Just Breathe

Chapter 1

Beth Carraway had always felt out of sync with the world.

She was a woman with a fabricated past and a secretive life. She was the wrong age, with the wrong name and the wrong job.

There was a lot wrong with Beth Carraway.

So it didn't surprise her at all when she found herself in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

"Everybody shut up and put your hands in the air!" The command from the masked gunman on the back row had the opposite effect. Panicked screams emerged from Beth's fellow passengers, prompting him to yell again. "I said 'SHUT UP!'" He punctuated the repeated order with a bullet fired into the roof of the No. 36 bus.

The bus that was supposed to be taking Beth home from work.

She sighed. This was why she avoided public transport. But her car was in the shop, meaning she was stuck on this bus.

In the wrong place.

At the wrong time.

The gunman made his way up the aisle towards the driver and Beth glared at him as he passed her seat. A second gunman took to his feet and stayed at the back of the bus, his pistol trained on the now quiet commuters.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." The mumbled words came from the teenager sitting next her. Beth put her gloved hand on the young girl's leg which bounced up and down with fear.

"It's going to be ok," Beth whispered. The girl looked up at her, eyes wide with terror.

Beth had never felt that emotion - terror. Even now, with two armed terrorists hijacking her transit bus, taking her and the other twenty people on board who-knows-where...all she could muster was annoyance.

It was as if she was missing that part of her brain that regulated self-survival.

It was yet another manifestation of her overall...wrongness.

Beth smiled at the girl, trying to reassure her. "You're going to be ok."

The girl bit her lip and shook her head, not reassured in the least.

"Here's what we're gonna do," the gunman at the front called out. He appeared to be the spokesman of the two-man gang. "We're all gonna stay calm while the driver takes us somewhere a bit more secluded-"

That elicited scared murmurs from the passengers, who were worried about the implications of 'seclusion'.

"HEY!' he yelled, getting their attention back. "None of you are gonna be harmed if you just do as you're told." The murmurs ceased. "I want you to take out your phones, open up your social media accounts, and I want you to post about what's happening."

The other passengers looked just as confused as Beth felt. Why did they want social media attention? Surely the purpose of a hijacking was to barter the hostages for something. That was usually accomplished by contacting the police and starting negotiations, not by posting online.

Was this some sort of sick publicity stunt?

"NOW!"

The puzzled looks disappeared as the passengers took out their phones and complied. Beth watched as the girl next to her typed out a post with shaking hands. For several minutes, the only sound was the soft tapping of fingers against screens and the metronome swipes of the bus's windscreen wipers as they did battle with the late evening downpour.

"Hey, you! Blondie!" the gunman called. Beth looked up and met his eyes. "Yeah, you. Get out your phone and start posting."

"I don't have any social media accounts," she replied, truthfully.