Back inside, Eddie had ducked into Rachel's office only to pause in confusion, taken aback when he found it empty. He turned to Bridget in confusion, but she only shrugged at him. "I haven't seen her."

Odd, he thought. He murmured an acknowledgement, backtracked and headed down to the hall. That was empty too, and despite the fact that there were a hundred possibilities of where Rachel had gotten to, unease trickled through him. She'd told him she planned to use this time to complete some unfinished paperwork before the end of term, carving out the only minutes of the day where she wasn't expected elsewhere.

So where was she?

Eddie walked the corridors, gaze flicking into rooms as he searched for the headteacher. Tom looked up as he passed by his classroom, doing a double take when he saw the look on Eddie's face. "Eddie? Something wrong?" He poked his head out the door, caused the man to swing around to face him.

"Not sure. You haven't seen Rachel, have you?"

Tom shook his head. "Should I have?"

"No. Don't worry about it." Eddie took off again, checked the staffroom, the pastoral office, even checked with their visitors. But there was no sign of Rachel and eventually he ended up back where he started, and the faint unease was rapidly worsening into full blown worry. Eddie had no good reason for it, but his instincts were screaming at him and over so many years of teaching, he'd learnt to listen to them.

On the off-chance that they'd passed each other, he rechecked Rachel's office, but it was still empty and for the longest moment, he stood there, staring at the empty desk. Something was wrong. He didn't know why he thought so, couldn't think of a single good reason beyond not being able to track down a single person in a relatively large school, but he was growing more and more certain of it with every passing minute. Now the only question was what to do about it?

Rachel looked around helplessly, aware that the entire school could possibly go up in flames at any given moment. She clung to the wires as she tried with all her might to shift them, aware that Candeece was frozen in place and unable to do much other than chew her nails as the tears slipped down her cheeks. She really didn't have her down as the worrying type, but she seemed beyond help at this point and Rachel knew she really was alone. She wanted to kick and scream at the gate, but knew it was no good. She needed to get out, to warn the kids in some way that they needed to get out of the school. The staff... Eddie. Seconds away from climbing the fence with that thought in mind, the man in question came into view whilst calling her name. "Eddie!" She called him over, letting out tears of relief as their eyes locked and he immediately set about getting her out of the space she'd been locked in. It was probably only a few seconds, mere minutes at most. But it felt like a lifetime, and she truly did see her entire future flash before her eyes as she fought to think of a way out of the situation.

Eddie was confused to say the least, Candeece barely saying a word as she bolted past them both as soon as the gate was unlocked. He looked back to Rachel then, saw the fear etched onto her face as she continued to look around frantically. "Rach, what on earth…?"

"Stuart." She really didn't have time to explain all of this, needed to think fast. Only when you did teaching training, dealing with psycho businessmen was not on the list. Working out how to stop a school from burning down does not follow on the agenda after behaviour techniques. She was out of her depth, and time was running out.

"What?"

"Eddie we don't have time- the fire, and the gas..." She didn't know exactly what was going to happen, but it had the potentially to quite literally explode in their faces if she didn't move quickly.

"Huh?" Only she didn't need to explain anymore, he heard the gas and saw the small flame as it moved towards the canister. It was following a trail of cardboard, and Eddie could spot a recipe for disaster a mile away. He kicked some cardboard out of the way, but the flames were soon building around them. He reached for his phone then, not stopping to think as he dialled the number for the emergency services. "Rach, go and sound the alarm. Get the kids out before this gets any worse."

"I can't..." She knew she needed to go, but how could she walk away knowing that Eddie wouldn't be following her? It was like trading places, and she found herself wishing that he hadn't come looking for her after all, not if it meant putting himself at risk instead.

When Eddie spoke again, there was a note of franticness in his voice. "You have to go! Now!" He risked a glance at her, saw her frozen, expression distraught and torn. "Rachel, you're the headteacher!"

A simple enough phrase, but one the spoke a thousand words to her. And one that broke through, forced her to take a step back, and then another, and another. "You get hurt," she said shakily, "I'll never forgive you."

And she turned and rushed away, leaving Eddie with a peculiar mix of relief and fear. Not that he had any time to process that- he turned back to the flames, continued to try and divert them away from the cannisters. As he did, however, the fire alarm started to blare, but Rachel wouldn't have made it inside yet, he recognised in faint confusion, before the obvious answer hit him. Candeece.

It had occurred to Rachel too, the bell making her jump before she sent up a silent prayer that it would be enough. She hurried to the canteen, where the cannisters were closest to, ushering kids out as fast as she could without alarming them. None of them were afraid, used to drills and practices and entirely unaware that this was anything more than that. "Come on," she encouraged, desperately fighting to moderate her tone, "the year group lined up most quickly wins."

Paul looked at her curiously. "Wins what?"

"It's a surprise," she invented quickly. "Now move."

Finally, as she stood looking around, she was alone and the sheer relief made it difficult to stand. But she did, because even if the kids were out of immediate danger, she had no idea how many were left in the building. She strode up the corridor, desperately trying to remember how long it usually took to evacuate. Ten minutes? Fifteen? How long had she even been in here for?

The explosion sent her to her knees.

For a long moment, she could only gasp. It was a bad idea, smoke had immediately begun to fill the corridor and she'd never realised just how noisy flames in a burning building could be. Nor how quickly vision could be obscured, and she was already blinking uselessly against the smoke as she pushed to her feet, wincing, until without warning, a horrific thought struck her. "Eddie!"