"Okay, here's the plan."

They had stopped. Two girls and three boys hiding behind an empty house. Miles was leaning on Eira - Aaron's own wound had been too painful to allow him to continue assisting Miles - and Lia had moved to the front of the group to address everybody at once. Luca stood close to Eira, and Aaron close to Eira. They were all close, in fact, and it made Miles a little uncomfortable to be so close to this many strangers at once.

Miles hadn't been shot; not really. A bullet had grazed his shoulder, and as much as it hurt, he wasn't going to die from it at this point in time.

That was fantastic, for Miles valued his life.

Lia's voice was low as she continued speaking. "We're going to make our way Northview Boys High. It's awfully close to the central part of the city, but it's the safest place right now. There are dorms. It's a private school-"

"Fucking rich one, too," murmured Miles under his breath.

Lia shot him a look.

"Sorry, keep going."

"It's a private school," she proceeded, watching Miles warily, "which means they're already on school vacation. They get a week more than all of the public schools. So nobody will be there except the kids who stay there during spring break."

"It's too dangerous to stay in the dorms," Eira said. "If there are other people there, they're bound to find us."

"No," Lia objected, shaking her head. "Students can't go into other students' rooms. I guess that won't really matter if they're losing their minds... but there are locks on all the rooms anyway. So as long as we get to a room quick, we'll be fine."

"How do you know all this?" asked Aaron.

"My brother used to go to the school," she responded with a shrug. "Anyway. We'll stay in an empty dorm room for the rest of the night. I don't know about you, but I'm not awfully fond of chatting here. We can keep talking once we get to the dorms."

Miles groaned, "Can't we sleep?"

"We're all exhausted," Lia stated, "but I'm not going to sleep until we figure out what's happening. And if that means staying up for the rest of the night, I will."

Miles didn't answer. Lia had a bright point - it was too dangerous to sleep after what had happened and what could happen - but that didn't mean he was pleased by it.

Lia added optimistically, "There will be first-aid equipment at the school. We'll prioritise finding that once we get there."

Simultaneously, Miles and Aaron exhaled a long breath of relief. If Aaron was anything like Miles, he was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the persistent stab of pain that accompanied every movement he made. Not to mention the fact that Aaron had been wounded longer than Miles had.

Lia clapped her hands once to quickly grab everybody's dwindling attention again. "Let's go!"

Then they were off again, Lia promptly taking the lead while Luca followed behind, trotting to keep up with her long strides. Aaron, whose face was still constantly twisted in pain, looked over his shoulder at his sister and Miles. "Do you need any help?" he asked.

Neither Eira or Miles had to verbally answer, for Miles was already in the process of pushing Eira off and stumbling along the road himself. "It's not like I need my shoulder to walk," he said, but immediately found that without the additional help, the pain made his steps confused and unstable.

Eira reached out to assist, but he swatted her hand away. "No, really, I'm fine." And he was, almost. After his first few uncertain steps, the pain started to recede to a dull ache, and the fog cleared from his vision.

Miles determinedly forced himself on to try and catch up with Lia, eyes snagging briefly on Luca as he passed. He had lots of questions about Luca, but he didn't intend on directly asking the child for the answers.

"Lia." Miles, with a wince, pushed himself forward to reach Lia's side. She looked to him curiously, gaze prompting him to continue. In a low voice, Miles said, "What do you mean, his parents attacked him?"

Lia's gaze returned to the path, but quickly she lifted it again to scan her surroundings. She was staying alert, making sure nobody was on their tail. Miles was grateful she was being so wary - somebody had to be. "Physically attacked him. Exactly how that man attacked Aaron earlier."

Subconsciously, Miles glanced back at Aaron to see how the boy was faring. He looked back to Lia while saying, "That's impossible."

Lia scoffed, and Miles flinched in surprise. "You can't be serious." She laughed humourlessly.

"I'm dead fucking serious. People over sixteen haven't attacked other people since - since - since before the Alteration was a thing. Suddenly there's three attacks in a night?"

Lia worried at her bottom lip and didn't reply. By the way her expression was twisted, there was evidently something on her mind, but without a push, she wasn't revealing it.

"What is it?" Miles pressed.

Lia didn't look at him. "Well, obviously all of these attacks are linked, right? Just like you said, this isn't a normal occurrence. The only time the Alteration has ever gone wrong was in its trial year, almost thirty years ago now. And that didn't result in attacks, anyway. Just minor malfunctions."

"So you think this definitely has something to do with the notification we got?" Miles assumed.

"I didn't say that," Lia reminded him, "but yeah. It must. It's weird, don't you think? Whoever sent the instructions obviously knew this was going to happen and they warned us to get away. It's almost like they didn't want us to be hurt."

"Maybe it's not meant to be an attack on us. Maybe it's only meant to affect the Altered, but now they're trying to hurt us so it's affecting us too."

Lia stuffed her hands in her pockets, expression troubled. "That's what I'm getting at. Whatever is happening has to be deliberate, if there was effort put into that notification telling us to get out. But I doubt that many people listened to the instructions - they sounded sketchy enough. Either way. Whether people abided by the instructions' rules or if they didn't, we're all in danger."

"There'll be a solution." Miles was trying to sound optimistic, but it came out forceful and determined instead. Positivity obviously wasn't his most practiced way of delivering things. "We'll figure it out."

"Yeah, but at what cost?" Lia asked. Miles didn't answer - it was rhetorical. "We all just need to settle down and talk about it together. The more people in on helping us accumulate a proper idea, the better."

"Yeah, well, speaking of that. How long until we get to the school?"

Lia lifted her eyes. "We're nearly there."

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+1164 words

((Banner credit to itsnothardtodreamx))

I'm getting so much writing time with self-isolation - I've got like, 20 chapters of this book banked up and it's getting heated on the other end, y'all. I'm writing so far ahead that I keep forgetting to come back and publish updates!

I hope you liked this chapter! Please vote and comment if you did and let me know what you thought :)

Stay safe, everyone!

-Reb <3