"Talk about how the police were trying to kill us, huh? Why did you just sound like you were asking about the weather?" noticed Logan.

"They weren't trying to kill us," said Carter.

Everyone's eyes shot up on him as if he was a lunatic.

"They were shooting at us. With guns." Maddy spoke slowly, as if he was stupid.

"Incorrect. They were shooting at our feet. At the floor, you know? That means they weren't trying to kill us. They wanted us alive. They were just trying to immobilize us and capture us."

"Since when is that considered to be your 'feet'?" asked Maddy, pointing at his injured biceps.

"That was an accident. It happened when I fell on the floor to get to you, behind the sofa."

"Then what about this, huh?" Maddy's fingers traced her cheekbone, feeling the rough surface of a scar, smeared with dried blood. A bullet had whizzed right by her cheek, close enough to leave a burn and something a little more than a scratch.

Carter looked at it unaffected. "Collateral damage," he said.

Maddy's jaw went slack, then set. "Are you even-"

"Look, most of the bullets were fired low, okay? Maybe not all of them, but most of them were fired low. Besides, they can't just kill us out of the blue. Even if we're 'outlaws' or whatever they want to call us, we still have the right to a trial or something. Who the fuck kills a teenager for not being vaccinated?"

Maddy thought about it. She hadn't really been paying attention to the direction of the bullets. Just the fact that there were bullets being fired in the house was enough for her to guess they were trying to kill them.

Back then, her panic made her judgement and eyesight blurry, and with all that deafening sound of gunfire ringing through her ears, she had just assumed the bullets were being shot to kill. It was a logical assumption her subconscious had made on its own, without the interference of her brain. It was her gut, her instinct telling her that her life was at stake. Not her mind assessing the situation and measuring the height of the bullets.

Now, however, when all she could hear was the rustle of the tree leaves and the wind, and the distant sound of flowing water -perhaps there was a river nearby- she wasn't so sure. What if they were just terrorising them, trying to get them scared enough to surrender? What if they just wanted to shoot them on the leg so they couldn't run away? When she thought about it, they were professionals. She had to believe that if they wanted them dead, they would be dead. Only they were still alive.

But even if she believed what Carter was saying, something was still off. "Still, that doesn't change the fact they were shooting at five teenagers. The police doesn't have the right to do that just like that-"

"Do you really think that was the police back there?" asked Carter, huffing a half-hearted, sarcastic laugh that sounded more like a bark.

Maddy went still, her eyes locking on his. "What do you mean?" was all she could get out as she processed what he had just implied.

As for those students who are in hiding, as you mentioned, we will find them, sooner or later, and vaccinate them. Harper Max's voice played in her head. After all, their parents seem to be very eager to help us track them.

Maddy's lips parted. No. It can't be.

Hell, she bet he had won a freaking scholarship. He had mended all the pieces together and gone through all the details of their last adventure before she could even pull herself back together and get her brain to work again.

"You think it was FROST," she said in one breath.

"I don't think it was FROST. I know it. I'm sure of it."

"FROST?" questioned Sia, not quite believing that. "That's impossible. They'd need permission from the police to use guns against us. And besides, we're just five teenagers, you said it yourself. And for all they knew we were unarmed. Which we weren't, but that's another topic. Anyways, it doesn't make sense for them to treat us like some dangerous assassins."

"Nothing does at this point." Logan sighed and pressed his fingertips against his temples in unspoken tension.

"No, he's right. Carter's right," observed Maddy, biting her lower lip in profound thinking. "It was FROST. The police play no role in this. FROST has become a worldwide organisation. Their influence has reached an international level. The police is just FROST'S puppet, just like it was the government's puppet. But now FROST is the government. FROST is the upper crust of society, of the entire world. The police chasing after us back in London was just for the show. They are running the game. FROST is pulling the strings."

"Still... I mean, how did they find us?" wondered Sia out loud.

"Isn't it obvious? Logan's parents stabbed us in the back." Mia squinted at the trees outside the window, the little sun barely filtered between the thick branches.

"They fucking did." Logan covered his eyes with his hands, rubbing them gently. "Not that I expected better of them."

Maddy looked at him as he swallowed yet another letdown by his parents—because it was clear this wasn't the first time.

Everybody has a chapter they don't read out loud, Mads...

"They were literally shooting at us a couple of hours ago," reminded them Mia. "I don't care if they wanted us dead or alive. It's all the same if you ask me. Because even if they had just 'captured' us, as you said, they are doing all of this for one reason: to get us vaccinated. And using violence for medical purposes just doesn't sit right with me. It makes absolutely no fucking sense. I mean, think about it. The vaccine is supposed to be some form of protection against the virus. Which it isn't, but that's another topic. And they were shooting at us because they want us to get vaccinated, right? So, essentially, doesn't that mean they were shooting at us under the pretext of... protecting us? That's sick. Plus, for all we know, even if we hadn't died by their bullets earlier, we could die from the vaccine. Like that girl died."

Maddy shivered. Had that girl really died back in the detention classroom?

"Why are they pushing it so fucking much?" Logan threw his hands up in the air, unable to make anything out of the mess of holes and gaps in that whole scenario.

"They want something from us. This is not just about getting us vaccinated. They want something else, something more than that." Carter casually ran his left hand through his hair, but the pain made him draw a sharp breath that resembled a whistle.

Maddy took that statement in, her brain absorbing it like a sponge absorbs water. But the only thing she got was another unanswerable question, another dead end.

What do they want from us?

Everybody in that car was asking themselves that very question.

Considering that, she lay back and asked: "Where are we gonna go now?"

"Will you stop asking that question?" groaned Carter.

"No."

Mia sat back, cocked her head to the side in an angle that Maddy could swear was calculated to expose her neck in the most flattering, sluttiest way.

Comes with years of practice and experience, I bet. Maddy fought the urge to snort.

"I've got an idea," said Mia, smiling devilishly.

"Spill it," prompted her Sia.

Mia's smirk got wider. "Let's go skinny dipping."

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