Although a few hours ago they were laughing like they had gone mad, the five young outcasts had now fallen completely quiet in the car. It was the type of silence radiating an itchy nervousness that rang like loud bells throughout the interior of the expensive Ford. The mood was sullen and gloomy, anxiety floating in the air.

After switching seats with Maddy, Logan had driven them safely to... Well, Maddy wasn't so sure where they were, actually. They were in the middle of nowhere, at that point.

In Hell. We're in Hell, she thought miserably.

Logan had pulled over somewhere in a thick forest full of dense trees, but the way to get there was pure torture. Thank God Maddy was not on the steering wheel anymore. Logan had swerved to avoid the deep holes of the road, the car bumping and jostling on the rough gravel path, and despite the smooth leather seats, Maddy's tailbone was killing her. Eventually, Logan had managed to park the Ford under the shade of a willow tree, deeper into the heart of the woods.

No one dared to get out of the car. And no one dared to speak.

Carter was breathing heavily, but the bullet thankfully hadn't made its way to his flesh. It had just grazed him, although it was certainly not just a scratch. About half an hour earlier, Sia had cleaned and bandaged Carter's wound. Ever since, they had all been sinking into the void of that awful silence, and Maddy hated every single bit of it. She needed someone to break that hateful silence, somehow confirm that she wasn't sinking alone.

But no one did. So she would break it herself. She tried to come up with something to say, but her brain was literally like a skillet of scrambled eggs.

"Care to explain about the hole in the decking?" It was all she could think of saying.

"About that..." Logan rubbed the nape of his neck. "We found out about it a few months ago. Mia's leg got stuck in it."

"Oh. Right. Well that was bad." Maddy tried to say something else, but could think of nothing.

"Tell me about it," agreed Logan in the driver's seat, eyes blank, fixed low on his boots.

"At least no one is dead," noticed Mia.

"Yeah..." whispered Sia.

Silence again.

"Where did you find the guns?" asked Maddy, desperate.

"Those?" Logan nodded towards the two slick silver handguns shining inside of the wide open glovebox. "They're my dad's. He bought them about a year ago, when the virus started spreading. They're for protection. You know, against the... infected."

Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Maddy swallowed thickly.

"And he taught you how to shoot?" asked Sia. "Your dad, I mean."

"Yeah..."

"And you, Carter? How do you know how to shoot?" prompted Mia.

Carter looked at her, his black eyes a cold glacier. "I just do," he uttered briskly. His tone was icy and tight with a flash of anger and sadness he was clearly struggling to conceal.

He had shut down on them. Maddy wondered whether she was the only one who had noticed.

"Jeez, are you a murderer or something?" mocked Mia unbothered.

Yup, she was the only one who had noticed. Or imagined it.

"Where are we gonna go now?" asked Maddy. After what had happened, they could never go back again.

"I don't know about you, guys, but I have a one way ticket to Hell after everything I did today," mumbled Logan, his voice a bit lighter with a pinch of humour.

"I'll join you," added Carter, indifferent but less cold than before.

It struck her, then. Logan and Carter had killed that day. And perhaps there would be a day when it would be her turn.

"Sorry to break it to you, boys, but you were going to Hell either way," scoffed Mia.

"Hey!" protested Logan. "I'm the good boy here, okay?"

"Lying is also considered a sin, Logs," popped back Sia, who seemed to have regained her composure and wasn't trembling anymore.

"I was a fallen angel in my previous life, I swear," insisted Logan, a playful spark in the deep blue pools of his eyes.

"That's right, Logs. In your previous life. Not this one," huffed Sia.

"Carter will escort you to the Satan, don't worry," added Mia, who punched Carter's good arm with her fist.

"Gladly. But don't you girls think you aren't coming as well." Carter pointed at all three of them.

"Wait, why are you looking at me?" asked Maddy, her eyes wide. "You just met me, you don't even know-"

"You, princess, have no manners."

"I have no manners? You are the unmannered one!" She had more to say, but he cut her.

"Which is why we're both to meet in Hell."

"What about me, huh?" interfered Sia, looking baffled and supposedly offended. "I'm clean, and you know it."

"Oh, don't get me started, Sia," warned her Logan with a sly smirk on his cupid bow lips. "Wanna talk about the first time you smoked weed?"

"Hey! You promised not to tell anyone, you-"

"Then don't play it Miss Innocent." He stuck his rosy tongue out at her.

"I'd better keep my mouth shut in this situation..." said Mia lowly, like a kid that was caught red-handed breaking an expensive vase.

"Yeah, you'd better, Miss Drunk." Sia pointed at her friend.

"Hey! You've all been drunk too!" shouted Mia.

"Yeah, but you're way more fun than any of us when you're wasted," cut her Carter.

"I-"

"Logan, I think I just peed my pants! Ohhhhh nooooo!" whined Logan, imitating Mia's voice in the funniest way possible.

The group burst out laughing.

"Hey, it was an accident!" screeched Mia, cheeks heated with embarrassment.

"Logan, will you go down on me?" squeaked Logan again, giving it his most flirty and drunk imitation. Maddy's eyes went round in the midst of all her laughing and her palm covered her mouth.

Had Mia really asked him that? Of course she had. Maddy held her stomach, which was already aching from laughing. Sia hit the front seat flailing like a fish in a waterless bucket from her giggles. Carter threw his head back and laughed too, seeming to enjoy the play Logan was putting out for them.

"Shut up!" Mia smacked Logan's chest, but she was laughing her nose off as well. "I was drunk, I didn't know what I was saying!"

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you did. I mean, look at me." Logan puffed up with confidence, bragging and showing off.

"Logan," sighed Sia, still laughing. "There are no words..."

Logan gave her his angelic, boyish grin. "Anyway, now that we're talking abut drinking and stuff..."

He stretched his long body and mysteriously pulled a big glass bottle from the panel door in Carter's side. "We thought we'd pack this up as well."

"I thought you said you only packed the basics," mocked Sia, but her face was beaming with that beautiful, foxy grin of hers.

"Are you saying this is not a basic?" Logan furrowed his brow at her. He brought the glass-made bottle to his lips, gulping down a deep sip of vodka.

Sia didn't bother to answer; she just stole the bottle from his hands and pressed her mouth on its brim. Then she passed it to Mia.

Vodka at midday? Who on this green earth even-

"Okay, but how can you not know how to drive?" Mia scowled as her melting brown eyes fastened onto Maddy. She posed the question with resentment, and her gaze was scornful to say the least, but she almost laughed a friendly giggle.

Well, friendly-ish.

Maddy shrugged, an embarrassed shyness taking over her as she remembered her awful driving and even worse screeching. "I just don't," she said. "Driving lessons are pretty expensive, you know."

"You're studying in a private school, genius," scorned Mia.

"I'm with a scholarship," mumbled Maddy.

Mia gave her a look which said: "Well that was unexpected", then opened her sugary lips to say: "Well, well, well... We got ourselves another nerd."

Maddy looked at her with a question mark hovering above her head. "Another nerd?"

Mia nodded her head towards Carter. "He's also studying there with a scholarship. You're both nerds."

Maddy's jaw went slack.

The ebony-headed idiot was studying with a scholarship? Impossible. He was too stupid for that. Too annoying and too rude.

And too hot to be a nerd.

Dang it, Maddy, stop.

She stared at him like he was a unicorn, mouth flung open.

"Well, anyways, scholarship or not, you can't not know how to drive, girl," proceeded to scold Mia, throwing her head back. The hard liquor flowed down her throat like it was water. "Didn't your dad teach you or something? Dads usually teach their daughters how to drive."

"My dad is... not in London," was Maddy's short answer at that. She looked away.

She wasn't going to share her story with Mia, out of all people. She never liked to talk about her family issues, nor reminisce about her past, and now was no different. A wave of sadness flooded her, but she pushed it away. She didn't want to ruin the mood.

Mia waved an elegant hand in front of her face. "Whatever. As long you didn't get us killed, whatever." She took another drink from the bottle and offered it to Maddy.

She hesitated. "I... Umm... I don't really drink."

Carter snorted, and Maddy's eyes narrowed.

Mia huffed. "And I don't really have the police shooting at me out of the blue, but here we are now." She nodded her head towards the bottle. "Come on. Drink."

Something in the way she spoke made Maddy's eyes drill into Mia's exhausted, yet still gorgeous face. She sounded so spontaneous and simple and grumpy, but, somehow, the irony of her words poured more realness into them. Everything had changed. Normal wasn't normal anymore. Not for them. Ordinary was a luxury from now on. Maddy usually didn't drink, but usually was long gone.

And Mia sounded like she just didn't give a shit.

As much as she hated it, Maddy couldn't help but let a small spark of admiration glisten in her big hazel eyes. She reached out and nested the bottle in her hands.

Drink.

And she drank.

The liquor slid roughly down her throat, burning it in such a way that Maddy couldn't decide whether it was pleasant or not. She initially winced at the gasoline-like taste, but welcomed the burn anyway.

The sound of gunfire was still ringing through her eardrums.

Drink.

That man's voice was still playing in her head. "Give it up, kids."

Drink.

She didn't realise she hadn't stopped drinking, taking in gulp after gulp, sip after sip, until a large hand gripped the heavy bottle from her hands.

"That's enough," said Carter, his long fingers tight around the neck of the bottle, a warning look in his black diamond eyes.

Maddy stared at him. He was treating her like a kid, and she hated it.

"It's enough when I say it's enough," she popped back and pulled the bottle back from his hands. She took another long sip, staring straight into his raven eyes, provocative as ever.

Her head felt a bit lighter with each gulp she took, although she got dizzier.

Carter stretched his strong, masculine arm to take the bottle back from her hands, but she slapped his hand away and kept drinking. When he shifted his body in his seat and came closer to her, she pressed the bottle on her chest, like a child protecting her toy.

"For fuck's sake, just give me the vodka. I don't wanna see you drunk. I can barely handle you when you're sober."

Maddy sent him a deathly glare. "I won't get drunk."

"Yeah, no, you'll get wasted."

"You guys never really stop, do you?" interfered Sia, who looked as amused as a teacher watching two kids fight in the kindergarten.

"No," they both said in sync, shooting daggers at each other.

Maddy looked away, nostrils flaring, and passed the bottle back to Logan. She hated to admit, but he was right. She couldn't get drunk now, not in the midst of all that chaos that had been unleashed in their direction.

She leaned back, sinking against the plushy seat.

"Are we gonna talk about how the police were literally trying to kill us a few hours ago?" asked Mia, picking at her nails with pretentious indifference.

Maddy huffed a half-hearted laugh.

Sure, let's discuss it over a hot cup of tea, shall we?