Little (T.S.T) + (T.D.C)

●20●

"You didn't let me finish!"

"I could sorta tell where you were going with it."

Darcy blew a strand of hair from her face. "So you admit it?"

"What? No!"

"Okay, sure thing. There's nothing going on there. Gotcha."

"Isn't it past your bedtime?" teased Brenda.

"I have no bedtime," said a smug Darcy, "here, I'm in charge of myself. Besides, it's still really early. It only just got dark."

"Right. Well, I'm gonna leave you to it. I need to go to the bathroom anyway. Bye."

"See ya."

■■■

Thomas unfolded a map, throwing it down on to the table in the middle of the room that Darcy sat on.

"There," he spoke quickly, pointing at a circle on the map, "it's a few hundred miles. Based on the railways, everything that Aris has told us, that's gotta be where they're heading. That's where they're taking Minho. We take everyone who can fight, follow the roads where we can. We can make it back within a week."

"A week?" repeated Vince. "It took us six months to get here." He pointed at a spot on the map. "We got over a hundred kids here now. We can't just hang out here forever. After what we just pulled, you wanna just wander off to some random point on the map? You don't even know what's there."

"I do," came the voice of Jorge, who had just arrived. "It's been a few years, but I've been there. 'The last city'. That's what W.I.C.K.E.D called it. It was our whole base of operations... if that city is still standing, that's the last place you wanna go, hermano. That's the lion's den."

"It's nothing we haven't done before," said Thomas.

"Yeah, with months of planning, reliable information, the element of surprise, none of which we have now," argued Vince.

"If it helps, I could sneak up behind Janson and yell 'boo!'" said Darcy.

Vince closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he pointed to her. "This is why I didn't want a kid getting involved with things that kids shouldn't be getting involved with."

"Hey, I'm here because I'm the only one with a sense of humour. Learn to appreciate it, old man."

"Darcy," muttered Jorge in a warning tone, "cut it out, alright?"

Darcy frowned, but stayed quiet nonetheless.

Vince turned back to Thomas.

"Vince, I've thought this through--"

"Hey! Last time we went off half-cocked, I lost everything. You remember that?"

There was a painfully long silence before he spoke again. "Look, I know it's Minho, alright? But you can't ask me to put those kids on the line for one man. I won't do it."

What sounded like a broken radio joined the conversation. Every head turned in the direction of the noise.

"Shit. Get the lights," said Thomas urgently.