

Ebony was ignoring Austen as she marched down the path away from him, her bag firmly slung across one shoulder and her arms wedged under each other. When she had first taken off, Austen had followed, calling her name and urging her to slow down. Realising how stubborn she was, he'd settled for a silent chase, slowly gaining on her as she stomped across the concrete.

Just as he reached her, one arm extended to pull her up, she swung around to face him, hands on hips and eyes alight.

"What the hell?" She demanded, flinching away from his hand as he lowered it back to his side.

"What the hell do you mean 'what the hell'?" Austen gripped the hair near his temples, "Why the hell did you take off?"

"Because I realised I was talking to a crazy person!" She hissed, kicking out at the hedge beside them. It rustled, a few branches groaning in protest that muffled her own quiet roar of rage.

Austen grabbed her arm, pulling her back to face him. "Don't you dare say that. Not after the day we've had. Do you really think I would lie to you after all that has happened?"

Glaring at him, Ebony considered that. "No," she conceded, "which brings me back to my crazy person theory."

"I know how it sounds," he muttered, dragging her towards the side of the path as an ederly couple hobbled past with their dog. He tried to smile at them, but they glanced at each other and hurried past. "Trust me - 24hrs ago I wouldn't have believed my own eyes. But I saw you! Or more to the point I didn't see you..." he shook his head, "I saw you not be there!"

Ebony ran a hand through her hair, staring at the ground as he continued. Her heart had calmed down a fraction, she felt like she could breath again, and she found herself absorbing what Austen was saying.

"I mean, it makes sense. Like under that house earlier - we should have been seen, but we weren't! And Finn was telling me about this woman who is apparently 'like us' and looked twice her age... It makes sense in that it makes no sense!"

If she looked inside herself, past eh raging blood pressure and the muscles that ached with weariness, Ebony couldn't help but agree with him. In fact, if she looked deep enough, she could acknowledge that she hadn't been running from Austen at all, no matter how insane he sounded, but rather the fact that as soon as he'd said it, as soon as he'd put the term invisible in the space between them, she'd thought 'thank god'.

And that had scared her more than anything.

"I get it," she murmured, gripping his upper arm to make sure he stopped talking, "and I'm sorry I ran. But this has been a really long day, so can we drop it for now?"

Austen nodded quickly, placing his hand over hers as he calmed down. "Let's keep moving."

Only a few steps later, they paused again as a strange cry echoed around the corner. Ebony let out an awkward, strangled laugh.

"Well, that was..."

It came again and this time Austen raised a hand to keep her from speaking. Affronted, she glared at him.

"That's Phitz," he muttered, shuffling closer to the hedge and bending over so he was entirely hidden. "It's our paintball warning for when one of us is being ambushed or there's someone up ahead."

"Are you sure?" Ebony asked skeptically, "it sounds like a suffocating sewer rat."

He winced. "It's supposed to be an owl, but the idiot isn't great at bird calls."

"He does seem to have a few screws loose," she muttered, thinking back over the day.

"Hey," Austen's head had snapped in her direction, all humour gone from his expression, "that's my best friend you're talking about."

"But you just said..."

"It doesn't matter what I just said."

Exasperated, Ebony threw her arms in the air. "I give up, you're so strange!"

He snatched her hands out of the air, bringing them down to chest height and pulling her in towards him. "Give up," he murmured, "on a lower level."

Trying not to let the small gap between them throw her off, she raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah..." Austen made a face, "That didn't sound right..." He shrugged, "You know what I mean."

Backing up, he tugged her after him as he found a seam in the foliage between two bushes. Reluctantly, she followed. Just before he pressed his way past, Austen released one of her hands, but not before pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. 

He couldn't resist.