The Explosion

Chapter 13

"Oh." Max said out loud as his eyes scanned over the beds of scared children. They looked as though they had all been thrown off their beds and had crawled back onto them again; pretty appropriate as that is exactly what had happened. "Well, at least they aren't dead." He mentioned. He looked at Mia as her face transformed into a regretful look, aimed in the direction of two empty beds. "Oh." He said again, looking down at his shoes. At this rate, I'm really going to have to get some more interesting shoes.

"They only have broken bones and stuff though, right?" Lily asked hopefully as her fingers entwined in a nervous gesture. Mia and Zoe shared a look that evidently meant something bad.

"These ones do." Zoe said with a strange tone to her voice.

"You might want to see the other ward." Mia said quietly. Lily nodded and they all started making their way up the corridor, following Mia. Mia and Zoe were up front and Lily and Max were behind. Max noticed that Lily had a concerned look on her face as she stared forward; her hands were in fists and constantly fidgeting. Max slowly lowered his hand to Lily's level but kept it slightly apart. She didn't notice. He pulled it straight away again, he was being such an idiot. This was not the time, nor the place. Besides, they had bigger problems right now than whatever was happening between him and Lily.

The group continued walking in silence until they came to another room, Mia stopped at the door and motioned for Lily and Max to come forward. They both walked up to the doorway and looked into the room. "Oh frick." Lily gasped as she stared at the child in the bed; she was hooked up to a machine and she didn't look very well.

"She fell from her bed after the explosion, I don't know if she will make it. I think the machine unattached partially or it had an effect on her or something...I- I don't know." Mia said helplessly.

"How many others are there?" Lily asked, nervous of what the answer would be.

"Um, around twenty? It's a big hospital. Some, you know, aren't here anymore. Well, they are but, yeah." Mia stuttered on the last line, seeming to wish that she wasn't in the spotlight.

"And they're all... hooked up?" Max asked Mia and Zoe.

Mia nodded.

"I have only seen a couple so far." Zoe voiced. "It's not a good situation."

"Really?" Max said sarcastically, "I think it's quite a tremendous situation to be in actually. Why don't we all sit down and stuff ourselves with vending machine snacks?"

"We all need to calm down and think of some sort of plan." Zoe announced, attempting to get everyone to stop freaking out. Everyone suddenly went silent and all looked at Zoe expectantly. "Oh." She stated as the realisation that everyone was awaiting her amazing dawned on her. "I agree with Max; let's go rob and the vending machines." And she started walking in Lily's direction down the corridor. A tight grasp of a hand on her arm stopped her in her tracks and twizzled her round to face Lily, who now placed both of her hands on each of Zoe's shoulders and stared straight into her face with a way-too serious expression.

"Get me a dark chocolate bounty." She said.

"What if there aren't any?"

"Then we'll have to throw the machines out the window."

Zoe looked like she was about to burst out laughing for a split-second before breaking down and leaning into Lily's arms, sobs escaping from her mouth.

"What was that?" Max mouthed to Lily who gave him a wry smile in return.

She encased Zoe in a hug before saying, "Let's go find a way to break into those machines, yeah?" Zoe replied with a crooked smile and the girls turned around. "We'll be back in five minutes or so." Lily said before they headed forwards and soon reached the corner, disappearing out of sight.

"That was weird on so many levels." Max said to no one in particular.

"She was getting Zoe to cry." Mia said quietly. Max shot her a quizzical look so she continued. "When I- when I was going through a bad time, one or two people tried to make me laugh. Only once or twice, they got sick of me in the end, but I didn't even dare smile because I knew I would break down crying. That's what Lily was trying to do. Get Zoe to cry."

"How did you know that?"

"I've gone through enough to know when someone is hiding their pain." She replied emotionlessly. "Sometimes you just need to let it all out. But you don't because you know that everyone is right there, watching you, daring you to break and-" She caught Max staring at her with a somewhat shocked sympathy in his eyes so she clamped her mouth shut and stared at the squared white stiles on the floor.

"Are you alright?" Max asked, trying to meet her eyes. She nodded but didn't lift her head. "You can talk to me you know. If you need to."

"Thanks." She said, her voice barely audible.

Not wanting to push the girl any further, Max leaned against the wall and thought about what they were going to do. He couldn't think of any ideas so he then examined his worn grey jeans and his light blue, white-paint splattered top. Why anyone would design something with paint splatters, he didn't know. You could literally just do it yourself, really. His dad had done it by accident plenty of times. Finding something else to think about, Max looked at Mia and asked, "Weren't you in school today?"

She looked up, as if she were surprised by the question and said, "I'm home schooled."

"How come?"

Mia seemed hesitant to answer but just as Max was about to tell her that it was fine if she didn't want to answer, she replied. "My aunt made me."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Max desperately wanted to ask more but he felt that it would be rude so he decided to let Mia get to know him. "I go to Lentington High School. Today was actually my first day. A couple of dudes were being nice to me which was good. I feel kind of bad really; I told Lily that I had a couple of close friends from our school so that she didn't think that I was just some loner but she doesn't seem like the type of girl who would think that about anyone. It's stupid, I know, but I just feel like I lied to her I guess."

Mia was about to say something when all of a sudden, a huge crash came from the direction of where Lily and Zoe had headed. Mia and Max shared a concerned look and then both raced down the hallway, towards the sound.