Page 42 of Campus Heat

At first, my brain refused to accept it, so I started looking around. I checked to the left and the right. No one occupied the individual pumps, and the road showed no vehicles—bus or other. There was absolutely nothing in sight. No peeling logo, no dented rear panel, not even a slight wheeze.

They had to have moved it, right? They couldn’t just have left us here. It was probably Lucas’s idea of a prank. Just as the thought made me smile, the convenience store doors swung open. Ethan froze mid-step and followed my gaze.

“No,” he breathed.

He walked forward a little, as if the bus would appear if he looked out from a different angle. Then he looked down the highway, and finally he spun in a full circle.

“No, no, no—”

He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at the edges. It was as if his entire world came crashing down at that moment, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“They wouldn’t just leave,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “They must’ve—”

“They left!” he snapped. “Do you see them anywhere? No, they’re gone. They left without us, Elizabeth.”

The words settled between us like a thick, unbreakable cloud.

“There must be an explanation,” I muttered as my heart started pounding. “An emergency or something. They’ll notice any second now. Someone will look for one of us and figure out we’re not there.”

He looked down the road as if he could will the bus to come back with that move alone. Two cars flew by, but the bus remained a distant memory. The silence between us stretched, and the reality of the situation sank in. It was a slow, suffocating process.

They had gone, leaving us stranded.

17

Ethan

My eyes kept roaming over the parking lot, which was still too empty. I fought reality sinking in. My brain kept trying to fill in the bus that should’ve been there. To find the rusted side panels, the stupid roach logo, and the back window that was duct-taped into compliance. But there was absolutely nothing there besides asphalt.

Elizabeth eventually stopped pacing, but I took two more steps before the absence fully registered. I turned slowly, half expecting a magician to jump out and reveal his trick, but that never happened. The bus was really gone. I thought it might’ve rolled forward, or that we’d parked further down and I just misremembered. So I scanned left and right one more time. Unfortunately, there was still nothing but sun glare and a dented sedan filling up at pump three.

“They wouldn’t,” I muttered as my brain still refused to accept what had happened.

Elizabeth didn’t answer. She just stood there and looked at me as if I had grown an extra head.

“They wouldn’t leave without us,” I said, unsure of who I was trying to convince.

Elizabeth took a few steps forward and looked around like the bus might’ve been hiding behind something and we hadn’t noticed. My pulse kicked up hard and fast. This couldn’t be happening.

“This is stupid,” I scoffed. “It must be some kind of sick joke.”

“It isn’t,” Elizabeth said quietly.

Now it was my turn to pace. The gravel bit into the soles of my shoes while little stones shattered, but that wasn’t enough to distract me, so I started counting. Twelve steps… It was exactly twelve steps to the edge of the parking lot and the same number of steps coming back.

“They know we got off!” I snapped. “Why would they just take off without checking that we were back?”

“They obviously thought we were on the bus with everyone else,” Elizabeth offered.

“For this long? Someone must’ve picked up on it by now. Why haven’t they turned around and come back for us?”

She didn’t have an answer for me. She just crossed her arms over her chest and waited for me to figure it out on my own.

I ran both hands over my face. “We’re over an hour out.”

Elizabeth threw her bag on the ground and started rummaging through it. “Phone. Where is my damn phone?”

For a split second, I froze, but then started checking my pockets. It was an automatic response, but I already knew exactly where my phone was, and it wasn’t on me. I cursed under my breath.