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How the fuck did the animal know what it had to do? Even the author could not comprehend.

After all, it must be smarter than Lily and her boyfriend.

Both.

A whole hordes of mice flock out of their former home, looking not unlike the Roman army sacking a foreign kingdom, but with lead-grey fur instead of red tunics. Why they are doing this, Lily would never understand.

In the cage, they get free food, free water, and don’t even have to pay the staggering rent that comes with pretty much all real estate, even ones in this desolate small town.

Or get a nine-to-five job.

It’s practically paradise.

Lily stares at the rioting mice in shock, with her jaw smack open. One mouse nearly jumps into her open mouth in the chaotic exodus.

She balks, quickly hopping her way to the nearest exit like a fucking bunny, Every at her heels, screaming bloody cunt.

Welp, what a wreck. A wrecked cu—

Nope.

The whole place goes down, ever flooding with more mice from who knows where. The cages don’t even have that big of a capacity. Lily’s new Pleasers click-clack on the museum’s faux-marble floor, since the town can’t exactly afford the real ones. Not even for their museum, their pride and joy. Her man’s antique amethyst-vermillion gradient Pietro Yantorny embossed leather ankle boots, the newest line of some season back in the nineteen fifties, move smoothly.

The exit shines like a bright green gate to heaven, the shade of it like Lily’s forever-mentioned green eyes. She hops out with her boyfriend, out into a yard. Parked there are the options of a Toyota mom car, a nondescript white van that most likely belongs to a serial killer, and a faded yellow school bus, like in some Dora the Explorer episode. Every makes the quick decision of choosing the school bus like a kid watching an animation, shouting “bus” while pointing at it, and goes up to hide there with her.

“Nice choice,” Lily announces as she squats beside a cracked leather seat beside the driver’s. Spongy purple foam shows clearly from between the holes of the seat. A fallen bag of chips lies forgotten at her feet. “No one would find us now that we’re hiding here.”

“We ain’t hiding here,” Every counters, starting the gas, “we’re going. We’re driving, like that song that was kinda famous in my childhood. O, the good old days. You must not remember it, young one.”

“Nice. But Every, you forgot one crucial factor: we’re about the same age. You’re not even vintage, young one.”

“Shit, I forgot,” Every sighs in the broody, grumpy hero way. “The whole mice thing is making me feel really old, dear. Never have I ever been troubled so. It wearies me deep to the bone.”

He sighs again, not unlike a fainting madam.

Then he steps on the gas, stealing away the poor children’s school bus.

Lily balks. “Buddy, you can’t do this.”

CHAPTER 11: KETCHUP-FLAVORED POPCORN

“I think someone’s following me.” Lily’s boyfriend’s father’s son’s cousin’s cousin drones out.

That’s just him, good old Every, basically.

Their seats on the stolen bus jump with every bump of the road and a Cardi B song plays on the radio. The school bus’ radio. The local radio hosts of Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff small town sure have good tastes, though.

From behind the wheel, the CEO-turned-school-bus-driver looks out of the rear-view mirror, his sharp, keen, main-love-interest-level-of-accurate gaze landing on a mysterious car.

A certain matte black Jeep, the color so dark he is half certain it is an illegal shade.

It tingles his spidery senses, and his chest hair (actually, he doesn’t have any) stands up straight. “Damn, Lily, look at that car. It’s creeping the shit out of me.”

Along with Every’s spidery senses tingling, Darth Vader’s theme song also starts playing, confirming that a villain is, in fact, in the area.

Lily sits silently by herself on the worn seat, hands clutched tight together like an anxious father waiting for his supposed children’s DNA test results. Her anxiety level sure is high, even higher than when Mandy in grade twelve was outed as a crack whore who smoked pot with her brother in the alleyway behind school, and Lily was nearly outed along with her.

That time, she lied to save her ass, but shit was still bad.