Yes, I'm okay and still updating this story. I greatly appreciate all the concern and worries, as well as the great reviews. I've been a little busy with adjusting to starting grad school in a new city away from home and don't have a lot of time to write.

VII: Jason Asks To Change The Plan Over Basket-Weaving and Fire Drills

They didn't get the coin back.

They didn't even strategize a way to get the coin back.

They ended up sitting outside with their cohort. Each of them in their cliques under the same hot sun with colourful straws to make baskets. The only exception to this rule is Leo who has to sit with Coach since he wounded up building other things like a toy helicopter that actually flew.

And it's still flying circles around them.

"Why are we even weaving baskets?" Leo whines, pressing his fists down on the ball of tangled straw in his lap.

"Maybe you could put your junk in it," a girl yells from the back. Her posse snickers and even neighbouring cliques echo. Piper and Jason glance at each other for a second before smiling at Leo and nodding. Despite the snarky response, it's not completely rude.

Leo didn't seem to notice any of the laughter or his friends' reactions. He looks up and his eyes follow his straw helicopter. " … that's actually a good idea."

Jason tightens his finished straw project that wasn't a basket. It was a flat yet thinly layer straw fan with different colours woven to hold it all together. It expands and shrinks when speed out in opposite directions.

"For you," Jason says, handing it to Piper.

She looks at it for a second, pausing from her basket making. A bead of sweat drips down her temple where strands of her hair stick to her glistening skin. She wipes it with the back of her hand before taking it, spreading the panels out and fanning herself. Jason watches her smile as her chopped baby hairs fly from her forehead and she sighs relieved.

"You're a godsend," Piper comments, fanning Jason. "I now have something to put in my basket."

He laughs a bit before turning the fan back at her. He picks up some extra straw in front of him and starts making a basket before Coach does his supervision rounds and yells at him for not even starting. He seems preoccupied with some of the boys in the back making shanks.

Piper fiddles with her fan. "So you've been here for a month. That means I've known you for a month and we've been friends for said month, but I feel like I don't know you."

Jason shrugs, focusing on his basket. At this point, he doesn't even know himself so he doesn't know what to tell her.

"Leo told me you don't know why you're here," Piper whispers, scooting closer to him.

She moved so nobody could hear them and disguises their conversation by taking a hold of his basket and weaving some straw for him. Their fingers graze, neither making and progress in actually making the basket, but instead trying to subtly avoid or even get closer to the other person. He pinches the neckline of his t-shirt and puffs it out for cool air. It doesn't help that his heart pounds faster and heats his body in the burning sun. Sweat forms against his hairline as he looks away from her.

Jason's breath hitches and he lets go, rolling his shoulders back and taking a breath. Piper holds a flat piece of straw and glances up at him. Her face is so soft and genuine when she speaks, almost compelling him to converse with her because he wants to. If only he had more to say.

"I don't," Jason mutters.

"He said you woke up in the Headmaster's office," Piper continues.

Jason nods. "I did."

Despite it being a month, it hasn't felt that long. Oddly, it feels as though he was here forever or just got here last night. The lack of memories somehow distorts time alongside the never-changing setting, people, and routine. He doesn't completely hate it. He loves knowing what to do when and for how long. He loves a routine. He would only appreciate it more if he didn't have a blank space of how he got here and where he was before.

"I hope you don't mind that he told me," Piper says. "I don't know if you wanted me to know. Leo wanted to know if I knew anything from my old cohort although I don't know why he would think that."

"Honestly, you two know as much as I do," Jason admits. Despite the fear of the unknown, it's comforting to have two people on the same undetailed page as him.

"I know you don't know but why are you here? You don't wind up at the Wilderness School until people are out of options for you."

"I didn't even have options that I know of."

"Nobody is here on their own accord." Piper grins snarkily. "Everyone's here for a reason and we'll find out. This is the dangerous cohort, after all. Robbery? Drugs? Gangs? Arson? Murder? Dateline stuff."

Jason narrows his eyes at her. "What's with you? What's Dateline?"

Another bead of sweat drips down Piper's temple and she leaves it, wiping it with her knuckles when it reaches the corner of her lips. "Jason, if anyone asks you anything about your past, make it up. Especially after being here for a month. I hear people whispering and they have been for quite some time. Don't tell them you don't know anything. Hell, give them a different story each time."

"Why do you say that?"

Piper's eyes move from him to the basket. "They'll find a way to use it against you. They did it to me, to Leo - sometimes not knowing anything means they have ground to make things up. And you can't deny it because then you'd have to prove it's wrong and you can't. There used to be a girl here named Jo, short for Josephine. She got relocated after attempting to strangle someone here. She had a snake tattoo going up her arm and across her back so we all thought she was affiliated with a gang. She couldn't prove she wasn't since a lot of gang emblems are snakes, right? And nobody would believe her. Turns out she just loves snakes and her ink was a long lost family pet. I asked her when she was packing to leave since she was down the hall from me at the time. The point is, at least if they're spreading something fake in your control, you'll have something over them. It's a waste of their time. That's how places like this work. Stories eventually become truth and we live by them until we believe them."

Jason nods, glancing at the other cliques in their cohort. Some range from eating the straw, braiding it in each other's hair, making bracelets, and no more weapon-making. He doesn't know how any of them ended up here, not even how Leo and Piper got her. He wonders if any of them somehow know the truth or what rumours they're conspiring with each other over their straw appetizers and hair styling appointments.

"Leo said the same thing to me when he told me people would ask," Jason says when he looks back at her. "What'd they do to you? To Leo?"

Piper smiles. "Limited tech privileges for them and they seized the chance to Google. My name brings up everything you need to know on the first page. Leo's was more of a deep dive. Everyone's watching you, Jason. You're too handsome, too good, too smart to be here."

"You're too beautiful, and too smart, and too good. What's your excuse?"

Piper freezes, eyes dart away as her cheeks redden more than they already were from the heat. She wipes her forehead. " … the difference between you and me is that you don't even understand why you wounded up here, or so you say but I believe you. I knew the consequences of my actions; well, except this school."

Jason pulls back. He didn't consider that. Nobody knows why he's here but that doesn't mean they don't know why they're here. Unlike him, they were mentally present for the whole trip here and the events leading to it.

Piper returns to weaving the basket up until Jason takes it back so she looks at him. Her expression is sharper this time, brows focused and gaze pointed as she faces him.

"Help me," Jason pleads, "I need to know as much as you do."

"I never said I wanted to know," Piper says before grinning. "I'm curious but that's your business. If you want to tell me, you can."

Jason smiles as Piper takes back the basket and starts adding some purple straw, braiding it with some orange strands.

"If only I knew what to tell you," Jason says.

"Okay, fine, I'll help. Where do we start?"

"Finishing these baskets? Then we're getting my coin back."

Coach's yelling causes them to jump in the spot as if Coach heard them about to strategize. They turn around and see Coach yelling at the boys for eating the straw before starting to gnaw on it himself.

"What if these baskets are just us making Coach lunch?" Jason asks.

Piper licks a straw before shrugging. "Kinda bland if you ask me, but better than what they're feeding us here so maybe he's onto something."

"So, Piper, I take it that your dad ran out of options."

Piper nods, keeping a piece of straw in her mouth. "I'd like to think he didn't exhaust the other ones first."

"McLean!" Coach yells. "Grace! Stop chatting, chomping, and start crafting!"

Everyone turns their way and starts cooing encouraging at how close they are to each other. Piper and Jason immediately scoot in opposite directions before looking down to focus on their baskets.

"We'll talk later," Piper whispers, spitting out the straw.

-o-

Everyone heads back inside the school with their baskets or straw piles in an orderly fashion. Before Coach could give their next order, the fire alarm goes off. Coach immediately barks into his megaphone, barely louder than the blaring alarm. The cohort turns on their feet and starts heading back outside, just when they thought the weak AC started cooling them off.

"I didn't think those worked in here!" Piper yells as she, Jason, and Leo start heading back outside.

The orderly fashion has morphed into crowds as people pushed and shoved to get back outside. Sweaty bodies and damp clothes slam against each other, crushing arms and baskets.

"I didn't think the school would have any," Jason responds as he pulls Piper closer to him so she doesn't get lost in the crowd. Piper grins at him.

"I bet Leo set it off," one of the kids yells as their clique laughs. Even the neighbouring groups join in the cackle.

"Hey!" Coach screams at them. "Ten laps, now! All of you!"

After a series of whines, everyone except Leo, Jason, and Piper drop their dented baskets and straw and head over to the track. Not everyone runs, but Coach doesn't reprimand them.

Through the now faint sound of the alarm, Leo slides down against the metal fence, small holes tear into his sweater until he reaches the ground. His face is distant, looking off but not at anything. His hands rest on the ground at his sides without fidgeting with anything in his pockets, not even his flying straw helicopter.

Arson? Jason mouths, glancing at Piper and her face is solemn as she softly nods.

"Hey, Leo," Jason says, kneeling beside him. "Piper and I were talking. We'll be taking a different direction with our revenge plan and finding out why I'm here."

Leo's eyes spark as they look at him, a maniacal smile crawling on his face. "Go on."

And we'll see what that entails in the next chapter!