So let's play the where-the-heck-were-they game.

I'm looking at google maps and the diner was in a state near misouri… and now they're well…. Places. That you'll find out in coming chaps. But it's like an eleven hour drive. So in the last chap they drove like 15 hours after the diner. Alright? Coolio.

Shh don't question it

Charlie

"Come on, Guys, this way!" Willa pulled us further into the dark forest.

"We have to find-"

"We'll find them later! Jessie, how're you holding up. You okay? Breathing okay?"

Jess nodded a little. Her face was red. She was in between me and Wills, an arm around both of us, and we were practically dragging her along.

"Char… Did we… lose…." Jess managed.

"I think they're gone, Jessie, but it's better to be safe, okay?"

"Mh…"

Shots echoed through the woods. Jess tensed.

"No! We didn't lose them!" Willa screeched. "Come on, guys- this way. Look, a river."

Sure enough, up ahead was a narrow channel of roaring waters. It was a big enough river; nothing at all like the Hudson or the larger parts of the Mississippi, but maybe twenty feet wide, flowing a muddy brown, and flowing fast.

"Muddy brown. Means it's got a strong current… It's probably deep enough." Willa mumbled, bringing us up to the side. She squinted at the woods behind us.

"Enough for what?" I said, quickly. I could hear the shouts of the green army men- Toy Story- chasing us.

"We're going for a swim."

"Willa, it's snowing!"

"Don't think about it. It's this, or get shot. Would you rather die?"

I bit my lip.

"That is not for you to think about, you're not dying. You focus on swimming, alright? Follow the current. I've got Jess."

Willa and Jess jumped in. As they surfaced, Jess' groan of protest made me second guess this.

Gunshots behind me. Swimming sounds nice, suddenly.

I closed my eyes and jumped.

I've been hit by lightning shot from an evil green sorceress before.

This, I've decided, is undoubtedly and undeniably worse.

Underwater, I screeched, bubbles floating from my mouth to the top. My skin seemed frozen, my skull shattering like ice and my eyes freezing over in my head. It felt like it, at least. I swam desperately for the top, feeling the current pulling me along. As I surfaced, I found Willa, Jess on her back.

"Willa I'm going to kill you!"

"Shut up and swim!"

I followed her as the river swept us away at an insanely quick speed. We stayed in the river until Willa could not support both her and Jess anymore.

"Out we go." Willa finally groaned, swimming over to the side. I got out, helping Jess out, and then Willa.

We sat, shivering, on the river bank.

"Wh-Where are we?" Jess whispered.

"I have… no clue…" I muttered.

"Where's…" Jess looked up at me and Willa. "Wh-Where's Manda?"

I opened my mouth, but found no words. Willa grabbed Jess' arm.

"Sweetie, I don't… I don't know. We'll go back. But chances are, the OT's drove them away, too." Willa said, her voice pained.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we'll go look for them."

"You're saying we're not going to find them!" Jess ripped her arm out of Willa's grasp. "This is your fault! We should've gone back for them!"

Jess stood, and stormed into the woods. Willa gritted her teeth and kicked at the ground.

"How many Lockharts can I possibly get to hate me in one week?" She smiled grimly, chucking a rock she'd been absentmindedly playing with into the water. She put her head in her hands. "Damn it!"

My mouth fell open. I took a breath. "Uh. Wills, you sit here, don't… Don't move. I'm going to go get Jess."

She just shrugs, sitting. Extremely mad. Fuming, actually.

I bite my lip, jogging after Jess.

It didn't take me long to find her.

She's on the ground, sitting with her knees pulled to her chest. Her shoulders were shaking, and I could tell she's crying.

"Jess." I crouched next to her, putting a hand on her back.

"G-Go away!" She managed to get out. "Just go away!"

"Jess…" I pulled her into a hug.

"We're never… Never gonna find her!" she was crying too hard to talk.

"Manda?"

"Yeah! Or any of them!"

I sighed.

"You don't know that."

"Charlie, it's like the freaking apocalypse for us!" She yelled.

"We'll see if we can, like track them. This won't last forever. They're gonna cure all those people, and we'll go home, Jess."

"Are you delusional!?"

"It'll be okay, Je-"

"You are. You're delusional." She laughed, harshly. The last of her tears slid down her face; now her face was cold and angry.

"Jess-"

"Don't you get it?" She laughed. "We're not going to see them. Ever. No cell phones, no means of communication- We're in hiding. And we're going to die! Don't you understand? Three sixteen-year-old girls living alone. On the streets. In the woods. We've got no-"

Three sixteen-year-old… Wait a second.

"Two sixteen-year-olds." I laughed. Because it was funny. It was funny in such a terrible way.

"What."

"Two sixteen-year-olds." I smiled at the ground, but it turned into a glare. I shook my head. "It's my birthday."

"…Oh."

"My freaking birthday. I'm seventeen. Some freaking present."

Finn

I opened my eyes, and jumped to my feet. The world blurred and I nearly fell over, but I fought the feeling and stayed on my feet.

"…ie…. Jessie!" I heard. "JESSIE! GUYS!"

I quickly found the source of the voice. Amidst the splinters of trees was Amanda, weakly wandering around.

"Jessica!" She screeched.

"Amanda- sshhh!" I ran over to her. "Amanda, she'll hear you-"

"Maleficent's gone." She whispered. "A-And I looked everywhere- everywhere for Jessie, for all of them! They're gone, too, Finn, what if-"

"No, they're safe. Amanda, don't worry. Come on, we'll keep looking." I put an arm around her shaking shoulders. She sighed, looking down.

"This is where we were supposed to meet up with them." She said.

"Then they couldn't have gone far."

"You're right- look." Phil split into our conversation. "Hate to interrupt, but footprints. Right there."

He and Maybeck were standing fifteen feet away, facing opposite us.

I looked at Amanda. "See?" I smiled. "Don't worry."

…

"They must've jumped in the river." Phil said. "To get away. From whatever's chasing them. Or, was chasing them."

"Whatever it is, we better hope it's long gone." Maybeck groaned.

Oh god, I hope so. I walked around the clearing next to the water. Footprints, yeah. Way too many to just be the three girls. Heavy boots, by the looks of it. Maybe five or six more people? I sighed. Something caught the light near Amanda's foot, and I quickly crouched.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

"Guys." I muttered, picking them up. Shells. Green shells. Bullet casings, as in, already fired.

Heavy boots, guns. Closely working with Maleficent.

Green-eyed Cops? OT Swat team? No, she wouldn't trust them enough. She's not dumb.

"Green bullets? Festive for a green hag whose only intent right now is to kill seven children." Maybeck grumbled.

Green… "Army guys." I stood up. "From Toy Story. Green army guys. They chased Willa in MGM a few years ago- green army guys."

"With green guns." Amanda squeaked.

I nodded. "And green bullets."

"What if-"

"Don't worry. I'm sure they're fine. I don't think this was to kill us, Manda, Maleficent could've done that way too easily when we were all unconscious."

"Unless she didn't because she was hurt."

"There'd be blood."

"And what if they… got hit… in the river?"

"Bodies float." I said. Amanda jumped. Bodies. Not exactly the best word I could've used.

"Floating anything would be carried down the river."

"I think Willa, at least, would've known bullets basically shatter at the impact of water." Philby said. Then, to explain. "Hydrogen bonding. At that speed, the bullet's basically hitting a brick wall, because the hydrogen molecules-"

"Philby." Maybeck grumbled.

"Sorry. Willa's in advanced chem, so she knows that, and she's on the swim team. So she's a good swimmer. My guess is it was her idea to get to the river. She probably had Jess on her back, and had Charlie swim underwater as much as possible. They're not dead, we'd know. And they're probably… Upstream." Philby smiled. "We just follow the river and we'll have them, if they stayed put. Which I'm sure they did."

We smiled.

"Thanks, Doctor P." Maybeck laughed.

"No need to make fun." Philby raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Phil, I don't know where we'd be without you." Amanda smiled, pulling him into a hug.

Willa

"We just have to go back to the highway. From there we go back to where we were waiting. Simple." I said.

"But my hair is f-frozen solid." Charlie grumbled.

"Well that's not going to change by sitting here, Hun, come on, we have to move." I said, helping Jess to her feet. She was shaking, her clothes frozen. She glared at me. "We're going to find them." I whispered.

Her face softened, and I pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry, Jess-"

"Don't be." She returned the hug. "You saved my ass." She laughed. I smiled.

"Come on, the highway should be this way." We made our way away from the river.

The highway was… on fire.

Well, not the whole thing. It was just smoldering in some areas. Our truck, however, was on its side, charred, dented and…. As dead as an inanimate object could be. Seeing this, Jess' breath caught, and she ran (more like stumbled) to the car as fast as she could. We followed.

"They're not in there. Thank god." Jess mumbled.

"Alright, that's good. They must've gone back into the woods. We're gonna meet up with them."

"Jess, is your bag in here? Pain meds?" Charlie asked.

"I wish. My arm feels like it's going to fall off."

"Don't worry." I sighed. "At this rate, we won't be able to feel our limbs within ten minutes." I treied to stop my teeth from chattering. "Are there blankets in there? Clothes?"

"Mostly destroyed." Jess shook her head. "But there's a good one."

Charlie pulled it out. It was a little charred at one end, but it'd have to do.

"Alright. You two share it." I said. I started toward the woods.

"Wills," Charlie said, quickly. "We'll take turns, me and you."

"Okay."

The clearing where we'd been waiting before the army men came was… well, cleared. Gutted. Splinters of trees were everywhere, and a few were on their sides.

"Manda got mad." Jess mumbled. "Or scared." She added, more nervous.

"Don't worry; we'd see blood if there was a fight."

"But they're not here. What do we do?" Charlie whispered.

I looked down.

"We could stay here the night." I said. "Start a fire to get warm- but keep in mind. Risk of frostbite and hypothermia… almost a hundred percent, really. We stay here and we wait, we freeze to death."

"We can't leave." Jess whispered. "We… we can't."

"We can't stay, Jessie."

"Don't call me that. And I'm not leaving Manda. I'm not."

I sighed, looking down.

Philby, Finn, Maybeck, Amanda… We leave, we're guaranteed never to find them. We stay, we're guaranteed to get sick and die.

Phil… I felt my breath catch. My tears clouded my vision. Phil. I'd be abandoning him, and my brothers, and my sister. I put my head in my hands, ready to throw something. I shook my head.

Charlie and Jess sat huddled, Jess sobbing and Charlie trying to help. That's it. They're my main priority right now. I have to help them. She's hurt; Jess is, I mean, and I have to start thinking like it's just us. Because it very well may be just us.

My chest tightened.

No, I'll cry for them later.

For now I have to step up. I have to keep Jess and Char safe.

"No." I said. "We're leaving, right now. Chances are, they went away from the road thinking we got pushed back. To safer ground. We can't sit here all night. We either have to keep moving to stay warm, or we have to find a place to get us warm.

"Willa!" Jess yelled.

"Jess, you've lost tons of blood over the past few days; you're weak. You wouldn't make the night." I whispered, feeling my eyes tear up. "And I'm not letting you die, okay? So stop arguing. We're going. Now."

She clenched her fists.

"They probably went that way, Jess." Charlie tried. Good, she's on my side. Two-against-one if we voted, even if we can't get Jess to agree. "It's the smartest thing to do, they probably figured we'd do it, too. Come on."

Jess looked as pained as I felt. But she mumbled a quick "Fine." And started in the direction I'd pointed.

This is going to be a long night.

….

Whoaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh Willa's takin charge here!

And oh god, they're going totally separate ways? O.O

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