Blaine was smart, I had to give him that. The personalities that came with my meals that week had all been laced with some kind of killer instinct. The kickboxer, the alcoholic from yesterday and now a murderer?

"Is everything okay?" Lowell's voice calmed me for a moment, but then I remembered why I was sitting next to him in the first place and started freaking out internally all over again.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's great," I reassured him, resting a hand on his knee before I could stop myself. "I was just... I think my blood sugar might be a little low."

"I have just the thing for that," Lowell replied and produced a bag of food from under his seat. I instantly regretted using the low blood sugar excuse. Whatever he gave me would taste like sand and I would have to pretend to enjoy it.

Lowell finished rummaging in the bag and pulled out a packet of chips. "Do you like spicy food?"

I couldn't stop my eyes from widening when I saw the giant packet of chilli potato chips. They were the ridiculously spicy ones, which were, coincidentally, the only kind I could actually taste. "I love spicy food."

"Me too," he said, opening the packet and offering it to me. "The best thing about it is that the others can't handle this level of burn, so they never steal my food."

I thanked him and took some. Between the two of us, we chowed our way through the entire packet before we even got to our next rest stop.

* * *

The last time I'd been camping was at least seven years ago. It had been a family affair at some campsite near a beach and all I remember is that I spent the entire weekend in my tent, reading, while Evan bugged me to come out and build sand castles with him.

The campsite we were staying at for the weekend looked a good deal more exciting to me. Or perhaps the psycho in my head just enjoyed nature. Either way, I couldn't stop smiling. "Nice place, isn't it?" Lowell said to me, hauling a bag out of the boot of the van.

I nodded in agreement and took it upon myself to carry one of the tents. "I'll take that," Carson said with a grin, closing a hand around the handle of the tent bag.

And I would have let him take it, if he weren't such a jerk. "I've got it," I said firmly. I may have looked small, but a lifetime of lugging around heavy textbooks had kept me far from frail.

Before he could spout a wisecrack about me being fiesty or something, I tugged the bag from his grasp. It was heavy and with each step towards our allocated patch of grass, my arms were pulled further out of their sockets. Ren was already there with the other tent. While I was recovering, he explained how the tents were going to be set up. I tried my best to listen over the ringing in my ears.

"Carson giving you a hard time?" Lowell asked as he approached.

I shook my head. "No, just being an idiot."

"So nothing out of the ordinary, then."

Lowell had a mischievous kind of grin that drew my eyes to his face. I dropped my gaze.

"Ren said this one will go over there," I said, pointing, and we all got to work, setting up the tents. It quickly turned into a race: the team to set up their tent last had to do the dishes. It was a stupid contest, seeing as dinner was pizza and doing the dishes would consist of throwing away the empty boxes, but it was enough to get us going.

I was on a team with Lowell and Holly. We quickly found out that I was pretty useless at deciphering the instructions, so Holly took on the roles of both team captain and cheerleader. Lowell and I were the manual labour and with Holly leading us, we wrestled, pegged and swore our way through it.

Unfortunately, we weren't fast enough.

"That's not fair," Lowell said, folding his arms. "We got the noob." He stabbed a thumb in my direction.

"That is not fair," I said, punching him good-naturedly in the upper arm. "You were the one who kept sticking everything in the wrong hole."

Carson wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at me.

"Tonight, while you're sleeping, I'm going to pour soap into your ear to clean out that filthy brain of yours," Eliza said, whacking him in the head with the instruction manual.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and when I saw Blaine's name on the screen, every trace of a smile disappeared from my face. I quickly plastered on a fake grin as I read the message.

"Drunk night hike. Tonight. Trail 1."

My fingers trembled as I typed a reply. "Car accident tomorrow?"

"Hike. Tonight. Remember what you came here for."

Blaine had me in the palm of his hand. He'd only given me enough brains to last me three more days. Four, at a pinch. That wasn't nearly enough time to find another no-questions-asked source of brains.

This made me remember the empty skull of the body in the graveyard. How many reasons could there be for a missing brain?

If there was a zombie feeding at the graveyard - assuming he or she was an independent zombie and was not just collecting brains for Blaine - surely I could make contact?

No. Maybe later, but now it was too late.

"Parents?" Lowell asked.

I nearly dropped my phone. "Yeah," I replied shakily. "Just telling them I arrived safely." My cheeks coloured - well, as much as they could. "I wish they would just stop. They know I can take care of myself."

"I think it's sweet that they keep in touch," he said. "They care about you." He put his hands in his pockets and looked right at me. "And I don't blame them."