Charlie clicks her tongue in frustration as our footsteps of retreat echo in my ears, the sound like pounding drums. "This is no good, Walker. You've got to find a way past that military Cordon. You're hours away from being caught and banged up."

I inhale sharply, holding my tongue to keep from sarcastically commenting how assuring Charlie's words are to me. It wouldn't do me well to snap at the person keeping me safe, nor would it be smart to rise questions from Lawrence or Jo.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Lawrence huffs, jutting his lip out in a rather cute pout. "We've walked up and down this road twice, and all we've found out is that there really are checkpoints and soldiers everywhere. If we do it again, they're going to start getting suspicious."

I swallow down the lump in my throat. "I think they already are suspicious."

"More suspicious. Look." He sighs and point ahead to a few farm buildings between two checkpoints. "Maybe if we sneak between them and then run for it, we can make it."

Jo rolls her eyes. "Yes, because the SAAT standard issue military rifle no way has a range greater than fifty meters."

He laughs nervously. "Well, they-they won't actually shoot us."

"Not to kill, maybe. They'd just shoot your kneecaps and throw you in military prison. Might find you'll miss your kneecaps once they're gone, and what would you Auntie Morag think of that?"

Lawrence's slightly alarmed face tells me his thoughts faster than his words do. "Yeah. I uh, yeah. That's true, really. Auntie Morag's been a bit of a stickler for discipline, to be honest. Uncle Bobby was in the merchant navy, and he always said, 'early to bed and early to rise makes a man rise quickly through the ranks of the merchant navy because they like that kind of thing.'"

She scoffs. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I can't help the small smile that comes on my face when Lawrence flushes again, looking down at his feet for a moment.

"I uh, I–yeah, sorry. I babble when I'm nervous. Sorry. There are more guns around here than I've seen uh, ever."

"You need a plan," Charlie says, and I sigh before speaking.

"We need a plan. I can't turn around and go back and I don't think either of you want to. Does anyone have any ideas?" My words come out a little more desperately than I'd hoped, my fear of getting put in jail as a terrorist showing through as I look at Jo and then Lawrence.

The dark-haired man hesitates, words seeming to be right on his tongue but unable to get themselves free out of fear of ridicule. With no plans coming to mind, I'll take whatever he might have to offer, which is why I tip my head to the side as I stare at him, patiently waiting for him to gather his thoughts and confidence once he notices I'm watching him.

"W-Well, there is that golf course past the little coppice there," He suggests.

"Wanting to club them to death with a nine iron?" Jo jokes, to which she gets an eye roll in response.

"My Uncle Jimmy–that was Morag's husband–used to take me golfing there when I was a boy. It's very bushy, loads of cover, and there's a shallow lake that should pass right across the army' cordon. If we wade through, just our heads sticking up, trees on either side-"

"You really are keen to see Morag, aren't you?"

There's a second's pause before he answers. "Sorry. I just can't stand problems I can't solve. Makes me a good PhD student and a really annoying person to play chess with."

A little laugh manages to escape my lips, which seems to ease Lawrence. Jo lets out a breath before speaking again.

"Okay. Let's go for it. What have we got to lose?"

A lot of things. Or at least, I have a lot to lose.

But I can't just sit around here. I will not go to jail for a crime I didn't commit, especially when that crime was something as heinous as this. How many people have died due to that bomb? Due to the EMP? Just the thought of so many innocent people lying around, bodies lifeless and cold-

Bile burns my throat, but I swallow down, blinking away my blurred vision from my eyes losing focus due to my own horrific thoughts. The scenery is a stark contrast to the horrors flashing between my ears and behind my eyes.

Birds are chirping; the grass is green; the sky is blue, with very few clouds so the sun can shine through. If today had gone how it was supposed to, I'm sure I'd be looking out the window after helping another patient, admiring how pretty the day was while thinking about what I was going to cook myself for dinner when I got home and thinking about when a good time would be to call dad due to the time difference.

He'll be expecting a call from me tonight. He made me promise him to call at least once a week so I could tell him how I was doing, how my therapy is going, how school was going, and now how work was going. He'll be so worried when he doesn't receive it. It'll be the first time I've missed a call since...

Since...

How long have I been living in England?

"See?" Lawrence says, gesturing around. "I told you. This place is perfect. I've lost sight of the soldier already, and we're only at the first fairway. Bit of uh," He snickers, "hole in one for Lawrence, you might say."

I giggle at his stupid joke, which makes him grin proudly. Jo, on the other hand, just rolls her eyes again in exasperation.

"Oh, if only you wrote for The Star," She says. "So, where's this famous lake of yours?"

He takes a glance around before pointing ahead to the left of the clubhouse. "Um, over there. Do you see it?"

She nods. "You know, there's something familiar about this place–the little miniature pine trees everywhere, the shape of the lake. I know! It reminds me of the golf course in Peng Yang."

Lawrence quirks a brow. "Played golf with Kim Jong Un, did you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, come on."

"Really," She insists. "Dictators love golf for some reason."

"Probably because anyone who'd play with them are so terrified, they let the dictator win," I say. "I mean, I wouldn't risk it, although you seem like the type that would try, Jo."

She smirks but doesn't confirm it. "I knew getting good at golf would be a great way to idle my way in with people like Kim Jong Un. Now I've got the personal phone number of some of the evillest people on the planet, and an eight handicap."

Lawrence looks at her with raised brows. "Eight?"

"Why? What's yours?"

"Uh, you know, average." He stops to look at me when he notices I've stopped walking. I'm too busy staring at the clubhouse and, more importantly, the figures moving about around it. "Uh, Walker, what's wrong?"

"Are you trying to change the subject?" Jo asks, but we both ignore her as I point to the figures.

"Who are they?" I ask, eyeing the dozen or so people all holding golden clubs.

Jo tsks and looks at me like how an annoyed adult sometimes looks at a child who asked a silly question. "It's just a wild stab in the dark, but do you think they could be golfers?"

"They're not golfers," Charlie says in my ear, and as soon as she does, a couple of them swing their clubs right into the clubhouse windows. I can hear the sound of shattering glass from here, along with roaring laughter at the victory.

"Yeah, don't remember anyone playing golf like that when Uncle Jimmy took me here," Lawrence says, cringing as more windows are smashed and some begin to climb inside.

Jo frowns. "Looters."

"Already?"

She scoffs at him. "Don't look so surprised. Society is only ever one power cut away from anarchy."

I take a moment to ponder her words, but then I notice those that are still outside of the clubhouse. Their heads are turning towards us, staring, studying. Lawrence takes a step back when he sees it as well, accidentally bumping into me and offering a murmured apology without taking his eyes off of the people still staring at us.

"I have a bad feeling about this," He says, and I grab his and Jo's arm, giving them both a tug.

"Let's go. Let's go!" I hiss, gasping when four of the figures still outside start moving, swinging their clubs around playfully as they head towards us. I don't think their swings will be so playful when they actually reach us.

Jo curses. "There's no way we can get through the cordon now."

"The cordon's gonna be the least of our problems if those guys catch us," Lawrence replies. "We'd better make tracks. Really, really quick tracks."

We turn and start moving, not quick enough to be sprinting, but fast enough for it to be considered a steady run. We don't head back for the road. I'm sure if those guards find us running towards them, they won't even try to warn us to stop. They'd probably think we decide to charge after walking back and forth, and then they'd shoot us.

So, we go farther south, constantly looking over our shoulders, listening for shouts. My breathing is already starting to get labored, and my legs are feeling heavy already. I should have done more cardio over strength at the gym, but I suppose hindsight really is a bitch.

I try to stay beside Lawrence, feeling slight comfort from being around him. I don't question the 'why' of the feeling, because that would just stress me out more. Instead I just focus on the feeling, trying to make sure I don't go off the walls again when we're in the middle of running for our lives.

I have a feeling it will happen again, stress overflowing and there being no relief in sight. Hallucinations feed into more hallucinations, but this would be the third time today. I can't have any nonsensical babbling coming from me, or else I might expose myself and Charlie.

No need to worry about something that hasn't happened yet. Just keep everything close to your chest, don't get too close to either of them. Just keep moving.

We reach another road, one different than before with no guards waving guns and firing at Jo. At least, none until a few minutes later when another cordon pops up.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," I groan, my chest rising and falling from the run. We all start to slow down, knowing moving so quickly would get us shot, even if these weren't the same guards Jo pissed off earlier.

"I didn't think they'd extend this far south." Lawrence frowns while Jo clicks her tongues.

"They must have placed on all the roads."

"So much for my cunning plan to get us around the checkpoints," He huffs, and I give him a small smile. It was a good plan. Our only plan, honestly. "Looks like we'll have to work out how to get through. Are those thugs still following us?"

Jo looks over her shoulder. "I can't see anything. Can you?"

"I'm too scared to look."

I look back with a pinched face that relaxes a few moments later. "We're clear. Guessin' they went back to the clubhouse."

Lawrence sighs in relief. "That's great! I-I mean, not for the clubhouse, obviously."

I laugh softly, but it fades as I look ahead. "Obviously. But now we just have to get past the checkpoint."

Charlie hums in my ear, and I wait, my fingers playing with my hideous shorts. "How about you... hm."

Lawrence gasps suddenly, causing me to flinch. "Hey! Hey, I know. How about if we blow up one of the cars?"

He gestures to one of the abandoned cars on the road, and I look at him in bewilderment. "Blow it up?"

His nod is almost too enthusiastic. "That'd cause a disturbance, wouldn't it? Give us a chance to slip through the net."

Jo's eyes are wide as she looks at him, seeming to wonder if he's being serious. His face makes it fairly obvious that he is. "Are you crazy? How would you even do that?"

"Well, if we have some matches and a cloth, we could shove that into the gas tank..." I trail off when I notice the looks I'm receiving-an impressed one from Lawrence and a shocked one from Jo. "What? I grew up in Arkansas. People in live the South of the US blow up stuff for fun."

"You are a woman after my own heart," Lawrence says, seeming not to notice how my face goes red. "But to answer your question, Jo, I'm not completely useless. And it would be a lot like what our dear Walker here suggested. I picked up three camping stoves when I was leaving Inverness. If we light one, leave it under the fuel tank of the care, run like hell to get out of the way-"

"Boom," She finishes.

"That's... almost as good as what I'd have thought of myself," Charlie says.

•

I hear the ringing when Lawrence and Jo are searching for a car that's close enough to get the attention of the guards at the checkpoint, but far enough away that they won't be able to make out our faces.

I sigh, hating this, hating myself, but it only gets louder the more I ignore it. If I could, I'd take another pill, but I'm only supposed to take my medicine once a day. I don't think it would do well to take another pill when it's only been a few hours, if that.

So I follow the ringing. The faster I indulge myself, the faster it'll be over, and I can go help the others.

There's a phone in one of the abandoned cars. It shouldn't be lit up, or ringing, but it is. Or at least, my mind believes it is, so I answer it, and in comes the voice of the man I heard first today-Dave.

As soon as he speaks, I find myself in some sort of office, and Dave sits there, in the chair. He doesn't look at me. It doesn't seem like he's really looking at anything. He just has his elbow on his desk, propping his chin up on his hand like he did before.

"I ended up at GCHQ," He says. "Government Coding Cipher School. That's where the name comes from. They made it up back in World War 2, when the people livin' in Bletchley Park started wondering what the hell all those pasty-faced men and woman were up to in there. It's a sort of code itself, I suppose. GCHQ isn't in Bletchley anymore, but the spirit lives on, or so they tell you."

A man walks by the open office door, his features not recognizable to memorable as he says to Dace, "It really is the spirits of the blitz around here, Dave."

And as he walks off, Dave scoffs, not even turning to look at him.

"Or, you know, preventing the need for more blitz spirit. And if preventing the blitz involves listening in to a few people's private phone calls, then yeah, I'd do it. Then the drone program came along, and they wanted us to help out the Americans."

Suddenly there's another man in the room, one Dave actually turns to look to.

"Find suitable targets for the program, decode all that chatter, figure out who's planning something nasty, and where they'd going to be when they do it," He says, before turning on his heel and walking out. Dave waits, watches, only speaking again when he's out of the door.

"Decide who to kill. That's what he meant. That's when I realized... I was a killer. I was a serial killer." Guilt crosses his face. "And it felt kind of good, even when I'd seen the pictures of the strikes I'd set up. It was just an aerial shot-very clinical, lots of impressive rubble, and the bodies were too far away to see the blood. I started-I mean, not really, not seriously-but I still started thinkin', 'You know what? I could pick anyone.'

"Someone would cut me off in their car or some bloke would spill my beer, and I'd fantasize about setting them up for a strike!" He lets out a breath, horror in his eyes, over his own thoughts. He finally looks at me. "I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't it! But I thought about it, and so could anyone else involved."

His features harden into a serious look. "So, I thought, 'No one should have this power.' And that was the moment. That's when she knew I was ready to listen."

I tip my head to the side, curious. "Who's she-"

Click.

I'm back in the car, back with a dead phone and more questions than answers. I groan through clenched teeth, hating how I'm actually curious about something that isn't real. It's only because these aren't like my normal fantasies-in those I see myself living different lives. I don't know what these are supposed to be about.

Confusion and madness are the last things I need, not with how much of it is already going around; or how much we are about to create, if the sounds of Jo and Lawrence's calls for me are anything to go by.

Leaving the old phone behind, I step out of the car, jogging over to the car they are hunched behind, hiding from the watchful eyes of the guards several yards off. They won't be able to see any key features besides these ugly shorts I'm wearing, and I'm thankful I have my skirt still shoved into my bag that I can change into if need be.

Lawrence smiles as he lights the camping stove, the fire reflecting against his eyes. "It feels... quite exciting, doesn't it? In a scary sort of way."

"In a Journalist of the Year sort of way." Jo grins.

"Okay, just let me..." He trails off as he puts the stove right under the car where the gas tank should be located. As soon as he does, I'm up and already sprinting for the bushes on the far side of the road, barely hearing Lawrence's ushered, "Go, go, go!" to Jo.

They both dive into the bushes and crouch beside me, shaking from excitement, anticipation and fear.

"We're out of sight of the army checkpoint, so now we just wait until it goes," Jo whispers, and Lawrence nods quickly.

"How long do you think it's going to take before it-"

Boom!

Pieces of burning metal fly eye, and Lawrence flinches so hard he nearly falls into me as multiple nearby car alarms start going off. They sound strange, probably from the blitz in the battery. Barely any power to function but still trying to.

"Oh, not long then."

I shush him as I spot a few people leaving their position at the checkpoint to start heading towards the car that's been blown to bits. "This is our chance. There's a gap in the cordon we can sneak through, but we've got to be fast."

"And careful," Jo agrees. "They don't appear happy."

Lawrence half-shrugs. "Well, to be fair, I did just blow up a car."

"Which means is they catch us, they'll be absolutely certain we're terrorists. Come on, while they're distracted."

Our footsteps are soft, but they sound like pounding drums to me. I hold my breath, which I know isn't the right way to run at all, but even as we get farther and farther away from the people running towards the flames and smell of burnt leather and petrol, I fear if I even breathe too loudly I'll alert them.

Lawrence cringes at the sound of shouting behind us, although thankfully the shouts aren't from spotting us. "Oh, we've really stirred up a hornets' nest. I think I might have actually made it harder to get past them."

He sends both Jo and I an apologetic look, and I smile softly. I unfortunately don't have any comforting words to reassure him, so I can hope my smile is enough. He seems to appreciate that he hasn't been berated.

"You can do it," Charlie tells me. "But you'll have to be very careful. The group from the checkpoint ahead has left their post. You see the dirt road with the cattle grid on it? If you go down there, the farm buildings will shield you from view."

I give the smallest of nods, before jerking my head towards that path. "Come on. This way."

Lawrence opens his mouth to question it, but realization hits him when he spots the farm buildings up ahead. They're a way out, but we should be able to make it if we keep up this pace. He wears an impressed smile as he looks at me. "Well spotted. I knew hooking up with you was a good idea."

His praise makes me grin far bigger than it probably should, but thankfully he doesn't notice, too busy focusing on his feet as we briskly walk along the cattle grid. Good thing, since he nearly trips even while watching his feet. I grab ahold of his arm to keep him steady, since the last thing we need is someone twisting an ankle.

"Thanks," He says once we make it off the cattle grid, and an excited smile spreads across his face. "This is very exciting, isn't it? Wait until Auntie Morag hears about all the adventures I've had."

"Who's there? Show yourselves!"

My body seizes up at the commanding voice, but Jo's curse keeps me from freezing like a deer in the headlights. She grabs my arms and shoves me into a hedge, then grabbing Lawrence and dragging him behind it with her. I hiss as the prickle hedges nick my skin, but I slap my hand over my mouth when Jo shushes me, giving me a death glare that has me shrinking back in fear.

I swear my heart stops beating as two soldiers walk by, even muscle in my body stiff to the point of pain.

"There's no one here," The woman says, but the man who yelled at us quickly shakes his head.

"I could have sworn..."

"Probably a cow. You're jumpin' at shadows. Come on. We're needed back at the base."

The man takes one more look around before following the woman as they walk off. I'm unsure how long we wait to move, but it isn't until the soldiers are far from sight, nothing but specks in the distance.

"That was unpleasantly close," Lawrence breathes out as he stands.

"But they've left the way clear," Jo replies. "Hurry, before their relief arrives."

•

"We made it!" Jo laughs eyes shining in victory. "We made it. No one's following us. I think we're clear..."

I freeze at a noise from farther away. It's the sound of blades whirling. Helicopter blades!

"Someone's got a chopper working."

Jo gasps, practically sprinting after the sound, and I start to follow before Lawrence reaches forward and grabs my arm. I stare at him and blink once, twice.

"Um, sorry, but uh, just hang back with me for a second. I think Jo can enjoy chasing a helicopter on foot by herself for a bit."

"Okay," I draw out the word and my brows knit together in confusion.

He rubs the back of his neck nervously. "Um, I wanted to talk to you." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some candy. "Do you want a Rollo?"

I still don't know where he's going with this. "Um, no thank you."

"Hm. You're an interesting one, Walker. But you're allowed to tell me, right? I mean, we're all just trying to get out of Inverness, and we can help each other for a bit and then we go our separate ways, but I just... look, I think you and I have something in common."

I raise a brow. "We do?"

"You don't want to listen to him, Walker. I'd put some distance between you two if I were you," Charlie says, and I listen to her, taking a step back. Lawrence notices my slight alarm, and he appears panicked for a moment.

Oh, God. He knows I know something's up. Is he Burn? Is he going to try to kill me like those other agents did? Was that why he wanted to get me alone?

"No, listen," He pleads. "I-I think I should tell you. It doesn't put us in more danger. In fact, we're safer if we both know. We can-well, we can look after each other."

My breathing quickens. "W-What?"

"Is he talking to himself, that Lawrence?" Charlie asks. "I don't know if you should even be near him-"

"Stop lying to me, Charlie! I know you're talking to Walker too," Lawrence snaps, and I choke, eyes wide as he pulls back his fluffy hair that hides his earpiece. "I'm certain Walker's got one of the devices. I heard it beep when we first met up, and she's got her hair up, so I saw the earring. It's stupid to keep this a secret."

Charlie doesn't say anything, and I stumble and stutter on my own words as Lawrence looks at me and gives me a tight smile.

"Walker, you're a friend of Charlie's, right?"

I nod slowly. "Y-yes."

"Well, I am too."

A/N: Here you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you and have a blessed day!