"Where'd you get it?" Rhett asked, squatting down to get a closer look at the baby animal. While the rest of the group was more confused as to why Charlie Jane had a bird, Rhett seemed hung up on the topic of getting one himself.

"I just found it," the girl replied, a warm smile parting on her lips while gently patting small animal in her arms. "Isn't he adorable?"

"CJ, how do you even know it's a 'he?'" Kingston butted in, craning his neck while he tried to get a glimpse of the bird that everyone was so hung up about. He kept his eyes glued on it for a moment before his eyes flitted back up to Charlie Jane, expecting for her to have some sort of ridiculously specific answer (which, 'surprisingly,' she didn't).

"Because I say so."

Everyone had sort of discarded the entire idea of fishing at that point, having become so consumed by the pint-sized bird that the original reason why they were out entirely slipped their minds. No one even thought about it until Juniper brought it up again, which was mostly because she was hungry.

"Okay, know what— fine CJ," she said with a bit of a groan, her eyes flicking back to the direction of where they were supposed to be going. "You can keep the bird... Now we just have to get back on track so that we can grab a bite to eat before it gets dark."

She was right. While the sun hadn't yet begun to tarnish the blueness of the sky, it was on the brink of doing so, meaning that they had a quite limited amount of time to go fishing before getting a move on.

Charlie Jane smiled, about to explode with happiness as she skipped along the path behind Juniper, holding onto the terrified bird in the process.

Once they were finally focused on where they were supposed to go (excluding Charlie Jane, of course), it seemed like they had arrived in the blink of an eye. It was a surprisingly peaceful sight, actually; the water weaved through the rocks, glittering with sunlight while it did so. The water was surprisingly calm, especially after such a large storm, and there were loads of colorful salmon jumping out.

"You guys ready?" Juniper asked, seeming a little excited as she kicked off her shoes and she kept her gaze on the water. She eventually glanced back at the group with a bit of a smile, rolling up her denim shorts a little before she began to wade into the water.

"Hell yeah!" Charlie Jane said eagerly, a hint of a "duh" tone lacing her voice. A smile parted on her lips as she glanced over at Rhett, slowly handing him the little bird.

"Do you want to watch out for Kentucky?" The girl batted her eyes, almost as a way of trying to convince the boy to say yes. She wasn't thinking about the absurdity of the name, although Rhett seemed to take notice.

He gently grabbed the bird from her and watched curiously as it hobbled over to a more comfortable position against him. To his surprise, "Kentucky" didn't exactly melt or calm down in his arms, and he frowned a little. He cooed and tried to rock the chick gently, but it seemed to be a bit of a stubborn baby who refused to fall asleep or anything.

"Why'd you name it Kentucky?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the restless little bird. He felt like a mother.

"Well... it's a bird," Charlie Jane started with a bit of a shrug. She knew that it was obviously a bird, which meant that it would be a good point to make. "And... well, KFC has some pretty good chicken... and, if that doesn't click for you, a chicken is also a bird."

Rhett paused. He looked at the shivering bundle of feathers before looking back up at Charlie Jane, a both disgusted and shocked look playing on his face.

"Wait a minute... you..." All of the points began to click while he shook his head. "CJ, that's literally the most messed up thing that I've heard in my entire fifteen years of existence."

Charlie Jane shrugged a little as she hopped to take off one of her boots. "I try."

Eventually, three out of six kids were knee-deep in the water, looking like wannabe ballerinas while they leapt after the fish in the water. It was almost like a game.

"You ready, Juniper?" Finn asked with a chuckle, crouching a little as he eyed one of the many fish swimming downstream.

"Which one are we going for?"

"The really big one."

"Well, that narrows it down."

"No, that really big one."

Her eyes gazed upon the salmon-infested water before she caught sight of an extremely large fish about as long as her legs. She murmured a "damn" under her breath as it began to swim in their direction.

"How do we..." she started, looking up at Finn.

Finn kept his eyes trained on the animal, squinting a little in concentration as it moved toward them.

"I'd think we just grab it," he said a little unsurely, although he eventually nodded. "Yeah. That's what we'll do."

The salmon continued to inch closer to the two, and each moment that passed made the two more and more antsy. They kept their eyes locked on the fish, and while it had a bit of a hostility to its movement, but neither Finn nor Juniper were going to back down so easily.

"One..." Juniper murmured, narrowing her gaze on the scaly beast.

Two.

Three.

They both lunged after the animal, who was tirelessly able to swim right through their grasp. Charlie Jane, who was a little further down the lake, noticed that the two nearly knocked heads, and literally flung herself at the fish once she realized that was what they were after.

"Get back here!" she shrieked, racing to try and put the animal into a headlock. She threw insults and slurs out like she was distributing bread to birds, and it seemed almost as if she didn't realize that the fish didn't understand whatever she was trying to say. "No! Stop! I swear..."

"CJ, it's fine!" Juniper laughed from afar, ringing out her shirt as she watched the determined girl.

Finn let out a laugh. "Don't worry CJ!" he snickered, pushing up his water-sprayed glasses as his clothes dripped with water. "We can catch another one!"

"Yeah, but it'll be hard to find another fish this big!"

"Then why not catch a lot of little ones?" Juniper asked with a bit of a chuckle.

"What's the point, then?" The size of the fish definitely mattered— to Charlie Jane, at least. It wasn't because she was so eager for the surplus of food they would get (although that was definitely a plus), but for the bragging rights of being able to say that she wrestled down a fish half her size.

"I think she wants to the fish to be her boyfriend," Reagan snickered from the shore. Charlie Jane's head whipped around to get a glimpse at who was speaking, and once she realized that it was the tall blonde who she had grown to both love and hate, smiled a bit in disbelief. With an eye-roll and a bit of a sassy hair flip, she stuck up both of her middle fingers with a laugh.

"No, I want to high-five your face with a stapler," she called out with a laugh, sticking out her tongue before turning her attention to the fish. The fish, of course, had already begun its journey home... or any place besides that. Maybe they were like the Geek Squad; running away from everything that they knew so that they could get a chance of life.

"Hey, Reagan!" Juniper called out, pointing to her bag. "There's this big green shirt inside of my bag... can you go ahead and pass that to me?"

Reagan grabbed the girl's backpack and began to search through it, then pulling out the shirt that Juniper was talking about. She was right; it was pretty big, and if she were to ever wear it, it would probably go down to her knees.

"Thanks!" Juniper called out, holding her arms out to get ready to catch the shirt.

Reagan balled up the shirt before throwing it over to Juniper. It began to unfold mid-flight, and while she almost caught it, it was unfolded by the wind and fluttered away by an arms length. It began to uncrumple in the water before turning a darker shade where it touched it, and it began to slowly float downstream.

"What a throw," Charlie Jane called out sarcastically with a chuckle, wading over to the shirt and grabbing it. "Pepper, what did you want to do with this?"

Juniper opened her mouth to reply, although once she tried to collect the right words, she closed her mouth and simply laughed a little. "Here, it's sort of hard to explain.... just hand it over here and then I'll show you."

Charlie Jane seemed a little skeptical (although not suspicious) of what Juniper was up to, although she simply threw the shirt back over to the girl. While there was a flurry of water droplets that fling around in the air, Juniper managed to catch the shirt this time, and she began to ring it out while glancing over at a few of the fish.

She began to tie the sleeves neckhole together, making it into a sort of makeshift bag.

"Oh, Juniper, that's brilliant!" Finn said as he watched her.

"I know," she said in a jokingly cocky manner, glancing at the boy and winking. Her eyes trailed back down to the fish swimming around her legs and she ran one of her hands through her hair. After a moment or two, finally completing her net, she set it into the water.

"Oh!" Charlie Jane exclaimed, suddenly realizing the purpose of using the shirt. "That's smart!"

Juniper chuckled. However, it still ended up taking about ten minutes to catch a fish; but when she had, she was absolutely ecstatic.

The fish that had been caught was about the size of her forearm, and it writhed inside of the green fabric. "Guys! I caught one!"

"Good job, Pepps!" Charlie Jane applauded, trudging and splashing through the water in order to get to her friend. At that point, the silver-haired girl was soaked from head to toe, and she couldn't care less about it. She knew that getting splashed with water (or falling into it, for that matter) was inevitable.

Upon another good hour of fishing, they had only gotten a grand total of three fish, meaning that each kid would have to split it with one another.

"Alright... are you guys ready to get going again?" Juniper asked, glancing down at the analog watch that she wore around her wrist. "Curfew happened about five minutes ago."

All of the kids, whether or not they were soaked with water or glistening with sweat, nodded softly.

Finally, after such a long day, they would be on the move again... and again, and again until they found some place that they could hold refuge...

But until then, that the chances of them getting killed would only continue to skyrocket.