Part 6 - Day One, 18:00 to 00:00

<trumpet fanfare>

Sit up, you little bastards, and pay attention!

It's time for your favourite headteacher to inform you of and praise you for your killings.

Well, it was a busy time this morning, so you can be excused for a little slacking off. But our ratings are fantastic, in no small part boosted by you watching yourselves on TV, you little show-offs. Thank you! The advertisers are happy, the sponsors are happy, the Regime's happy, I'm happy, everyone's happy!

Except maybe you, but who gives a shit about you?

Game eliminations this last game period:

Student number 8, Karine Davide, run over by Ami Hodges! Ami, should you ever get out of this - which you won't - and be victorious, might I suggest some driving lessons? Shocking, really, and you're a danger to all other road users.

Student number 23, Gemma Shrap, gunned down by resident queer Bukiyo Natsume, who's finally admitted he wants to slip it to our favourite diseased Korean. And, frankly, Park, a word of advice: keep your clothes on, man, none of us want to see what you've got, which isn't much anyway.

Student number 24, Ryuji Tsutsuno, our home-grown terrorist and subversive, mown down in cold blood by... who knows? Well, I certainly do, but I ain't tellin'. All I can say is Ami's going to be one unpopular chick!

Group Zone starts at 9pm in G4 and G5. Remember - be there for ninety minutes, or be dead!

New Danger Zones: C6, B9, G9, I5, I8. Gotta start squeezing you out of your little hidey holes!

I've given you a bit of a break in the last six hours, but let's spice things up a little now. If there's not... hmmm... let's say... two eliminations this game period, we'll have to start taking DRASTIC MEASURES.

And don't forget - smile for the cameras!

<click>

Paul's watch was half-over when the radio barked. The death tally was fairly uninteresting this time as he hadn't caused any. He still technically hadn't. Harvey seemed to think the bike was intended for a trap, rather than a distraction. But Paul didn't mind taking credit for it.

He suddenly perked up with attention when Harvey mentioned the TV. He hadn't thought of that. There was a TV in the bedroom, Paul got up and went to it.

Flicking through the channels, he stopped on channel 3. It showed a body. he couldn't tell who because the camera seemed to be focused on two gaping holes in the chest. As paul watched, the camera panned up to reveal Reiko and Devon. Apparently the feed was coming from another (so far unidentifiable) member of their group "hmmm, quite a squad they got there." Paul mumbled.

Leon was still snoozing behind him. Paul kicked the bed and Leon sat up with a jolt "hey, look." Paul indicated the TV.

Leon got up from the bed and approached the TV. It was still showing Reiko, but Leon was looking at the object by her side. It was a weapon crate.

Reiko stared at Jennifer, who was also sobbing, extended one shaking hand and closed Ryuji's eyes for the final time, shaking with uncontrollable grief and wishing she had taken his premonition seriously. Perhaps... perhaps she could have stopped this from happening at all if she'd just listened more closely to him when he was so scared.

She felt Devon's arm around her back, and saw the tears pouring down his ashen face too; she put her arms all around him and they cried together for the needless loss of someone so gentle, so selfless that his last words to his best friend had been to tell her to escape this hideous nightmare.

Suddenly their radios blared out, and they listened in grief-stricken silence at the inappropriate and evil words of their head teacher.

"Harvey... you f**king c**t!!!" Reiko screamed, knowing he would be watching them on his TV monitors back in Battle HQ, "I hope someone blows your f**king head off, you shitheaded f**king asshole c**t," and she didn't even care if he activated her collar out of sheer spite then. But his words slowly seeped into her consciousness as she wept into Dev's chest.

"What the hell was that Harvey said... he said it was Ami? What the f**k happened with that kid? She ran over Karine, and shot Ryu? What the f**king hell is going on?!!" she cried, "I'm telling you now... if Ami Hodges dares to cross my f**king path before I get killed, I'm gonna kill the evil f**king bitch. Ryu was gonna help everyone escape, what harm was he doing to her?"

"She's a f**king dead woman walking, Dev. She might as well dig herself a f**king grave right now, 'cos I'm gonna kill the evil bitch. Ryu told me his plan just before he.. so you and Jen can try to escape. But I'm gonna take my revenge on that motherf**king c**t Hodges."

And she leaned over, still sobbing, and kissed Ryu goodbye on the forehead, before attempting to gather the few survivors left. "Come on, guys. He's gone, there's no point in us staying here, we're just making ourselves easy targets. We need to get to the Group Zone... at least it's not so far, and it's not too much out of our planned route, either..."

Slightly taken aback, but inwardly thrilled, by Kyo's admission, the exhausted Korean sat in silence for a couple of moments, watching his crush's retreating back, still feeling the warm, tingling sensation of the other boy's lips on his own.

Then he grimaced, pulling his towel more tightly around his waist, and turned the dead girl's body over. Gemma's face was a contorted, bloody mess: the bullet from Kyo's surprisingly powerful little handgun had torn through her face and ripped part of it off in its explosive entry through her left eyesocket.

He grimaced even deeper, got up, grabbed the cooling corpse by the ankles, and determinedly dragged the body out to the garden shed via the back door, which he broke down with surprisingly little effort: the bolts were rusty and the hinges were rotten. He deposited her in there, closing the door and bolting it from the outside, then returned into the house, shivering in the cooling, darkening evening air.

In the bathroom, he found Kyo cleaning the surface wound in his thigh with some tissue and hot water. He could hardly take his eyes off Kyo's long, slender legs, divested of his uniform pants, but knew that this was neither the time or place to try to capitalise on the situation. After all, he knew how he had felt when he had been forced to kill Anna, who he barely even knew, in self-defence, how on earth must Kyo be feeling after having killed a friend - just to protect him?

"Hey... not so bad, huh? Should heal pretty quick. Here, let me take a look - I found some antiseptic stuff in the kitchen," he said softly, and inspected the graze, then put some liquid antiseptic onto a bit of tissue and held it against the open wound, making Kyo wince. "Sorry, I know it stings - I'm gonna have to put some on my neck in a minute as well..."

For an awkward moment, though, he found himself holding the Japanese boy's thigh, and for the first time probably in his entire life, Park blushed, feeling somehow... inappropriate. Kyo's shyness seemed to be rubbing off on him. However, just as he was thinking about making a move, they heard their radios, still on the bed in the top storey, click on and that damnable trumpet fanfare which signalled Harvey would soon be spouting off.

Both boys raced upstairs to hear the announcements, and Park cringed when he heard Kyo being denigrated in public by that hypocritical asshole Harvey. Jesus, why doesn't the guy keep his f**king mouth shut, the Korean thought, Particularly when everyone knows he's as queer as a three-dollar bill himself, which is why he takes it out on us so much...

"Don't worry about what he says, hon," Park murmured, kissing Kyo's wrist reassuringly, "He's just jealous. Probably wants to have you for himself, no doubt."

But the real shock came when they learned of Ryuji's assassination. As the zones were read out, Park numbly marked them off on their maps, but was hardly taking any notice. As for Kyo... he looked absolutely devastated. Of course, Ryu and Kyo had been friends - fellow countrymen and all that.

"F**king hell... why Ryu?" Park muttered in a distressed little voice, "Why would Ami want to murder him in cold blood? F**king f**k," and he took Kyo into his arms in anticipation of more grief. They never seemed to stop crying nowadays.

Once inside the house, the four kids settled down to watch the TV and see if they could get any clues about the others. Lora picked up the remote control and zapped through the terrestrial channels: the battle was being broadcast on Channel 3, so it was easily available to everyone.

Sylvain's head was spinning, but he was making a gargantuan effort to hold himself together. It had been so long now without his medication that things were starting to become... difficult for him. He was beginning to remember how his brain worked without the drugs... the voices, the commands, the disorientation, were all beginning to make their presence felt again.

He looked dopily at Delilah, who was glued to the screen, but tried to drag his eyes away as his consciousness was suddenly assaulted with a whole sequence of erotic and brutal images. His body responded helplessly to the terrifying and yet still arousing pictures imprinting on the back of his eyelids. His back broke out in a light sweat, and he tucked his shaking hands under his armpits, knowing that soon he would not be able to control himself so adequately... and afraid of what he might end up doing.

On the TV, they were all watching someone getting shot in the chest by a chick in a Land Rover.

"F**k, that's... that's Ryuji Tsutsuno," Lora said, distraught, "We are totally, totally f**ked now. He was supposed to have some foolproof escape plan, and now some f**ker killed our only hope of getting out of here alive."

Gordon snorted, sneering at her naivety. "Did you really think his stupid schemes could work, Lora? F**k, if Harvey and his pet army had thought for a second there was any chance of that, they would have set off his necklace in a second..."

"Or sent someone to assassinate him?" added the Spaniard grimly, jabbing her thumb at the screen, where Reiko, Devon and Jennifer were sprawled over the sidewalk, weeping over the Japanese boy's bloody corpse. "You wanna know what I think? Someone in our year is working for Harvey. That's what I think. Why send out a f**king army chopper to take out the threat of a terrorist kid working on an escape plan when you can send one of his friends to do it instead?"

There was a heavy silence while Lora's words sank in.

"Nah... we'd know if there was somebody like that in our year, wouldn't we?" Gordon replied dismissively, shrugging.

Just as Lora was about to reply, the announcements were made over their radios. Grimly they heard the death list being read out: and Ami Hodges being implicated in Ryu's murder, which of course enraged Sylvain and Lora even further then, and made the Spanish girl let loose a string of cursewords in her own native tongue.

The command the poor French kid heard in his own head then was too strong, too powerful to deny, and he realised in horror that his self-control was slipping away faster than he thought."D..d..delilah," Sylvain suddenly said in a shaky voice that didn't seem to be coming from his own mouth, "Can I - can I t-talk to you... alone? P-please..."

Dev got to his feet unsteadily and kicked his skateboard up so he could grab the back wheels and pick it up. So, the dizzy spells were returning along with a crushing sense of self-loathing that he driven him to the brink so many times in the past.

What he wouldn't have given for just a single pill, anything, even just an aspirin that he could pretend would do something to aliviete the heaviness in his heart and the sickness invading his body.

With his free hand he rummaged around in the bag slung over his shoulder and retrieved his dark green beanie, tucking his bangs out of the way before putting it on.

Jennifer was still lost in thought, her red-raw eyes trained on Ryuji's lifeless body, but Reiko glanced over at him, waiting for some kind of affirmation. It seemed she'd taken the lead.

He smiled at her weakly, hoping the gesture might ease a little of her suffering along with his own. But, the girl remained silent and only slipped her hand round Jennifer's leading her down the road towards Harvey's latest playground.

On shaking legs, Devon followed them, but just shy of the half-way mark he fell and didn't get up.

Kyo didn't however react as Park thought he would and simply sat, blankly staring at nothing for an uncomfortably long time. He'd loved Ryuji, in a purely platonic sense, but all the warm memories of time spent together; with his Japanese brother and their close circle of friends stabbed at his heart repeatedly until there was nothing left, but a cold, broken shell.

And only one person could even begin to heal it.

"Park-kun." He whispered, barely audibly, his fingers reaching up to ghost over the myriad of cuts scattered over his friend's ashen skin.

"I don't want to fight any more..." And the helpless, vacant tone of his voice chilled them both.

Delilah looked away from the tv screen, with its arousing images-- such slaughter she'd never seen the likes of. It thrilled her deeply and it was all she could do not to take up her weapon and murder all the innocent, little morons who believed she wasn't a threat.

However, Sylvain's trembling voice shocked her from those pleasurable day dreams and wordlessly she took his hand and pulled him up, leading her pet into the hallway.

Lora and Gordon both looked on curiously, but neither knew what to say, even when she slammed the door in their faces.

"Sweetie?? Is something wrong?"

Leon and Paul stood by the entrance to the supermarket. Leon held the Colt and kept lookout while Paul emptied the steel dustbin on the floor. When he was done, he looked at Leon, tapped his watch and held up 2 fingers "you have two minutes"

Leon glanced at his watch. There was an element of risk in what they were doing. They were about to make a lot of noise, which could never be a good thing. But the supermarket was kind of on their way to the Group Zone anyway, so it'd be a shame to miss out on some supplies like REAL food!

Paul approached the door, holding the bin in front of him. He swung it, hard, and hefted it into the glass door.

His ears were immediately assaulted by the ear-splitting alarm. Of course, Leon wasn't affected and merely tossed the Colt to Paul as he athletically leapt through the hole in the glass.

Paul walked backwards into the street where he could get a better angle on anyone approaching. plus it took him further from that f*cking alarm.

Paul nervously looked around for a few minutes until Leon jumped back through the glass, clutching a wire basket full of supplies.
"f**k, you took your time!" Paul yelled. "Come on!"

The boys ran south of the supermarket until they reached a line of trees at the edge of the car park. They stopped.

"What'dya get?" Paul asked. Leon handed him the basket, still keeping an eye out past the trees. They were still too close to the screaming supermarket for his liking.

Paul rifled through the basket. "Cool! Maryland Cookies?" he whispered excitedly "you're the best bro!" Leon unzipped the day pack on his shoulder. They had transferred all their supplies into Paul's bag in preparation for this little adventure. Paul tipped the contents into the spare pack. he then handed the Colt back to Leon. It made sense, he was the one best suited to weapons. ALthough Leon had found something else in the supermarket.

With a cheeky grin on his face, Leon signalled "here, swap" and took the rifle. He fished in his pockets and brought out a small shiny object which he handed to Paul.

Paul looked confused. "A key-ring?" He read the side of the cylindrical object. "pepper spray?" he laughed before pocketing the device.

"Maybe it's best if we get out of here" Paul suggested "We gotta go south to get to the new Group Zone. Come on, I wanna get there before it gets too dark"

As Devon fell, Reiko turned just in time to see his legs give out and he collapsed on the pavement. She had thought to herself that he wasn't looking very well earlier: his face was a strange, pallid grey, his skin was clammy and there were black hollows round his blue eyes, normally so bright but now dull like an overcast sky.

"Dev? Dev, are you OK?" she cried, pulling Jennifer backwards and almost over, thrusting the bazooka case at her to hold. She knelt down to check on him, her medical knowledge kicking in as she switched into amateur doctor mode, feeling for his pulse, which was quick and worryingly shallow; she put him into the recovery position, on his side, shoving her backpack under his head, checked his airways and breathing (both of which were fine), and took his hand in both of her small hands.

It appeared he had simply fainted, so now it was just a question of waiting until he was awake. But at the same time, Rei felt exposed and vulnerable now: after all, they were just two not particularly capable girls while Devon was unconscious - one who was all but incapable of looking out even for herself, and the other who didn't even have a halfway to decent weapon. Except... except, of course, the bazooka which Jennifer was holding.

Rei cursed having had to leave the Gatling behind, but equally she realised it would have done them no good anyway. Now Devon was sick and Ryu was... gone, there was no way she and Jennifer would have been able to carry it by themselves.

"Jen, give me the case. I want to get that bazooka out. It's the only weapon we have left," she said determinedly, and the blonde handed over the box, allowing Reiko to take control of the only weapon they had left to them. The slight Japanese girl put five shells in the box, and put the box in her pack, arming the launcher with a single shell and holding it tightly in her right hand.

"Ryu told me his plans for us. It's up to me now to try and make it work," she said quietly, stroking Devon's hair gently and absently. "If I have to use a couple of shells to protect us, then so be it. As long as I leave us with at least three, we may just have a shot at it. Otherwise... otherwise we're all done for."

"Like Ryu said, you can take your chances with me, or you can go it alone. It's your choice. But his last wish was for me to look after you, so if you don't want to try his plan, I'll drop it and we can go hunt another weapon instead. But I need your decision, and fast... and I hope Dev wakes up soon. We're sitting ducks right now," she finished grimly, pushing her long, dirty plaits out of her face, "And I don't want to wait too long here... we don't want to be the last into the Group Zone."

Park slowly disengaged himself from embracing Kyo and stared into his dark, pain-filled eyes, in total disbelief at what the grief-racked Japanese boy had just said to him. The absolute bottom line of what his love wanted was suicide. If they didn't go to the Group Zone, they would simply die: Harvey would activate their collars and poison them at the end of the game period.

Did that sound like such a bad thing, though...? It would probably be a little like going to sleep: they would almost certainly lose consciousness before there was any pain. The sting of the needle would be the worst they would feel... and they would have several hours of their lives left to be together before their time would be over and they would die in each other's arms.

The Korean shook his head a little to clear it, and tried to listen to his own thoughts calmly and rationally, without fear or panic. He already knew that their chances were slim no matter how much Park would try to defend his crush - especially with such murderous lunatics as the transfer girl, the Courtneys and now Ami Hodges about.

Eventually, he took Kyo's hands in both his own, and addressed him, softly, seriously, and very gravely, his intense black gaze never leaving the Japanese boy's eyes for a second.

"Bukiyo... I know Ryu meant a lot to you, and I know how close you were. And I know what you've just been through with Gemma must have hurt you so much. I guess what I'm trying to say..." and his husky, gentle voice broke a little under the strain, "What I'm trying to say is.. whatever you want to do, I'll be with you. If you choose to stay here with me and wait for our collars to get set off, I'll stay and die with you. If you choose to carry on fighting, I'll stay with you and protect you to the best of my abilities, until someone kills me."

"I don't think Ryu would want you to give up on your life, but if you don't want to fight and kill again just for the sake of a few more hours' worth of living, then I understand. I can't promise you it won't hurt, but whether the pain of the poisoning would be worse than the pain of getting shot or exploded or stabbed or even beaten to death is anyone's guess..."

"It doesn't matter what happens, I don't think either of us are going to survive. You're no killer, and we both know some of those kids out there are f**king animals. You're better than that, and that's why neither of us are going to walk away in one piece from this sick, evil so-called f**king game."

"My life is in your hands. It's totally your decision. I won't ever leave your side, I swear it to you. I love you and I trust you to make the right choice for us, whatever it may be," and the Korean bowed his head slightly, silvery tears dropping onto his hands... waiting for the axe to fall.

Sylvain no longer even felt like himself any more. His self-control was all vanishing into thin air. The last vestiges of the medication had worn off and his mind was full of terrible images, his heart pierced with horror and his emotions and thoughts all confused and garbled, choked up.

He knew he was about to have an acute psychotic episode, but could no more have articulated that to Delilah than he could have swum the Channel to go back home to France. The shadowy things which used to live in his head and made him do whatever they wanted were fully back in charge now, screaming endlessly inside his embattled mind, and his pretty blue eyes looked like a doll's eyes, glassy and too wide-open.

His pale skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat, and the fear he felt as he muttered, "Need to... be alone with you," turned too quickly into rage, and curdled into overwhelming lust and fury at having been denied Delilah's favours for far too long. He all but pulled the girl into the kitchen and, with surprising strength (no doubt exacerbated by his psychosis) suddenly lifted her bodily and threw her down on the dining-table. He was already hallucinating... the darkness and shadows being thrown by the bright moonlight through the plate-glass windows made him think that the evil demons that populated his undrugged cranium were there in the room with them, encouraging him, urging him to teach the stuck-up, lying, murdering cocktease a lesson.

"All this time..." he growled, "You've just been playing with me, haven't you, bitch. Now I'm gonna take what you weren't gonna give me," and he had already grabbed a knife that had been lying on the work surface, holding it to her throat while he pinned her violently flailing legs with his knees, using his free hand to shove her skirt around her waist and force himself aboard her as she kicked and screamed with a rage equal to his own.

No-one at Harvey had ever seen one of Sylvain's psychotic episodes in full flow, and even if Delilah had known the truth about the French boy, no-one would ever have expected anything like this from the meek, shy, cowardly little blond.

He had not raped anyone for quite some while, and had tried to commit suicide after the last incident: he had committed a serious sexual assault on his cousin, who had also later tried to kill herself... but she succeeded where he had failed. And that was the last straw for the police, and the final crime which had led to his hospitalisation under armed guard in Saint-Dizier.

Right now, all he was seeing was the ghost of his cousin, and he wept with confused pain and ecstasy as he brutally raped the girl who had thought she was the one controlling him... rather than the demons of his schizophrenia.

Suddenly, before Jennifer could stumble out a reply Devon stirred, clutching his stomach as he came round. It lurched violently and he spat out a small gout of blood; his whole internal systems had decided to begin shutting down.

Until his ragged breathing calmed he just lay there, soothed in some small measure by Reiko's cool hands stroking his damp brow. Finalyl the Canadian felt strong enough to sit upright and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, feeling another rush of self-loathing.

He hadn't been able to protect her....all that time ago and now, his two best girlfriends would be failed by him as well. Dev felt utterly wretched.

"...Devon?" Reiko gazed at him anxiously, her expression matched by Jennifer's.

"Shit, I'm sorry Rei...lets get going." Struggling a little he got to his feet and reached for his battered skateboard, as if he hadn't just been lying there, vomiting up blood and skirting a knife edge of despair.

Kyo's heart ached for the selfless sacrifice Park was willing to make for him. He almost couldn't believe it at first; why would someone like Park want to give up everything, even his life for a nothing kid like him?

Every way he'd turned in the past rejection had greeted him and it was all he'd ever known so such a passionate, doubtless declaration took Kyo by surprise. The diminutive Japanese pulled Park into a tight hug, whispering softly in his ear, "If that's how you feel then...I'll keep fighting, I'd rather die defending you than sulley Ryu's memory or just let you kill yourself for my selfish wishes."

His dejection was still there, overwhelmingly so, but Park had illuminated his own morbid thoughts and shown him that eventhough they might both be only awaiting death; there were options.

".....maybe, we could go and look for Reiko-chan and the others...? I'd at least like to say goodbye." He hesitated, slipping one slender digit under Park's chin to tilt his head up until their eyes met. The pain mingled with resolution he saw there gave him strength not to quit...not just yet.

Nervously he added, "How long do we have?....."

Delilah threw back her head and screamed, a violent, furiously feral noise. There was no way her pet would take her this way; he was hers and no one, not her parents, not her tutors was ever going to control her.

"GET THE F**K OFF ME SYLVAIN!" With an almighty shove she managed to dislodge him and scramble back over the table surface, ignoring the pain between her legs and the disarray of her rumpled skirt.

He looked manic, both enraged and saddened by her outburst, the knife still clutched between white-knuckled fingers and the sheen of sweat vivid on his sallow forehead.

With the table as a barrier Delilah addressed him coldly, hitching up her underwear again, "I took care of you, you little f**ker and this is how you repay me?? I should kill you and those two brats right now!"

With her clothes back in their rightful place she turned slightly, still keeping her icy gaze trained on him and spoke again, her tone alot calmer, "But the knife down sweetie....we can deal with this."

Before he could react she was already running for the door.

"I feel worse" Ami moaned, as she climbed out of the bed. "Maybe I shouldn't have gone to sleep." She picked up her clothes and sat on the bed holding her head. She stared at the uniform in silence. After a moment of deliberation she started to straighten the out and put them on. She wasn't going to shower infront of the british public. 'Park's already done that.' she thought with a slight smile. She pulled her skirt on.

As the radio began to blare, she jumped, stopping herself from screaming. She stared at the radio as Karine David was menioned, followed by herself. "I didn't mean it, Hannelore...." she looked up at the German girl. "I couldn't control the car and ... and..."

Her eyes widened as her name was called a second time. "Ryuji... Ryuji! I haven't seen him since we all left! Why is everyone blaming me?" She turned her head away, stood up and pulled her shirt on. "I didn't even want to play this stupid game." She ran out of the room and down the stairs not really knowing what to do. She stormed over to her bag, taking the bag of peanuts out she threw them across the room, so that they hit the wall. Crying she stared up at the ceiling, not caring for much anymore. "They broke my one resolve. I couldn't even come out of this without killing anyone..." Her voice trailed off as she closed her eyes.

She opened them again and looked towards the doorway. Seeing Hannelore she stared wide-eyed and smiled slowly. "Would you like some peanuts? Never liked them myself."

Ryuji was… was… dead… No, he couldn’t be! It was just a horrible dream! Yes, that’s what it was! Jennifer tried telling herself that none of this was real, but deep down she knew that no matter how many times she said it, it wouldn’t change what had happened. Ryuji was really dead! And he would never come back! “I love you too…” she whispered and started crying.

Reiko pulled her away from the dead boy. They had to get moving. She didn’t want to, but it was what Ryu wanted. As they started walking, it didn’t take long before Devon fainted. At first, Jennifer thought he just lost his balance, however when he didn’t get up again… Both Reiko and she rushed over to him, although Rei quickly pushed her back, handing over the case with the bazooka. After checking on Dev, Reiko took the case out of her hands, and took out the bazooka. She was saying something, but Jennifer didn’t hear her. The young blonde couldn’t take her eyes off the unconscious boy. Devon started regaining conscious and without any warning he threw up some amount of blood, making Jennifer jump. She did manage to hold back her scream, in fear that someone dangerous would hear her. And the fact that after vomiting, Devon just got up, like nothing happened, didn’t make her feel any better. For some reason, it made her feel really uncomfortable. She shook it off, thinking it was only her nerves. She had been through a lot in these past hours...

Reiko helped her up, and they were on their way to the new group zone.

Now, when Ryuji was dead and Devon had collapsed would have been the perfect time for Hans to get the bazooka from the… umm… duo? Trio? Whatever… he could easily have taken it from them, but for some reason he couldn’t. They looked so defenseless out there and he kind of felt sorry for them. Soon it’d be too late anyway. “F*ck,” he mumbled, while, without thinking about it, chewing on a stick he had found on the ground. Other than needing a new, better weapon he could kill for a cigarette. He had a packet in his bag, but as dumb as he considers himself to be, he didn’t bring a lighter. Of course, he could always stuff himself full with amphetamine… However, getting stoned now wouldn’t be such a great idea.

“Okay,” he thought, “what now…? Can’t take their weapon cuz, gee, turns out I have a heart after all…” He sighed. “Oh, f*ck it, they were gonna spot me sooner or later anyway…” After giving it a second thought, he decided to step out of his hiding place, hoping that when Reiko – or whoever it’d be – saw him, they wouldn’t blow his brains out right away.

"Shit" Paul mumbled as they approached the Group Zone "look at it".

The new designated Group Zone was in the middle of nowhere. Hardly a single building in sight. "Harvey must've done this on purpose. We're out in the open, he wants a high bodycount"

Leon surveyed the area. The Courtneys had been standing in the open for quite a while now without a single shot fired. He presumed they must be the first here. He looked at his watch, 8:42. They were early.

The only building worth noting was Pinhill Farm House. Leon reckoned if they fortified that house, they'd be in a good position for the upcoming group "meeting" The downside was, as the only building in the area, it'd definitely attract attention. Also, it would probably be impossible to leave the Farm House for the whole duration of the GZ period without somebody seeing them.

Paul was also eyeing the house "What do ya reckon bro?". Leon pointed at the house and signaled "ours"

Paul sighed, "Are you sure? We're gonna be the primary target in there!" Leon was insistant, he already started walking to the house. "This is gonna be tough." Paul said, "I'll make some traps up. We can't stop em coming, but maybe we can get some kinda warning."

Leon knew this was an incredibly long shot, but it was a necessary sacrifice, for he needed that bazooka.

And now he'd have the best sniping position for the period.

"Listen to me, Ami. I don't know what shit Harvey's trying to pull. Maybe he's trying to stitch you up for something. Maybe you did something back at the Institute he really didn't like. Or maybe he's just making the whole thing up in his announcements, just to get a rise out of us. But who gives a shit anyway?"

"With Karine, I think you just weren't paying too much attention to where you were going... it's far too easily to be distracted by what's going on. Don't worry about it, hon..."

Hannelore gave the gently weeping Ami a hug.

"You OK? It's just... we need to get to the Group Zone before dark... and the sooner we're in there, the sooner we're out. And listen, I'm still really not up to driving - but I think we need to go cross-country. Can you manage that?"

Ami looked doubtful - she'd never driven off-road before.

"It's easy. You just have to be verrrrrry easy on the gas. And in that old tank, it's not gonna be a problem anyway."

Before they left, the two girls grabbed some food from the cupboards of the house they were in - some crackers, chocolate biscuits, crisps, and a tin of sardines. Grimacing at the distasteful mix of flavours in their mouths, they walked to the Landrover.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Ami.

"Huh?" Hannelore looked mystified.

"Before we got out, you took out the distributor cap again. Hadn't you better put it back in again?"

Shit. Hannelore thought she'd covered everything. Now Ami was suspicious, which was the last thing Hannelore wanted her to be. She needed to think quickly.

"No no no. While you were asleep I figured out we'd need to be quick. And it took me so long to get it back in before... so I went out and did it back then."

Ami looked doubtful. "You had no problem getting it back in before."

"Well, you know... I didn't know if we needed to get away quickly. And I still had the keys in any case."

"OK" replied Ami. "Where do you want to me to go?"

Hannelore showed her the route. If they went up Silver Street, to Pillars Lodge, they could turn on the unmarked road to the right. She wanted to head for somewhere easily defended - and she reckoned the moat at the top of the hill by Pinhills Farm was probably a good spot. But not a direct route though... who knows who might be there already. Ami started the engine and drove carefully to the Lodge, Hannelore scanning all the time just in case anyone was around, shotgun to hand in case things got nasty.

"OK Ami, go along this road on the right here, but take the left fork...then drive around the wood there and do a loop, and we'll park at the bottom of the hill and walk up to the moat. And turn the goddamn lights off! We'll have to do with whatever natural light there is."

Ami did as she was told, only causing a slight scare as she bumped over a ditch she hadn't been able to see.

"SHIT AMI! You nearly made me shoot my own f**king foot!"

Ami apologised as she parked the car. Turning off the engine, the two girls exited the vehicle, leaving the doors open so that the sound of their slamming did not travel in the cool night air. Hannelore took off the distributor cap again and, as she strained as she tried to march up the hill, she winced; her ankle was now somewhat better but still hurt if she put too much of a burden on it.

When they found the moat they realised it provided excellent protection. Clearly at some point there'd been a castle or something atop it; there were a few pieces of ancient rubble strewn at the centre. More to the point, there was a bank on the edge of the moat as if the moat had been dug out and the spoil from it placed around the outside as a type of banked fortification; similarly, inside, there was a slightly raised area, but not by any means above the level of the surrounding bank, which could offer cover.

"Hannelore, look!" Ami pointed her in the direction of a dark piece of earth in the central area. They splashed through the water as quickly and quietly as they could. It was now almost completely dark.

Inside the moat Hannelore picked up an Uzi 9mm submachine gun. There was a box next to it - she reckoned there couldn't be more than about a hundred rounds in there. If she were to use it, she'd have to be careful with the ammo. Looking at her watch, she started to time ninety long minutes out in the open.

The partial sense of relief the Korean felt at Kyo's brave determination to keep going, to fight for every moment they could have together, was tainted with new anxiety. He himself had not considered how much more painful his own death might be in combat rather than suicide, and it wasn't something he wanted to dwell on right now, with a Group Zone coming up.

But he glanced down at his watch, rather baffled by Kyo's question about how much time they had left before they needed to be in the Group Zone, and tried to straighten his thoughts out enough to think through the complex maths involved.

"Er... well, it's almost seven-thirty now. We have an hour and a half before the zone goes live, then we have to stay there for ninety minutes within the three-hour time limit. If we didn't show up until the very last 90 minutes of the zone, that would give us until...erm... 10.30pm, which would also be good for us 'cos then we'd have the cover of darkness to help us hide..."

"So we have three hours to rest, eat and get to the Zone. But it's not too far from us anyway - I reckon about half an hour on foot, tops. And if we go late, most of the others will hopefully have been and gone by the time we arrive... although we'll need to be there a little earlier than 10.30pm to ensure that we do spend the full 90 minutes in the zone."

"But if you want to find Reiko, we'll need to go earlier, and it'll be dangerous - you've seen the zone layout yourself, it's so f**ing exposed this time - there's virtually nowhere to hide, just a few crappy buildings and they'll be dangerous enough..."

"...Why do you ask about the time, though?" he added, still confused, his gaze locked tightly again with Kyo's, stroking the backs of his hands gently.

Kyo didn't respond for a long time, merely staring down at their hands entwined.

"What's the matter, hon?" Park finally asked worriedly, breaking the rather awkward silence that had grown between them, "You can tell me..."

The Japanese boy raised his eyes plaintively, his pretty face blazing with a fiery crimson blush, and turned slowly and deliberately to look at the bed beneath them, before gently but firmly placing the Korean's hand on his thigh. It was probably the clearest sign he could make, despite his almost pathological shyness, that he wanted to give himself to Park before they died.

Park was quite shocked, and it was his turn to blush a little and raise his eyebrows, gulping audibly, completely taken by surprise. This kind of shyness and embarrassment about sex was all new to him: he used to joke with Devon that he was such a slut he would never be able to get married in white. And he had been a very popular boy among the school's gay community, due to his lethal combination of beauty and cheapness... not to mention his general reputation of being a killer lay.

But there was something so... so pure, so beautifully clean and untarnished about Kyo, that Park was almost loathe to compromise his innocence... and after having worshipped the Japanese from afar for over a year, he was ashamed to admit he was nervous as hell now he finally had his chance. Not to mention the fact that their most intimate last moments before their inevitable deaths would be broadcast live across the nation for everyone to gawp at.

"Oh... I see," he managed eventually, his heart thumping, but found he needed no more words than that, the pair of them gently falling into the welcoming softness of the bed beneath them, into each others' deepest embrace.

"Dev, are you sure you're OK to keep going?" Rei said softly, holding tightly to him as both herself and Jennifer helped him up, each of them putting an arm around his back to steady him. "Man, you shouldn't be vomiting blood, after the zone I'm really gonna have to check you over a lot more carefully..." and gently she used the back of her uniform shirt sleeve to wipe the blood from his mouth.

But just as they were about to get started off for the zone again (via a swift stop at the petrol station: Reiko had suddenly had the idea that they might be able to find a car to steal there), a rustle in the bushes and the appearance of the top of a blond head gave them all such a shock that Jennifer screamed aloud, jumping behind Rei and Dev. On full alert, Reiko let go of Devon's shaking body, leapt into a shooting stance and held the loaded bazooka up, training it on the head in the shrub in question.

"WHO'S THERE?" she hissed, her big black eyes flashing with a combination of hate, adrenaline and edgy terror. "Whoever you are, get your ass out of that f**king bush right now or I'll blow your f**king head off..."

But as she was speaking, Hans Krueger was already emerging from the bush, his hands in the air, looking sheepish.

"What do you want, Hans?" she said stonily, mistrustful as she was of everyone now, but equally unwilling to use a whole bazooka shell up in blowing him away if it didn't look like he would be causing trouble for them.

Sylvain, however, stepped in front of her, threatening her again with the knife, and pushed her back into the kitchen. He wasn't done with the slut bitch yet. The slender, and yet surprisingly strong, blond simply had no control whatsoever over what he was doing; the drugs had kept him human for a long time but now they were gone, his puppetmaster demons were pulling his strings again. Sylvain had always been someone's puppet, all of his short life; he did not belong to himself and never had. Someone - or some thing - else had always been in control of him.

A tiny voice of sanity, which still had a place somewhere among the tornado of madness inside his head, was begging him to let the girl go, not to be so stupid - after all, she was every bit as psychotic as he was, if not more so - to just escape, run away. But he couldn't respond to it, couldn't snap out of this destructive and evil behaviour pattern his psychotic brain had thrown him into.

"Sylvain?" cried Lora's voice concernedly through the bolted door, trying to get in, mistrustful (as they all were, at heart) of the transfer girl's motives for getting them all to join the party. "Are you OK? Sylvain?!! Why is Delilah screaming? What's going on in there?!"

There was some muffled argument between Gordon and Lora, and then Gordon attempted to break the door down. But he wasn't very well- built, and the door was a heavy oaken affair, stoutly bolted with two big iron bolts from the inside, so he didn't even crack the hinges.

"I'm not finished, bitch," he whispered, holding the tip of the blade under her chin, with no intention of letting her go until he was fully satisfied, sated of his lust and greed for new power over her.

Someone was holding him close, he could feel the slow, rhythmic beat of a heartbeat against his bare chest and hear light sighs of breath even before they caressed his skin. It took Kyo a few moments to truly wake and remember where he was, just who it was that cradled him in their strong arms.

His cheeks prickled with a furious blush as the memories of the last hour or so trickled back into his conscious mind and with them both mingled embarrasment that the whole nation had seen him and Park making love and a sense of overwhelming contentment.

Park stirred and Kyo pulled away just enough to watch him waking; the sudden flickering of his dark lashes, a soft sigh escaping his lips as he prised his eyes open.

"....hey...Park-kun.." Kyo hesitated, further dissuaded from speaking again by the possesive way Park's arms tightened around his waist.

"Hmm...?" The Korean mumbled sleepily.

"Maybe...we should go...if we want to catch Reiko."

Park sighed heavily, but nodded nonetheless, "You're right."

They just lay for a few moments in silence until Park forced himself to release Kyo and get off the bed, only pausing to lean over a plant a kiss on the Japanese's forehead before he gathered up his clothes to get dressed once more.

Kyo averted his eyes, despite what they'd just shared he was still as shy as usual and got dressed quickly.

Now, set to their task Kyo and his koibito left the house and headed to the GZ.

Devon, despite his fragile condition backed Reiko up, holding his skateboard in one hand slightly behind his back just in case the Japanese girl needed defending. Although from the hard commanding quality of her voice she was doing just find on her own.

"For f**ks sake Sylvain." Delilah snatched the knife out of his grasp before he could react and steeped away from him, holding it behind her back, "It's me, Delilah...I've taken care of you since this began you don't want to hurt me....and sweetie, if you wanted me that way all you had to do was ask..."

She gave him a genuine, sympathetic smile, hoping that somewhere deep within his screwed up little mind a spark of recognition might be ignited.

Slowly, the French psychopath did seem to be calming down, his ragged breathing returned to normal and he regarded her silently.

"Sylvain...hunnie, you know I don't want to hurt you."

“Well, I’m still alive,” Hans thought, “however, I have absolutely no idea where to go from here…” Act first, think later- what a horrible strategy. He better come up with something to say fast. Reiko sure as hell didn’t look like someone one would mess with right now. “Just, don’t shoot, okay? I’m not looking for a fight.” Funny, a little over six hours ago he would have done anything to get a better weapon and kill some students before someone got him. He still wanted a better weapon though but to use in defense. The whole dying/killing-thing didn’t, for some reason, sound too appealing anymore.

At least he could try joining up with them, as they seemed to have a plan to make it out of here alive. If they didn’t want him around then, well, he’d just have to go back to stalking them again. “I was wondering if you could, by any chance, maybe… use some extra help…?” He hoped she’d lower the bazooka, or at least stop aiming it at him. It was starting to make him nervous.

Once Leon had entered the farmhouse, Paul checked the perimeter and set tripwires along the edge which would hopefully alert him to anyone approaching. As he passed the front yard, he noticed an old chainsaw lying next to some newly-chopped firewood. Presumably the farmer had been halfway through sawing when the evacuation order came in.

Paul picked up the chainsaw and noticed it was low on fuel. He had an idea where he could get some more.

"workshed"

Leon walked through the kitchen grabbing an apple and a spoon. He pocketed the spoon and started munching the apple as he climbed the stairs.

He entered the back bedroom. This was to be his sniping point. Only the back third of the house fell under the GZ area and this room offered the best view. As Leon stared out of the window, Paul threw the switch to the security light.

The area was bathed in a harsh glow. The light would serve 2 purposes. Firstly it would provide better visibility for Leon to aim with, secondly it would make Leon's movemen't at the window practically invisible to anyone who looked at the house.

Leon took aim out of the window. He thought he could see movement in the bushes but he held fire. There was no way of telling if it was anyone from the bazooka group. Plus the Colt probably wouldn't be very effective at this range anyway.

Paul had finished setting his defences and re-entered the house. He backed up into the kitchen which also fell into the GZ. It was the only way he could be in the GZ and still keep an eye on the front entrance.

The back would of course have to be covered by Leon, but Paul's job was to stop anyone trying to gain entry from the front.

He gripped the chainsaw tightly. He hadn't started it in case it made too much noise.

He had already turned out the light in the hallway and now he waited silently in the darkness

Park was still feeling very sleepy and a little spaced when the couple set out for the zone. He wished they'd had more time to just lie and talk, share their feelings after what had been a very profound experience - well, it had been for him, anyway. He felt sorry they had to get moving so fast after waking from their warm slumber; he would have liked to have had time to tell Kyo how much it had meant to him... and to reassure himself that he hadn't done the wrong thing by his new koibito.

Kyo was so quiet right now; the Korean couldn't read his mood at all, so he left it to the Japanese boy to make comment if he wanted to. Whether it was shyness, embarrassment or regret, Park had no idea; but even if it had been something negative there was little he could have done about it anyway. Maybe it was just the pressure of the Group Zone hanging over both of them that depressed them into near-silence.

Despite the knowledge that the British public at large had been able to see him taking Kyo's virginity (he had worked out quite quickly that they wouldn't see too much anyway, due to the positioning of the collar cameras), it had been the very first time Park had ever experienced anything deeper in bed than simple lust, and it would take him a while to calm himself after such an emotional blast. He had waited so long for it that when it happened, it had been unlike anything he had ever known before... and he knew he would carry the memory of that shining afternoon of bliss forever.

Eventually, he sighed, shook his head a little to clear it of the sleepy brain-fluff, and the pair of them slogged along Wenhill Lane in the falling dusk, holding hands, staying quite quiet so as not to attract attention. The silence was truly creepy, but at least they'd have the advantage, being on foot, that they could hear approaching cars or any battling already taking place.

"I suspect Reiko might well be heading for the moat," Park whispered, the pair of them squinting at the map in the deep blue twilight, "She's got a group to look after, after all, and the vantage point is pretty good from up there - it's high. You could see any potential attackers coming for you before they see you..."

But as they approached the water, they heard voices, and Park crouched down, listening, pulling his koi down low by the arm too... but it definitely wasn't Reiko. The accent was harsh, Teutonic.

"Shit, that's not Rei - sounds like Hannelore," the Korean whispered softly into his lover's ear, "Let's get out of here... go back towards that little shed we saw at the end of Wenhill Lane. That way, we can watch out for Rei from a reasonably safe place... what do you think?" Kyo nodded in silent affirmation, and Park clutched his hand even more tightly,

As they were about to creep away, they both spotted a security light come on in the yard of the large farm they had been about to head towards. Both boys froze like rabbits in car headlights, still crouched low enough to not be seen.

Now they were truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Thankfully they were on the wrong side of the bank to be seen by either party - low enough not to be spotted by the German girl, who was an unknown quantity at best, but who had the murderous Ami with her, after all - and on the opposite side to the farmhouse, so protected by the banking.

Stealthily they crept away on tiptoes, keeping low to the ground, and reached the small shed within minutes, ducking down inside. They peered out through the windows on opposite sides of the outbuilding, keeping watch for Reiko and her gang, timing their ninety minutes from now to be safe.

Reiko wasn't 100% convinced by Hans' look-I'm-harmless routine, particularly since he'd clearly been following them for some while - she remembered having spotted the top of his head briefly earlier on - but at the moment, she could not afford to turn down extra help, particularly since poor Ryu was gone and Devon was sick.

"OK, well, you can come along with us, providing everyone else is cool with that...? Can you help Dev out a bit? He's not well," she said calmly, lowering the bazooka. No-one offered any resistance to the idea, so she continued. "What weapons have you got?"

Hans showed her the syringe and poisons, and his extra bag item - the tacky pamphlet - and Rei shrugged, "OK, well that's fine I guess. We're gonna drop by the petrol station round the corner and see if we can find some food and a car to steal, it'd give us some protection when we get to the zone as well... do you know how to hotwire a car?" The blond nodded, and gestured to Devon that he should lean on him for a while, before the four of them set off there, alert and wary in case they ended up with company they didn't want.

It was getting quite dark by now, so when they reached the petrol station, they first of all broke into the shop with their flashlights to try and turn on some lights, giving Hans a perfect opportunity to grab himself a lighter and some cigarettes from the display shelves, and for the others to take a look around and grab some food. For a short while, they ate chocolate and crisps from the shelves, filling their backpacks with whatever they could.

However, out of the corner of her eye, Rei spotted a strange black gun-like shape behind the counter. Slowly she got up, still munching on a Snickers, and walked over to it curiously, picking it up. It surely wasn't a gun, that much was obvious; it looked more like a Super Soaker water pistol, with a backpack tank of some kind of sloshing liquid within. Rei snorted. A f**king water pistol.... that'd be about right for this game, she thought acidly, hefting it to her shoulder with her right hand, having put the bazooka temporarily in her backpack - although most water pistols tended to be luminous green and orange, rather than sleek and menacing black like this one.

She pulled the trigger curiously... and nearly fell over backwards as a huge jet of hissing orange flame whooshed out and nearly toasted Jen's hair, making everyone jump and cry out. "F**king hell!" she shrieked, alarmed, but then burst into shocked laughter. "I'm so sorry, Jen, I nearly set your head on fire! What a fantastic weapon!" and she remembered its description from the weapons list then. Water pistol, indeed!

"Oh, I seem to recall that this thing might need filling up, though... maybe if you guys can go look for a car, I'll get this topped up from one of the pumps - they're all switched on. Then Jennifer can have it, if she wants it," Rei said firmly - as sexist as it was, she somehow didn't want one of the boys to have such a devastating weapon: Dev was too sick to use it, and she trusted Jen more than the blond German who had just joined their 'cause'.

So while Hans hotwired a car and got it filled with petrol, Rei filled the flamethrower's tank, and when the knackered old Toyota Rav4 came screeching round the forecourt, driven by Hans, Rei hopped into the front seat, handed the flamethrower to Jen, and they made their way to the Zone.

"I think we should head for the moat cross-country," Rei said, studying the map intently. "We'll need to drive across the river, but it looks quite low. And I'd rather do the last bit of the journey on foot - a car is just going to let everyone know we're coming. So Hans, can you drive to Vern Leaze, and hide the 4x4 by the buildings there? We can walk the last mile or so... that'd be safer."

Slowly but inexorably, the psychotic episode was beginning to ebb from Sylvain's beleaguered brain, and now he was beginning to understand exactly what he'd done... and the possible consequences of his lunatic actions. Making someone angry who he already feared as sociopathic at best, psychopathic at worst wasn't the best way to stay safe... but he simply hadn't been able to control those primal monsters of his subconscious. He never could, without drugs.

The sweat was literally pouring off him, and loud thumps and shouts from behind the kitchen door woke him up even further. His legs collapsed beneath him, and he slowly slid to the floor, bursting into tears and swearing softly in French.

"J'suis un connard merdeux... j'suis absolument foutu, tu dois me tuer maintenant, n'hesites pas...ce Mouffi que j'suis..."* He was shaking, expecting to be killed then and there - and almost asking her to take her revenge on him for the terrible things he'd done in the darkness of his psychosis.

----------------

* Translation: "I'm a f**king asshole... I'm totally f**ked now, you should kill me now, don't even think twice about it... I'm a real f**king son of a bitch..."

Kyo kept sneaking glances at Park; although he was trying not to neglect his guard duties there were just too many things playing on his mind to devote his attention to anything completely.

Eventually, when the heavy blanket of silence that had fallen over them became too much to bear, Kyo abandoned the window and crept over to his koi and quietly slipped both arms round his waist. He was rewarded only by a sharp gasp, as if Park had been so lost in thought or his study of the terrain that he hadn't even heard Kyo approach.

"Not long now." The Japanese whispered, his tone a mixture of reassurance and disturbing calmness. Since he'd given himself to Park a strange sense of acceptance had settled over him. He finally felt ready to die, especially if it was in defence of his koibito. When Park didn't reply he added, "Aishiteru."

Devon sat hunched up on the back seat next to Jennifer. She kept giving him furtive, concerned looks which would have in the past been something to bring a smile to his lips, but now they just made his heart ache even more. He felt acutely guilty and eventhough he knew his condition was not his fault it still rendered him almost completely useless to them all.

Despite having little to no faith in Hans Dev hoped that once he was gone the other boy would continue to aid Reiko and Jen and maybe somehow they'd pull of Ryu's plans without a hitch.

When the car shuddered to a halt he sat up properly, shaking his head a little to disperse the numbness that was slowly overtaking his tired body. The others piled out and Reiko checked over the map again, seeming more focused than he'd ever seen her.

Holding onto the doors edge he pulled himself out too and leant heavily against the cold metal, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Oh darling.." Delilah sighed and walked over to the counter, raising her arm sharply to embed the blade in the corian work surface with a loud splintering noise.

The sounds from outside became more panicked and she turned towards the door, "Everything is fine, we'll let you in in a moment." Mutedly she could hear Lora swearing, but gradually the pair quitened down and Delilah was able to sit down by Sylvain, rubbing his back reassuringly.

"I'm not going to kill you, you're my sweetheart....I want to keep you safe until this is over. Now, shall we return to the others?...they're worried about you."

Park would have given anything right at that moment to have been able to reassure his koi that they wouldn't die tonight... but he knew he couldn't give that assurance, especially not right now as they were embroiled in the middle of this stinking Group Zone.

Instead, he gave Kyo a comforting, warm embrace, wrapping his body defensively around his koi's, touched deeply by the whispered confession of love he'd heard the young Japanese murmur to him. "I love you too, my beautiful Kyo. But you're wrong... we have to make the most of every moment we have, no matter how little time we have left."

And gently he laid an adoring kiss on the other boy's smooth forehead, feeling tiny strands of soft hair feathery against his lips, and at that moment felt a profound sense of gratitude and deep tenderness. "Thank you, Bukiyo," he murmured, "I never thought I would love anyone, or that anyone would love me. You've made my life complete. Whatever happens now, happens..."

But just as he was about to kiss Kyo and release him so they could continue to guard each other, they both heard the noise of a car engine in their close proximity, and both instinctively ducked down so they couldn't be seen through either window.

Park squeezed his eyes shut, holding Kyo tightly, hardly daring to breathe, praying that the occupants would not find them, or just decide to shoot the shed up on spec. However, no-one was answering his prayers today - the couple heard voices, low but nevertheless approaching their little hidey-hole.

The Korean didn't realise he was shaking so much until he lifted his gun and had problems steadying its aim, pointing it at the window, whilst Kyo trained his on the opposite window. Thankfully, though, neither of them had an itchy trigger finger, because the mixture of accents the both of them picked up was unmistakeable: Japanese, Swedish, Canadian and German. It was Reiko and her gang!

"It's Rei!" Park exclaimed, flashing a huge grin of total relief at his lover, "Thank God!!! Rei! Rei! It's me and Kyo!" he called, rather ill-advisedly, leaping up and waving through the window, just loud enough for the group to hear him but not so loud as to draw attention.

However, Reiko was on edge enough for her nearly to whip round and simply blow Park to pieces with a bazooka shell; but thankfully, she caught herself just in time. The Korean had scared the crap out of all of them.

"Park!!! What the F**K were you thinking, doing that to me?!" she gasped, "I nearly blew you up, you f**king idiot!!!"

Park sighed, feeling hurt and almost on the edge of tears... particularly since Rei had not lowered her rocket launcher, even having seen who it was. "I'm sorry Rei - it's just me and Kyo here. We wanted to try and meet you before... you know, before it's too late. Kyo wanted to see you..." and Kyo also stood up, slowly, holding his hands in the air as Park was.

"For what it's worth, Rei, you better steer clear of the farm house - we saw a light come on over there, it could be anyone in there... and Hannelore - and Ami too, I think - are on top of the old fort, surrounded by the moat. We were going there to try and meet you but we heard their voices. Please... please, Rei, please lower the bazooka. We're no threat to you," Park muttered, "Kyo's your friend, isn't he? And he was Ryu's friend too..."

Reiko sighed too, and lowered the bazooka. "Sorry Park... I didn't mean anything by it. You scared me, is all. And it's really, really good to see both of you," she added, giving Kyo a hug through the glassless windowframe. "Thanks for the heads-up, as well. Hmmmm... so Ami Hodges is on top of the fort, yeah?"

"Hannelore certainly is, we heard her voice," Park said quietly, also hugging Reiko but not entirely sure what had happened to the little Japanese girl - she used to be so gentle, so kind, but now... now she looked hard-faced and strained. Clearly the leadership game didn't suit her. "Just... just be careful, Rei. I don't like either of those two..."

Sylvain was too far gone in the depths of his shock and fear to really hear what Delilah was saying to him, and the only thing that dragged him out of it was the horrible sound of the knife splintering the worktop... and how he could have even dreamed of using something so horrible against anyone.

"I... I'm so sorry, so sorry... I'm sick, I'm a schizophrenic, I should have told you I didn't have any medication left... you should just go without me, please, I'm - I'm too dangerous," he sniffled miserably, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. "I - I never would have done that to you if I'd been in control of myself. I don't know what else to say..."

But he allowed himself to be led by the arm into the hallway, hanging his head... feeling like a lamb to the slaughter now.

Gordon and Lora were waiting outside the door, both of them clearly anxious and waiting for an explanation; but they weren't going to get anything out of Sylvain.

"What the f**k just happened, Delilah? Is he OK? Are you OK?" Lora asked fearfully, not understanding anything about the current situation other than the fact that Sylvain was crying and Delilah was looking... well, dishevelled, as though she had just been asleep, or in combat... or something worse.

Kyo watched Reiko for a moment as she continued talking to his boyfriend; something had changed about her and it wasn't just physical, the dark circles under her reddened eyes and the sallowness of her skin were understandable, but the way she'd looked at them chilled him deep down inside and secretly he didn't want to get too close to his friend incase his suspicions proved correct.

Instead he turned his attention to the other members of her posse;and Ryu's blatant absence tugged at his fragile heart once more. Of all the people in their friendship group he'd expected Ryuji to survive the longest, maybe even to make it out alive-- he was the resourceful one, but now...

He was faintly surprised to see Hans hovering a little behind Jennifer, who herself seemed distinctly uncomfortable about their exposure. When he saw another figure leaning heavily on the car for support Kyo squinted, wondering if his already bad sight was betraying him.

At a break in the conversation he tugged on Park's sleeve, "Park-kun...is that Devon??"

Delilah smiled thinly at Lora, smoothing down her torn skirt as she spoke, "Sylvain just needed a little comfort, he's alright now." She kept one arm curled round his trembling shoulders and hugged him to her possesively.

Lora scowled, eyeing her skeptically, "You sure about that?" From behind her shoulder Gordon nodded in silent agreement; but Delilah hadn't even been trying to disguise what had really happened, she just felt recounting it might trigger another disturbed episode in her sweetheart, which would mean his death.

"Yes, he's ok, I'm ok, we're all okay. Now, lets get going." Without a backward glance she led Sylvain into the other room to collect their bags, leaving Lora to glance at Gordon quizically and whisper, "Don't take your eyes off that pair, they're seriously f**k up."

Park, somewhat taken aback by Reiko's strange personality change, was further distracted by his koibito's anxiety regarding the Canadian trying to keep himself standing by propping himself up against the car. It was definitely Devon, even though he was almost unrecognisable: his face was ashen, with two bright red patches, his eyes sunken in black hollows, his lips almost grey, his greasy hair hanging over his sick stare.

"Yeah hon, it's Devon... Rei, what's wrong with him? He looks terrible," Park said quietly, staring at the other boy who was clearly in distress.

Reiko shrugged, and cast a very cursory glance back over her shoulder at him. "He ran out of pills a few hours back. We've just not had time to go see if there are any in the town, y'know? He'll be OK for the moment - we've got Hans to help us with him..."

The Korean rubbed his sore eyes, hardly believing the coldness his old friend was exuding - there was an almost wintry chill emanating from her which he really was starting to not like at all. "Rei..." Park started, wanting to ask her why she was being like this, but thinking better of it. "Oh, forget it."

"What is it, Park? We have to get going, we don't have much time left," she replied brusquely, feeling pure irritation at the gay's reluctance to finish the sentence.

"It's nothing. I just wanted to say... I'm so sorry about what happened to Ryuji," Park said lamely, truly saddened by what this game was doing to his friends, how it was ruining them and wrecking their friendships, destroying everything in its path. "I hope everything works out for you, and if there's anything we can do, just let us know. Be careful, yeah?"

At the mention of Ryu's name, Reiko felt a deep shockwave of pain which took her breath for a moment, and she choked back some tears which had been hovering at the edge of her consciousness for a few hours now. A vivid flashback of his brutal and horrible murder assaulted her senses, and she recalled the fear and sadness she had seen in his gentle brown eyes while he lay dying in their arms.

The strain in her mind doubled, and she knew she was in serious danger of losing the plot, but had to keep things together, had to... even if just to take revenge against his murderer, and try to get Jen out. It had been Ryu's last wish - for her to save the woman he loved. And she would try her utmost best to fulfil that wish: it was all she could hope for.

"Yeah... yeah. We all miss him. Thanks, Park. You take care of yourself, and Kyo too. And thanks for letting us know about the people around here," she managed shakily, before regrouping her forces and continuing onwards to her goal... to find Ryu's murderer.

And now she knew exactly where she was; she would show no mercy. She wanted to bathe in the bitch's blood, to slay her in cold blood as she had done Ryuji. "C'mon guys, we need to get to the top of that f**king fort. Jen... we have to take revenge for Ryu," she whispered, and a cold, silver tear slipped down her pale face without her even realising she was crying.

Gordon shrugged as they walked along the darkening street together, leaning over to the well-built Spaniard, putting a matey arm around her neck to disguise the fact that he was muttering in her ear. "I think you're right, Lora. Whatever just happened, it didn't sound like nothin' to me... and it definitely didn't sound like Sylvain needed f**king comforting. Think we should get out of here before we regret it, girl?"

Lora cut her dark eyes at him, thinning her lips. "Yeah, I think we should get the f**k away from 'em the first opportunity we get," she hissed back. The whole situation had been unsettling her for a short while now, and she wasn't feeling too much happier since the weird couple had emerged from the kitchen. But she whipped out her map, and consulted it briefly.

"There's a big farm house there, right in the edge of the Group Zone... maybe that would be a good place for us to go," she suggested, looking sideways at Delilah who was supporting a very pale and shaky Sylvain, who looked like he was on his way to his own execution... and truth be told, he probably was.

Lora did not like the predatory and utterly cold way the transfer girl looked at the fragile French boy... as if he was a disposable utility to her, rather than her "sweetheart"... and she wondered exactly what did happen in that locked kitchen, exchanging another nervous conspiratorial glance with Gordon.

About twenty minutes in, Hannelore heard a noise. "Ami, grab the shotgun. It's loaded already. I'll take the Uzi. Don't fire unless I say so."

Ami looked uncertain. Hannelore knew she didn't want to kill, and that the two deaths attributed to her so far weighed heavy on her heart. They were lying just over the lip of one side of the moat's banks, and could see a light on outside the farmhouse in the near distance. Hannelore though didn't want to spoil her nightvision.

They waited in silence for what was to happen.

Ami heard footsteps getting closer. Whoever it was was clearly not wanting to be heard, as there was little noise other than light footfalls in the darkness. Hannelore took the safety catch off the Uzi, ready to let rip with a stream of deadly projectiles if the situation demanded.

She tapped Ami on the shoulder, put a finger to her lips, and pointed downwards, towards the water. Together, they crawled towards the water, careful not to touch it so as not to make a noise. Over the top of the bank Hannelore saw four figures silhouetted against the clear night sky. She readied herself.

One of the figures, one of the smallest, turned on a flashlight and directed it straight towards the two recumbent girls.

"Well, well, well, look who we found" hissed Reiko Abe, "it's Ryu's murderer and her sad little sidekick."

Ami started to whimper, and stood up.

"Oh Rei, thank God it's you, I thought it was the Courtneys or something and we were doomed for..." She had no opportunity to finish her sentence as Reiko hit her across the face with the barrel of the rocket launcher.

Hannelore dived to her knees, throwing the Uzi to the ground and placing her hands behind her head. "Don't hurt me, please, don't hurt me, I've done nothing, I had nothing to do with it, I couldn't stop her, she went crazy, like a madwoman, beat me up and tied me up and left me helpless as she disappeared and wouldn't tell me where she was going..." With that, she descended into harsh sobs.

Ami looked up at her so-called friend, her nose bleeding and her jaw feeling as if it had been crushed by a bulldozer. "Han..? What are you saying? You know I didn't do anything... so why are you doing this to me?"

"Shut the F*CK up!" Reiko screamed, kicking Ami in the chest. "Why the hell should I believe either of you? You're both full of shit. I should kill the f*cking pair of you right here."

"Reiko" Hannelore interjected "just listen to me, please. She might have killed Ryu, I don't know, but please just listen to me. There's somebody in that farmhouse over there and, if they hear us rowing like this, we're all dead, not just me and Ami. Let us help you to escape. Let us help try making amends for the terrible thing that happened to Ryu. Perhaps Harvey was lying, perhaps it was one of his soldiers that he sent out disguised as one of us, to get rid of Ryu, to divide us. Why would either of Ami or me want to kill him? We had nothing against him. He was a nice guy..."

Reiko stood for a moment, lost in confusion, looking from one to the other and then to the rest of her group. After a few moments, she sighed.

"I can't prove if it was either of you, which means I can't just kill you, I suppose. Goddamn it. Well, I guess we're going to just have to take you with us, as cannon fodder, as our shields, that's what it'll have to be, 'cos I can't tell you Ryu's plan."

So, thought Hannelore, Tsutsuno had a plan? Interesting. Maybe she could use this to her advantage.

"Reiko... you've got a plan? To get out? If there's anything I can help with..."

Reiko just looked at her coldly. "I don't need your f*cking help. I can't f*cking trust you. Just because I can't prove you were the one who put the bullets in Ryu's chest, doesn't mean you're anything more to me than a human shield. And for two pins I'd shoot you here on the spot. But you're much more useful to me as a prisoner. Jen, take this slag and guard her with that shotgun. One wrong move, and shoot her f*cking head off."

She turned round and faced her friends.

"Whoever is in that farmhouse over there is dangerous. It can only be either the Courtneys or the psycho transfer. So I suggest we flush them out into the open, together. There's enough of us - even with those two useless f*ckers - to lay siege to the house and we can eliminate what is, after all, a major threat to our escape plan. Who's with me?"

Hans was confused about all this. So now Ami didn’t kill Ryuji? And why would Harvey send out a soldier to do it, when he easily could have done it himself during the air safari? He looked at Jennifer, who looked just as confused as he did, if not more, as she took the shotgun, pointing it at Ami and Hannelore.

He didn’t have time to spend anymore thought on that. Someone was in the farmhouse, most likely someone who was willing to kill, and he bet that whoever it was had heard the noise they had been making here. “I’m with you, Reiko, just tell me what you need me to do.”

After Reiko's little speech, Jen pointed the shotgun at Hannelore and motioned for her to cross the moat and sit in the small round island in the middle. Hannelore raised her arms and put them behind her head, wading through the knee-high slime towards the inner area. Then, being careful to show Jen her hands at all times, she carefully sat down, crossing her legs in front of her and waited.

After a little while, Jen became tired of standing, and sat down immediately opposite Hannelore, still pointing the shotgun at her.

"Jen? Are you mad with me? I know Ryu was a friend of yours, but please just listen to me. You need to listen very carefully. Your survival, and my survival, depend on it. But you have to promise me not to blast me away with that thing. If you do, I can do nothing to help you."

Jennifer still looked impassively towards Hannelore, and the shotgun did not waver from its target.

"OK, that's understandable. But I need you to listen to me. The game is rigged. Harvey has chosen a winner, and will do all he can to make sure that person is victorious. How did he choose this person? He was asked by the government to choose the person who, out of all the people at the institute, was most likely, at the end of the game, to emerge as a model Good Citizen. I know for a fact he had a hard time choosing, but choose he did."

"It's you, Jen. He chose you. You are the one who is supposed to win the game. The only survivor. Apart from me."

"I'm an agent. I'm the plant in this who's supposed to rig the game, to manipulate it so that Harvey gets his way. It's all a huge publicity exercise, you see? It's not about us. It's not even about our generation, although that's the way it's portrayed. No, it's just propaganda, pure and simple. The triumph of good over evil. About how a Good Citizen will overcome hardship and prevail. It's all bollocks, of course, but that's what everyone watching this and reading about this is supposed to think."

"It all started when I slept with Peter Jakobsfeld. I didn't know he was married, of course, or that he was a top agent. But they'd targeted me some months before, a young, independent type who liked sex who they could use to their own ends. And, because they're good, I fell for it. They took pictures of me and Peter, and threatened to show them to my family if I didn't comply. Initially I refused... but then they killed my sister in front of me, and I had to..."

"They made up a background for me. A new identity. All complete crap, of course. I wanted to stay in Germany with my friends... but instead they sent me to Harvey. At first, my assignment was to watch Ryuji, because, I don't know if you knew this, his elder brother and sister conspired to kill the Great Leader. But then, after a few months, things changed. We were picked for the BR over a year ago, you know? And my orders changed. You were identified as the pupil with the most potential. Over the holidays, I didn't go home, but to a training camp, and trained in combat."

"They struck a deal with me. I was the mole. I would help Harvey to rig his beloved game. I would help you win. In return, I would be allowed to live as well, and they'd hoist me out of the game somehow before the end, and rig my death on TV."

"Then, in the Battle HQ, when I was taken away, they told me more. They'd held back. I had to kill Ryu too, if I wanted to survive."

Jen stood up, and silently pointed the shotgun at Hannelore's head.

"Jen... listen... you can kill me if you want, but you'd be killing yourself at the same time. You've only survived so far because you've been protected. I didn't want to kill Ryu, of course not, and I told them that. They beat me up to let me know there was no choice. They almost killed me there and then, and Harvey was laughing as he kicked me in the kidneys. He was laughing at me not wanting to kill Ryuji, and he was laughing at Ryuji and his plans too."

"Yes, I killed Ryu. But what means more to you, Jen, Ryu's memory, or saving your own life?"

As they crouched back down again to hide, after bidding a slightly strained farewell to Reiko and her gang, Park felt the sudden need to make sure that he hadn't just turned Rei away against his lover's wishes. He didn't want to do anything to upset his vulnerable, shy new boyfriend, particularly since the situation they were in was edgy enough without arguments or resentments becoming involved in the state of affairs.

Softly he whispered to his koi, "I'm sorry Kyo... did you want to go with them? I mean... I'll do whatever you want us to. But... she seemed weird to me. Not like our old friend Reiko, I mean... Ryu's death must really have messed her up. She just didn't seem like herself..." and he felt like blushing a bit, finishing his thought and finally admitting it, "She kind of... scared me a little. But if you want to go catch up with them, we can do that..."

Kyo nodded in agreement, shifting to sit closer to Park and tentatively slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders, "I know what you mean...she didn't even seem to care about Devon...and Rei's always been the most...um...compassionate person I've known..."

He shrugged helplessly, "...I just hope they make it."

It stung, the fact that she'd not even asked if they wanted to come, as if they were already dead and the way she'd dismissed Park's quiery about the Canadian who was clearly in pain; it just frightened Kyo, almost more than all they'd seen before Reiko and her gang turned up.

When Park didn't reply and the silence between them became claustrophobically oppresive Kyo whispered, "Um...are you okay? I know...Dev was--is your friend."

Brought out of his deep contemplation, the Korean looked at his koi tenderly, and gave a sad half-smile. "I'm OK, hon. Yeah, I'm worried about Devon too... he looked terrible, really sick..."

But he was suddenly all too aware of Kyo's underlying insecurity about the extent of his friendship with the easygoing - and equally easy - multisexual Canadian; his lover's soft brown eyes were full of anxiety, and Park hastily explained himself to reassure him. "I mean, things between me and him were never - never anything more than friends, if that's what you were thinking..."

And he sighed heavily, cuddling closer into Kyo, defensively. Even thinking back to the short exchange they had just had with Reiko and her gang chilled him to the bone. "It's just not like Rei to just dismiss someone else's suffering like that. I've never seen her acting so uncaring... or so hellbent on revenge..."

But he remembered then that, despite the fact he and Kyo and himself had both killed in self-defence, Reiko had already also killed someone, under what could only be described as mysterious circumstances. Certainly Harvey had hinted in his announcement of the kill that Rei had shot someone with the Gatling gun, but whether it was truly to defend her friends, or for some other reason, who knew?

"I dunno, Kyo... she's really changed. Something bad is happening in her head, and whether that's started up since Ryu was killed, or before then, I have no idea. But... but I really don't want to go with her, unless you are really convinced she wouldn't turn her weapons on us... 'cos right now, I wouldn't put any money on that, and I would be watching myself if I was Jen, Hans or... or Devon."

"And now she knows where we are..." Park finished miserably, "I'm not too sure I feel happy about that. I don't think she would turn on us, but... I wouldn't swear to it."

Reiko bowed her head slightly to acknowledge Hans' willingness to join her. "Thank you Hans - I really appreciate it," she said coolly, keeping one eye trained on Ami, whose face was dirty and streaked with clean lines of tears, being guarded by Hans with Hannelore's Uzi.

Coldly she looked around at all her group - Dev, grey-faced, bloodstained and shaking, in no real fit state to do anything at all; Hans, guarding Ami; and Jen, looking altogether too cosy with Hannelore for the Japanese girl's liking, and stirring up a certain amount of mistrust.
She realised she was going to have to watch that pair like a hawk, because something was obviously going on there... and mutiny, or anything that endangered Ryu's plan, would be sorely and swiftly punished.

"I don't wanna waste any more time - I think we should go check out the farmhouse and see if we can't flush out whoever is in there. Whoever it is, has got to be dangerous to us and our cause," she said to all of them, casting a cool eye over Devon, and thinking he'd probably be OK to make it over to the farmhouse, at the very least.

And she turned to Ami and Hannelore, grabbing each of them by the neck."And let me warn you now, girls - one f**king sound out of either of you and I'll kill you on the spot. No f**king messing, you hear me, or you're dead, you stinking bitches."

So she gathered her "troops", and silently they headed towards the brightly-lit courtyard of the occupied farmhouse, skirting round the stone wall, crawling along on their hands and knees to stay low and hopefully out of sight.

Rei picked up a broken piece of brick, indicating to the others to keep still and silent, and taking careful and extremely accurate aim, threw it with all her might at the top front window, shattering the glass with a loud smash that echoed through the still, cold night air, reverberating for miles around. She wanted to get a good look at whoever was hiding out in there before deciding what action to take.

As the four of them entered the Group Zone, following the line of the river, and only just within the boundaries of the time limit, they were suddenly disturbed by a faint noise, coming from a long way off, which sounded like breaking glass, and indicated to them all that some kind of battle was taking place, or about to take place at the very least.

"F**k, what was that?" Gordon said in a low voice, shooting Lora a conspiratorial look, hoping she would somehow understand what was going on in his mind. His only idea was to grab the Spaniard and run at the first opportunity, hoping against hope for some kind of distraction which would mean that Delilah and her "sweetheart" wouldn't be watching them quite so closely and they could make a break for freedom.

"Sounded bad, whatever it was," Lora agreed, and held his gaze. She understood what he was thinking perfectly well: after all, she was nobody's fool, and a similar idea - although a slightly more violent one - was brewing in her own thoughts.

Delilah, on the other hand, hanging possessively onto Sylvain's frail form, seemed to perk up at the mere mention of fighting, almost pricking up her ears. Again, Lora was struck at how absolutely animalistic she was sometimes - like a big cat prowling for game, the big girl thought acidly.

Just as they crossed into near-perfect darkness from the riverbanks, where the streetlights no longer illuminated the fields, Gordon felt Lora's hand grab his. Initially, he thought in some confusion that the Spanish lesbian was making some kind of bizarre, super-aggressive move on him: but then he realised quickly that something far more disconcerting was about to happen.

And before Delilah could react, and with a surprising turn of speed, the big butch girl span around on her heel and simply punched the smaller, more lightweight girl full in the face, landing her on her backside in the mud, grabbing her shocked friend by the arm and running like hell, making a last-ditch attempt to get away from the weird couple. It was crude, but effective... but if Delilah's speed proved to be higher than Lora or Gordon's, they were both dead meat.

Leon was watching the movement in the courtyard. They were still a little too far past the ideal firing range of the Colt and he still had a little difficulty making out the exact shapes lurking in the shadows. But there were definitely people there, and one of them had the bazooka.

He would need to draw them a little closer before attacking. But how could he do this without giving away his position. As he was thinking, a figure stepped from the shadows. Leon had her in his sights in a second, Reiko Abe.

As Leon watched, Reiko threw an object straight for him. Thinking it might be a grenade, Leon turned from the window and got ready to run.

He watched the brick crash soundlessly through the window and clatter to the floor. He grinned and approached the window again.

Reiko still hadn't retreated into the shadows and was looking up at the house expecting a reaction. But Leon wasn't about to satisfy her. He would gain nothing by confirming her suspicions now. He needed her to draw in a little closer.

She was still a few feet too short of the surprise Paul had prepared in the back garden. As his hand went to the matchbox in his pocket, he wondered if she could smell it yet.

"If she did..." Kyo began softly, "And she tried to hurt you...I wouldn't think twice about--" He shook his head, hoping Park understood what he was trying to say. Reiko was a good friend, but she seemed a thousand miles away from her old self.

Instead of attempting to justify his treacherous words Kyo simply hugged onto Park tighter and awaited his reply nervously.

Although she was caught off guard by Lora's sudden and violent change of heart Delilah was still quick off the mark and managed to get to her feet swiftly, leaving Sylvain behind as she snatched up her bag and tore off after the two escapees, "Get back here YOU BITCH!"

Her jaw ached where that dyke had punched her and a thin silver of blood trickled down over her lips, but Delilah still kept up the chase, digging in her bag as she ran for the cleaver.

When her fingers eventually curled around the reassuringly solid handle and Sylvain's cries of protest finally dulled to a faint buzz at the back of her mind she'd almost caught up to Gordon, who was tiring and had begun to flag behind his stronger, more athletic friend.

With a vicious cry of triumph she reached out, wrenching him back by the fabric of his shirt and eliciting a horrified squeak from the boy, who immediatly began struggling, trying desperatly to rip himself from her vice grip.

"LORA!!" Up ahead the masculine girl spun round, her eyes widening in unfamiliar surprise as she saw Deliah raise the cleaver high, push Gordon to his knees with a brutal kick to the back of his lower leg and drive the blade deep into his shoulder, the sharp metal slicing right down through his skin and bones as if they were butter.

Gordon's feverishly terror-stricken eyes stared at Lora and he reached out to her for a few moments before slumping forward; blood coating both himself and his victorious murderer. Delilah's own gaze gleamed with delight and she wiggling the blade around, enjoying intensely the vivid colours and sickening sounds that would have repulsed anyone else.

Lora's expression of mingled despair fluctuated and eventually turned into one of disgust and fury. The sick bitch was really getting off on this, she could see it in the twisted smile colouring her crimson slicked lips and the way her chest heaved with shallow exertations of breath.

Wordlessly Lora leant over and picked up a decent sized rock, even if the insane transfer had a better weapon it was embedded deep in Gordon's chest now and she'd never be able to get it out in time to avoid having her skull crushed.

Delilah sat reveling in her pretty redesigning of the poor boy's body and remained oblivious until Lora was almost upon her. However, as the girl pitched forward to smash her over the head with the rock the English rose ducked and rolled out of the way and before Lora could react the she snatched it from her hand and landed a sharp blow to her skull, sending Lora crashing down into the wide pool of scarlet encircling Gordon's corpse.

Even as Delilah sat down, alllowed now to take her time due to Lora's resulting dizziness and reached over, sliding her cleaver out of its bloody new home Lora raised her battered head and whispered, "I--i'm s-s-sorry...I wanted to..."

The blade dug deep into her jugular and all Lora's apologies were silenced.

STUDENTS #17 Gordon Marx and #7 Lora Cruz dead 12 students remaining

Devon was running on empty, but still he cursed softly when Reiko threw the brick-- now instead of flushing the possible attackers out they were left with a disturbing silence.

Stepping infront of his seemingly fearless friend he frowned, something was wrong here-- very wrong....

"Rei...what's that smell?"

What did she think? Hannelore was sitting in front of her, confessing she killed Ryu and asking if Jennifer was mad with her. Of course she was! She couldn’t be any more furious than she was right now. She could just pull the trigger and kill that b*tch right now…

… But what Hannelore told her… for some reason she believed it. Jennifer had always had a good eye for spotting lies, so either Hannelore was telling the truth or she was the best liar the world had ever seen. Something in her voice made Jen decide that it was all true. However, she still wanted to take revenge for Ryu’s murder, but to what use would it be doing it now if she didn’t make it out alive? Reiko and herself could use Hannelore to make it out of here and then they could blow her away - if someone hadn’t already.

It’d probably be better to not tell Reiko about it right now. The way she had changed during the day, she’d kill Hannelore without thinking even once about it.

“Let’s go,” she said. Hannelore got up – Jennifer made sure she’d stay behind her so if she tried something it’d be easier to put a bullet or two in her – and they followed Rei outside.

"Get down, you f**king idiot," Rei hissed at Dev, half-pulling him back down behind the wall by the leg of his pants. "Whoever is in there isn't f**king playing games with us. They want to kill us, no messing. I'm not sure what that smell is, but it's f**king flammable, at the very least. So... I'm guessing it's those f**king Courtneys. After all, they already killed some other kids with boobytraps, and I'm not taking any chances."

She caught Jennifer's eyes, glittering in the near-darkness, and whispered, "Jen - get over here. I'm gonna tell you Ryu's plan, OK, and then I want you to take everyone to safety, back up on the hill."

When the pretty blonde shuffled over, leaving Hans to guard both their prisoners and take care of Dev, who was breathing rather labouredly after Rei had nearly pulled him over, Rei took just a few moments, with the map, to whisper in Jennifer's ear the escape plan Ryuji had had in mind before he had been so cruelly and coldly shot to death. Reiko wanted to make sure that if anything happened to her, any survivors from their group would at least know what Ryu's scheme had been. It was her duty to make sure his last wishes were carried out...

...and Rei also told her what she should do when they reached the fort. Reiko would be staying down here, behind the wall, despite the clear and apparent danger in doing so: as the new group leader, she had no choice but to be brave, in Ryu's place.

"You got all that, hon?" Jen nodded. "OK, so you know what to do. Just be careful, all right? Just one shot, and make it count." Rei exchanged her bazooka with Jen's Uzi, and gave her friend a look; for one moment, her cold mask slipped, and she looked terrified, her black eyes glowing with moonlight in the darkness.

"I'll catch up with you before the end of the zone... if I - I'm still alive. If I don't join you in, say, half an hour, just leave without me. Don't wait, or do a search, or anything stupid like that. Dev... " and she gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek, finally able to articulate her worry about him, "Go with Jen and Hans and the two bitches, OK? Make sure that if I don't come back, you get yourself to a pharmacy and pick up some medicine - there's one in the town centre. Tell Jen I said you're to get some pills there. You can drive back there after the zone's over..."

And with that, she gave them all a last, resigned look and sent them on their way. Rei was now alone, in the darkness, crouching closely behind the wall, her mind churning over the very real possibility that she only had a few minutes left to live... and finally feeling the fear that she would soon be joining Ryu on his last journey. But she was a strong girl, and she had a job to do here.

"This one's for you, Ryu," she whispered to the darkness, wishing her best friend was still here with her, almost feeling his hand on her shoulder, and just waiting for her moment to come.

It only took the rest of the group a few minutes to make it back to the relative safety of the top of the Neolithic banking: there, Jen instructed the rest of her companions to get round to the side of the mound that wasn't facing the occupied farm.

Jen stood alone on the very apex of the hill. Carefully, she raised the bazooka launcher, training it on the front of the house, and shot one shell; as Rei had worked out, they weren't close enough to blast the front of the place off, but still close enough to blow out the windows and set the thatched roof on fire... enough to drive the occupants out, or so Rei had hoped...

In the near distance, a giant wall of flame exploded silently across the front of the farm, illuminating the night with a creepy orange glow. Jen shut her eyes, and offered up a silent prayer for Reiko, who might have been too close to have survived the blast...

However, Reiko had just about survived, although her judgements about distance had been way off. The shockwaves had not only thrown her several metres back from her hiding-place behind the wall, the flames from where the shell explosion had caught whatever the hell that flammable-smelling shit was had engulfed her at the very moment the rocket had hit.

She had suffered some nasty burns - most of her beautiful long hair had been burned off, as had part of her pretty face, her skin blistering like pork crackling - but at least she was still alive, and not in too much pain yet. That would arrive soon, but for the moment the adrenaline and endorphins were taking care of that for her.

Rei crouched in grim silence, waiting for one of the rats to stick their head out of their sinking ship.

Park, touched to the depths of his heart, cuddled closely into his beautiful lover in the quiet darkness, loving the way the clear, bright moonlight shone right onto Kyo's perfect face, making his dark eyes glitter.

"Aishiteru, Kyo... I would kill anyone that threatened you in any way at all too. Anyone. Even my own father. Promise."

He crossed his heart with his fingertip, loving the way the other boy smiled shyly up at him, and kissed his koi gently, holding him tight, just trying to wait out the last few minutes of the necessary time period they had to stay here. After all, they had survived so far in this stinking Group Zone, but that was no reason for them to think they were able to relax.

And just as he reluctantly broke off their kiss, there came a deafening whoomph noise from nearby and a great sheet of flame lit up the sky - not close enough to harm their little shed, but close enough to be seen through the glassless windows, and for the two boys to feel the heat flowing from the explosion.

"SHIT!" Park cried, totally shocked and almost stupefied, instinctively throwing his body across Kyo's in a desperate attempt to protect him from any possible backdraft. Both boys scrambled to their feet, rushing out of the little shed to see what the hell had happened. They stood and gawped helplessly: the entire front of the farmhouse they were facing seemed to be on fire. They could see dark figures, silhouetted against the moonlit sky, on top of the low hill... and the lovers exchanged resolute looks.

"Time to clear out, I think," Park whispered, "Something nasty is happening here and I don't wanna get caught right in the f**king middle of it... our time in the zone's done anyway now, or at least it will be by the time we get out of here..."

Kyo silently nodded, allowing the Korean to gently lead him away by the hand from the surreal scene of all-out war that seemed to be taking place in front of them, before it messed their heads up completely. In the darkness, they quietly ran together, their hearts pounding, until Park suddenly cried out and tripped over something he simply hadn't seen in the dark, bouncing off his backside. The grass seemed to be oddly wet, even though it hadn't been raining, and they were still some way away from the river...

... but when Kyo turned on his flashlight, they both uttered a whimper of shock and distress: Park had tripped over the two corpses of Gordon and Lora, left behind after Delilah's murderous rampage. It seemed that Lora had got off quite lightly: her throat was cut, her face a hideous pale grey in the harsh light of Kyo's torch. But Gordon's upper body had been absolutely dismembered, chopped into prime cuts as if in a fever of psychopathic bloodlust.

Park started to cry again, scrambling away from the horrible death scene and throwing up violently in the long grass, the terrible images burned into his reeling mind. There would be little chance of sleep without nightmares for him ever again.

But Kyo caught sight of movement, not too far away, and spotted the transfer student and Sylvain Roberge making their way away from the site of their latest murder and towards the battle scene; he turned off his torch hurriedly and all but dragged his suffering lover into the shadows before either of the two murdering scum could catch sight of them.

Sylvain just watched in utter horror as Delilah's arm raised and lowered, raised and lowered, raised and lowered, chopping chunks off Gordon, who was screaming with agony while he died horribly, before smashing Lora's head in with a rock and then slicing her throat open like a pig being slaughtered for meat.

This atrocity far outdid any violent and violating crime the French boy might ever have inflicted on anyone, and he almost began to feel glad at what he had done to the girl earlier... he wished so hard then that he had a weapon of his own. He longed to punish her for the disgusting, stomach-churning joy and elation she was showing out in the open now. She was a complete psychopath.

Sylvain realised that whilst his disease had control of him and made him do terrible, wretched, evil deeds when it wasn't controlled with pills, this girl was sane. She just loved to kill. Simple as that. She was the ultimate sadist. He even wondered if she got horny while she was murdering his friends... whether she was actually genuinely getting off on it. And he was utterly trapped. Any wrong move now and she would slice him and dice him, just as she had done to Gordon.

She turned to face him, her eyes shining bright with happiness, and he never hated anyone - and desired anyone - so badly as he did right then, as conflicted as he was... and terrified of the beautiful monster in front of him.

Kyo ran through the darkness his hand latched firmly onto Park's as they fled both the pyschotic transfer and her companion and whatever trouble had just errupted suddenly in the danger zone. The korean kid had been right though and by the time they emerged from the zone their time was up. Kyo paused briefly to dig out the crumpled map from his back pocket and flick his torch on, holding it within the material confines of his jacket to make sure they weren't just a beacon for the remaining players.

Park hadn't said a word since they stumbled across Lora and Gordon's ravaged bodies and Kyo forced the horrible image of Lora's terror-stricken face to the back of his mind. He'd never been particularly close to either of them, but still...

Returning his torch and map to his bag he led Park back into the town centre and headed for the nearest cover-- a large, squat building into which they gained entry by means of a broken fire escape. The rooms were mostly deserted, and their footsteps echoed around like a haunted chorus.

Kyo sat Park down against the wall of one of the side rooms and checked him over with trembling hands and anxious eyes. He wiped away the last of the vomit collected at the corner of his lover's lips and whispered to him softly, "Park-kun...daijobu desu ka? Daijobu?" <Are you alright?>

Devon watched as Jennifer obliterated part of the lone farmhouse. She'd never seemed to his mind more focused and stoic; as if Reiko's own strength had infected her. His eyes wandered down to the farm which blazed merrily in the cool night air, a stark contrast to the darkness all around.

Carefully he approached Jennifer and laid a hand on her shoulder, "She made it, I know she did."

He took a deep, calming breath and moved to add more hollow, but well-meaning sentiment; but a sharp pain in his guts forced him back into silence. The Canadian turned away once more; she shouldn't have to be worrying about him as well.

The mixture of longing and repulsion reflected in her sweetheart's eyes sent Delilah to new heights of euphoria. She only ever felt connected to reality after the sweet shedding of blood and this was just perfect-- the pinnacle of her tortured life to date.

It was all she could do not to throw her arms around him and cry with sheer delight at her wonderful rearrangement of those two annoying children. They should've known defying her was to wish death upon themselves. The delicious sounds of their pleading voices still echoed in her mind and every inch of skin that was still stained with their crimson blood tingled. She leant over and planted a little kiss on Sylvain's lips, "Right darling, lets go end this."

Before he could say a word he hand had already found his and she was leading him towards the burning building up ahead.

Once the game was properly ended (at least for all except herself) Delilah knew she would finally get the time to show her love how much she adored him and the true meaning of pain.

Park's mind felt numb, battered into submission by the terrible carnage he had just seen... but not even only having seen it - after all, he had landed right in the middle of it. And once again, he was covered in someone else's blood.

He wished to God he hadn't seen poor Gordon's face in that half-light: Park doubted if Gordon had died from his injuries. It looked more to him like the boy had died of agony... or more likely fear. As if his heart had simply exploded under the strain of the terror and anguish the evil transfer had subjected him to. It had undoubtedly been a slow, lingering, tortuous death for the poor kid.

He shuddered, turning his wet, scarlet-rimmed black eyes up to his lover plaintively. "I - I'm sorry I threw up, Kyo, but I landed right in the middle of... of that mess..." and he shook even more violently, clinging to Kyo like a child and getting gore smeared all over his koi. "Thank God we got away in time... thank God they didn't see us or - or I could have been joining poor Gordon and Lora in the grass, right there..."

And he tried not to cry again, not caring any more, just wanting to have a wash and lie in bed with his lover, maybe see if they could catch some of the action on the TV and find out what the hell was going on back in that war zone.

"Kyo... I think we should try and get to another house, maybe not too far from here, just to try and get some rest," the Korean murmured forlornly, hanging his head, "We can't sleep properly here, and we both need food... even though I'll probably just puke it back up again... and I..."

He choked back more blindingly hot tears, holding the Japanese boy's hand to the side of his face, "I don't care what happens any more. I just wanna lie in a warm bed with you and just hold you and kiss you and f**king forget this shit, just for a few hours. I wanna see what's going on in that battle we just escaped, too, so let's just haul ass and find a TV set, yeah?" and he would have kissed his koi then, except he didn't want to inflict the taste of his own vomit on his delicate lover.

Sylvain realised that he probably didn't have much time left. She had controlled him from the outset, stopped him from finding, or indeed picking up, any kind of weapon at all... so he couldn't even defend himself.

And now, as they approached the farm house which was burning away quite ferociously, parts of the thatched roof collapsing, the cool night air full of the asphyxiating stink of rancid straw-smoke and burning petrol, the blond realised that whatever the hell was happening here, they were in total danger: clearly caught in the crossfire of a siege... or a full-on battle. But as they drew closer, he realised that all was momentarily quiet: the figures on top of the mound weren't shooting, and no-one was yet emerging from the flaming house itself.

He almost began to wish he'd killed Delilah while he'd had the chance. At least that way he could have chosen the manner of his own death, rather than what he imagined was going to happen - that Delilah would chop him into dogfood the way she had literally tortured Gordon to death, playing with the pieces she was cutting off as though she was a kid in a toyshop... or that he would be used as a human shield, to take any attacks made against her.

But he dared not act against her... because somehow the second option seemed so much less terrifying - not to mention quicker - than the first.

"Shouldn't we be avoiding this area, Delilah?" he said flatly, "Isn't it as dangerous for us to be here as for anyone involved in this shit?"

The lithe transfer looked at her pet incredulously and then burst out laughing. In fact it took several minutes before she was able to compose herself enough to reply, mirth still blatant in her pale gaze, "Darling, darling darling....do you have no competative spirit? We're going to kill them all and then we can have some fun hmmm?" She pulled him to a halt, smiling brightly and glanced around before leaning over to kiss him again reassuringly, nipping sharply on his lower lip, just enough to draw blood.

"Now come on." This was as usual not a request, but a command. He had no choice in the matter and as they kept to the shadows, their faces painted amber in the flames of the slowly decomposing house Delilah readied her cleaver, but her attention was distracted by a couple of silhouettes on the hill.

For now she bided her time, waiting to see who would fall into her embrace first.

Kyo did what Park would not and stroked his cheek comfortingly, kissing him hard enough to make them both a little breathless. Now he knew how Park must've felt when he tried to give up on them both. There was horrible, helpless desolation in his lover's eyes; as if he'd finally realised neither of them were getting out of this nightmare. All they could do was make the most of their time together and pray that their friends would find a way to end everyones' suffering.

He wondered how many still lived-- was that creepy transfer still running around? Had Reiko succeeded? There were so many questions and too few answers for the Japanese's liking. But, he aquiesed to Park's pleas immediatly, holding him close.

"Whatever you want Park-kun...I think we're safe...everyone seems to be by that burning building..." Carefully he got Park to his feet again and led him back out onto the street.

It only took a few minutes to trudge to the nearest dwelling and break in. Kyo didn't bother being stealthy this time; there was no one around to care about them either way. He sensed; back there alot of lives were about to end.

Luckily, there was a working set in the lounge and Kyo hastily disconnected it-- reassembling the whole thing on a dust-laden table in the
upstairs bedroom where he'd left Park moments before. As the picture wobbled into focus, through a haze of static he began to make out familiar faces, their features highlighted starkly in the warm light.

Park sat in silence, his attention utterly focused on the screen and Kyo wrapped his arms around him, settling them both down on the bed to watch the action unfold.

Leon coughed as he slowly picked himself off the floor. There was a sharp pain in his arm. He looked down to see a small splinter of glass sticking out of his forearm. Tossing it aside, he scrambled to his feet.

The room looked surprisingly unhurt. The window had smashed in and the objects on the ledge were now lying on the floor in pieces. But other than that, everything seemed in order.

Something drifted into the corner of Leon's vision. He looked up. Smoke was seeping through the timber ceiling. Shit, the roof was on fire. Time to go.

Paul was on all fours coughing as Leon jumped down the stairs. As their eyes met, Leon though Paul looked slightly dazed. A thin trickle of blood ran from his scalp to halfway down his cheek.

Leon helped him to his feet and Paul supported himself against the worktop. He felt dizzy and there was a painful ringing in his ears.

Paul turned round and stared distractedly at the three bottles lined up on the counter behind him. They were unharmed, he had been lucky on that front at least.

Leon was peering through the smouldering door frame. He could see a figure lying at the end of the garden. Was it dead? Either way, there was no point waiting here as the house fell down around them. Plus that was the direction the bazooka had been taken. Leon's mind was made up.

He turned back to Paul and then nodded towards the door. Paul shook his head "No way, Now way" Paul was shouting. Trying to hear his own voice above the ringing "That's f*cking certain death right there! We go this way" He indicated the opposite direction "We've been here over two hours. Let's just go!" His last sentence was almost pleading.

Leon ignored him and stepped through the burning doorframe into the garden.

She felt her jaw with her fingers, trembling. She hadn't killed him. Rei knew she wouldn't but still she hit her. karine had been an accident but still she hit her. Fresh tears of pain, fear and hurt formed behind her eyes. 'I won't cry' she told herself mentally. 'I won't...' She moved her hands away from her face, and clasped them in her lap. 'She really is a bitch.' her thoughts had now strayed to Hannelore. 'She used me, she said....how could she have said that about me. i don't....I don't understand' She looked over at the German girl, 'I thought you were my friend.' As the tears rolled down her face, she knew it was futile. Her whole life had been a lie. Karines death had shown her that. But why did she still want to live by a lie, that noone believed but her.

She hung her head, calming her crying down so that only a few hiccups still escaped, and watched in fear at the horror that was forming before her tear filled eyes.

At last, one of the bastards is out of his hiding place, Rei thought sourly, tensed like a sprung wire and all too aware that her strength was ebbing from her severely wasted and burned body too quickly, praying that she could at least have one shot, one last chance at revenge.

Her plans had failed utterly: all her schemes had dissolved into thin air, and she cursed herself for not knowing that the bazooka shot would be too far away from the farm house to blow the front of the building off. Ryu would have known that... but one of the two murdering bitches up on the fort, now under Jennifer's new group leadership care, had done for him before they could even get here.

So, hands shaking with rage and new agony that poured through her entire body, she pulled her exhausted, dying body off the ground, lifted the muzzle of the Uzi, and let forth one final blast of gunfire, praying to any God that might be listening to allow the bullets to blow the psychopathic kid's head off.

However, all the Gods were clearly ignoring her, because the recoil of the Uzi was so powerful that it simply knocked her over again, and her aim was knocked so far off by the kickback of the burst of gunfire that she almost missed the boy entirely, one bullet just grazing his left thigh.

All is lost, she thought wearily, I couldn't even get that right... I'm sorry, Ryu, and I'll be seeing you very soon... And she fell flat on her back onto the ground, drained and ready to die.

Park felt like he was losing the will to live, but somehow the warmth of his koi's embrace as they lay naked in bed together, and the tender love that had blossomed between them after so much waiting and hoping on the Korean's part, pulled him back from the edge of despair.

There was something so... so unnervingly normal about this: watching TV, cuddled up in bed... but they weren't watching re-runs of Columbo - they were watching their friends in mortal danger, or killing each other, and it was all true, and happening right now.

The very thought made Park feel dizzy, and he rested his head on his koi's strong shoulder, pressing his sore eyelids with his shaking fingertips and attempting to banish the terrible image of Gordon's shattered, maimed body and Lora's glazed and terrified stare from his mind.

But on the screen, both boys were horrified as they watched Rei, once their friend, and someone they had only seen just an hour or so before, seriously injured by the blast of her gang's own bazooka attack on the Courtneys' farm house in a siege, and both of them realised at once what had been going on behind their hiding place.

"Oh no.... oh no, poor Reiko," Park muttered, in tears again, watching helplessly as Leon Courtney emerged from inside the house, an evil look in his glassy dark eyes, and his heart ached for her, hoping only that she would die quickly, and that the deaf-mute wouldn't take it into his psychotic head to rape or torture her... to let her have some kind of dignity in death.

Kyo turned his face away from the screen and focused on his koibito. The quiet horror reflected on Park's pale, drawn features concerned him infinitely more than the sickening feeling that had welled up in his guts the moment he saw Reiko injured and defenseless against that weird bastard Leon.

He felt conflicted; if they'd stayed behind it might only have been to get slaughtered themselves, but now they might end up being the only ones left and in the silent, ghost-town they'd been deposited in Kyo couldn't decide whether that would even be a good thing.

Carefully he reached up and stroked Park's hair in an attempt to calm his love's tears, "We don't have to watch Park-kun...maybe if we just get some sleep or..." His already wasted voice trailed off into nothing. Of course he wanted to know if Reiko and the others would make it, but seeing how profoundly their fates affected Park was killing him inside.

Maybe ignorance was really bliss here.

Park, however, made a real effort to pull himself together then: whatever was happening to him? He had promised to protect and carry his lover through this nightmare, and he was the one who was continually going to pieces.

He grimaced, an expression of pure horror contorting his even features for a moment, and wiped away the last of his tears, blowing his nose on the remains of his bloody, tattered school shirt. The traumatised Korean had absolutely no intention of even touching the tainted thing again, let alone putting it back on, even if he had to go half-naked for the rest of the time they had left.

He had managed to deal with Anna's blood - that was self-defence - and Gemma's blood, because she had threatened and hurt him in the first place. But those two kids had done nothing to them, and it made Park's skin tighten in painful chills even thinking about it.

"I... I'm sorry, hon. I've not been much use to you today. But... we have to watch it, no matter how horrible it is, because we need to stay informed as to what the hell is happening out there with our friends. OK, so we ran away, but we had to. I had to make sure that you were going to be safe, 'cos you're my only priority here."

And he sighed deeply, resting his head on Kyo's shoulder again, his sore eyelids wanting to close in sleep, but he didn't allow them to. "I can't let anything happen to you, even if that means abandoning everyone else. I'm sorry, but I can't do anything more than that. Maybe that's selfish of me, but I can't help that," he muttered, "I made you a promise, and I'm damn well going to keep it."

A short gasp of pain hissed through Leon's teeth as the bullet struck his thigh. As the pain quickly subsided into a dull ache, Leon realised that firing the Uzi had taken the last of Reiko's energy. She was now lying on her back, the uneven rise and fall of her chest told Leon she was having difficulty breathing. She wasn't much of a threat any more.

Leon limped the last few feet until he was stood over Reiko. Supporting himself on his right leg, he kicked the Uzi from her loose grasp, causing a twinge of pain to shoot up his left leg. He looked down at the injured girl. The burns were pretty bad, her face was masked in painful looking blisters. A bullet would probably be a blessing to her at this point.

But Leon needed information from her first. Cradling the Colt in his left elbow, Leon rummaged through his pockets for his pen. The notebook was still in his bag back at the house, his arm would have to do.

He finished scrawling the message on his right forearm. he removed the Colt from under his elbow and twisted it so that it was now upside-down. Holding the rifle in his left hand, he brought the butt down sharply, stopping inches from Reiko's face. he hoped that would get the message across loud and clear as to what non-compliance would cost her.

He slowly raised the Colt upwards, pointing the butt in the direction where he had seen the others go. As he did so, he twisted his right arm so that Reiko could read what he had written.

Where are they going?

Kyo nodded and snuggled up even closer to Park. He was silenced by the sincerity and pure depth of devotion the Korean was showing for him. Of course after they'd been together before he'd not expected a thing from him...after all this situation didn't exactly seem to inspire positive feelings, but this was almost inconceivable to the Japanese kid.

How could Park abandon his friends for him? It was such a powerful gesture that Kyo could barely understand. Nonetheless he bowed to his love's wishes and left the terrible scenes infront of them to continue, but he couldn't bear to watch himself so instead focused on Park.

Delilah had led her pet almost to the door of the burning farmhouse when something flew through the bushes and skittered to a halt at her feet. Her pale gaze lit up with utter delight and a hint of suspicion as she eyed the Uzi and carefully leant down with her usual silent grace to pick it up.

Sylvain watched on, slack-jawed and still trembling while his 'owner' checked the weapon over with consumate skill. She'd obviously handled a gun before.

Muted noises filtered through the foliage and as soundlessly as if she were a ghost Delilah parted the leaves only to see a wounded girl lying on her back a few feet away as a young man showed her his arm. The whole situation amused her greatly; the poor idiot's attention was focused entirely on his prey.

With a twisted, little smile she raised the gun, aimed carefully and fired.

When Leon leant over her, Reiko's first instinct had been to grab hold of his arm and try to smash his head in on the ground. But she had no strength left to even make a real sound in her throat. Her eyes were trying to close themselves, and in a painful last whisper, she hissed, "Leon... I loved you...but you... leave my friends alone...not tell you... ANYTHING..."

Then she was silent, slipping into unconsciousness, and then she knew nothing more. Her ragged breathing fell away, and her face, a burned mask of agony, was relaxing now. Her last thought had been that Ryuji had come to take her home to Japan, and she left in peace.

STUDENT #1 Reiko Abe dead: 11 students remaining

Quietly, Park got up, making his koi blush still at the sight of his naked body, and turned off the bedroom light, allowing just the illumination of the TV to flood the room. If his beloved didn't want to - or indeed, couldn't - watch the progression of events, at least he would be able to sleep in his lover's arms, and it would be bad for the cameras to try and pick them up in this dimly-lit bedroom.

The Korean's soft heart ached in sympathy at Reiko's plight, but he knew she never would have wanted, or accepted, his pity. She seemed so alone, lying there on the ground waiting to die at the hands of Leon Courtney, that he almost - not completely, but almost - wished he and his koi had stayed behind to back her up, although obviously neither of them had known what she was planning.

But much to his surprise, Leon did not kill her outright: in fact, he seemed slightly reluctant to even cause her any further pain, preferring to threaten her rather than torture her. It was then that he saw the psycho transfer, lurking outside, who had picked up Rei's Uzi when Leon kicked it away.

"Ohhhhh, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, Kyo," Park said alarmedly, in such a distressed voice it made his koi look up quickly, startled. "That f**king evil transfer witch has gotten hold of Rei's gun..."

And his despair was back in spades, turning his gaze away from the TV and burying his tired face in Kyo's smooth chest. "Well, that's it, then. We're ALL f**king dead."

Sylvain felt his stomach just drop through the floor as Rei's gun came flying out of the yard and fetched up at Delilah's feet. He realised now, all too late, that with a gun, this woman was utterly unstoppable... and not only that, he was no longer safe himself either. He had seen what happened to people like Gordon who refused to do what she told them to.

The blond wasn't at all sure who to be more afraid of - Leon Courtney or the murderous girl he still longed for, despite all his better judgements. But when he saw Reiko die in front of him, the fourth agonising death he'd witnessed in so many hours, he just wanted to sit down on the wind-chilled ground,in the darkness, and cry his eyes out.

Silently, he prayed for Rei's soul, and hoped against hope that Jennifer would be able to save at least a few of the friends this brave girl had given up her life to protect.

She saw, with no great shock, how Reiko sacrificed herself to the Courtneys. She saw how Leon approached her, seemingly almost ready to do something terrible, and how Reiko mouthed some words back at him before she, finally, died in the orange light of the burning roof. She saw the dark glares Ami was throwing her way, betrayed by what she thought was her best friend. She saw Hans holding the flamethrower, guarding Ami and herself, a murderous intent in his eyes. She saw Devon lying on the ground in the middle of the moat, incapacitated by his illness, violently coughing up blood and trembling. And Jen.

Jen's whole demeanour had changed. Since the aspiring surgeon had gone to meet her certain doom, Hannelore could see how Jen had desperately tried to fight back the tears, empowered by Reiko to lead the group but terribly uncertain whether she could or not. She'd always been the least capable of all of them... perhaps that was why Harvey had chosen her, as the most easily moulded, the most malleable? Whatever, Hannelore knew that her own survival relied exclusively on the survival of the Swede.

She got up.

"Jen? You OK?"

Reiko's last words formed in Leon's mind. She loved him? Nobody had ever said that to him his whole life. He stood still for a moment, the situation puzzled him.

His thoughts were abruptly silenced by the bullets ripping through his brain. The force spun Leon ninety degrees to face his attacker. His long dark hair matted to the side of his head, the left side of his face awash with blood. His eyes glazed over and his knees gave out.

Heaving one last ragged breath, he collapsed heavily onto Reiko's lifeless body.

Paul stared open-mouthed at the door. His brother, dead? He should have been there. Why the f*ck was he sat holed up the house like some stinking coward while the transfer got close enough to attack his deaf brother? He revved the chainsaw angrily and screamed. Cursing that bitch transfer as well as his own indecisiveness.

Abruptly, he cut the chainsaw and stared out of the doorframe. Breathing hard, a single tear rolled down Paul's cheek. he owed it to his brother to get revenge on that bitch. But she had a gun now. She would certainly cut him down before he got close.

"Nah, f*ck that" Paul hissed to himself. "I need a gun first. But I'll rip you apart you f*cking bitch don't worry about that!"

Scooping up his bag, the molotovs now loaded, Paul dashed out of the front door and into the night.

Student #5 Leon Courtney dead, 10 to go

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