I leaned my head against the window, but pulled away quickly after the bus hit a bump and my face smashed against it.

What the hell is going on? I kept asking, though not out loud anymore. The guards weren’t going to tell, nor anyone else.

There was no way to know if I was sitting next to a bunch of murderers or not, so I figured it might be better to not get them in a worse mood by yelling. People on the bus had already told me to shut up earlier.

I looked at my hands, the metal handcuffs clinking softly as I moved them. Luckily, I’d remembered to wear my watch that morning. It was 9:13 pm.

The bus was somewhere in the mountains, but I couldn’t tell where.

The lady next to me was fortunate enough to have her purse with her; how she’d gotten it past the guards was a mystery.

She went through her things every fifteen minutes. It was 9:15.

Opening her purse, she grabbed something inside, then stood up, the purse falling to the floor.

When her hand emerged, it was holding a gun.