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he
was
the only person here. “Well, what should we do, then?”
    Instead of answering her, he suddenly stood up. Upright, he towered above her, much taller than she would have guessed. He looked down at her, a half-smirk playing on his lips, and started to walk away.
    Dylan’s mouth opened and closed a few times but no sound came out. She was transfixed, motionless and mute, shocked and intimidated by this strange boy. Was he just going to leave her here? She got her answer quickly. He went about ten metres, then stopped, turned, and looked back at her.
    “You coming?”
    “Coming where?” Dylan asked, reluctant to leave the site of the train crash. Surely staying here was the most sensible thing to do? How would anybody find them if they went wandering off? Besides, how did he know where he was going? It was already late afternoon and it would be dark soon. The wind was getting up and it was cold; she didn’t want to get lost and have to spend the night roughing it.
    But his self-assurance had her doubting herself. He seemed to see the indecision in her face. He gave her a patronising look, his voice dripping with superiority. “Well, I’m not just going to sit and wait. You can stay here if you want.”
    He watched that comment sink in, gauging her reaction.
    Dylan’s eyes widened in fear at the thought of being left alone, waiting. What if night fell and nobody came?
    “I think we should both stay here,” she began, but he was already shaking his head. Looking as if it was extremely inconvenient, he walked back over and stared at her, so close she could feel his breath on her face. Dylan looked into his eyes and felt her surroundings fade away. His gaze was compelling; she couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to. There was no other word for it; she was mesmerised.
    “Come with me,” he commanded, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. It was an order and he expected her to comply.
    Her mind strangely blank, it did not occur to Dylan to disobey. Nodding numbly, she stumbled forward towards him.
    The boy, Tristan, didn’t even wait for her to catch up before he was off again, striding up the hill, away from the tunnel. He had been surprised at her wilfulness; there was inner strength in this one. Still, one way or another, she would follow him.

Chapter Five
     
     
    “ W ait, stop! Where the hell are we going?” Dylan huffed to a standstill and cemented her feet to the ground, folding her arms across her chest. She’d been blindly following him, but they had been marching for twenty minutes in total silence now, going in who knew which direction and he hadn’t said a word since the curt, “Come with me.” All of the questions, all reasons for staying at the tunnel mouth that had inexplicably vanished from her head when he’d ordered her to follow had returned, now with full force. Walking randomly like this was just stupid.
    He continued on for a few strides, before turning and looking at her with his eyebrows raised. “What?”
    “What?!” Dylan’s voice rose an octave with incredulity. “We’ve just come out of a train crash where everybody else seems to have disappeared. I have no idea where we are, and you are marching us halfway across the middle of nowhere, away from the place where they are going to be looking for us!”
    “Who do you imagine is looking for us?” he asked, that arrogant half-smirk sneaking back onto his lips.
    Dylan frowned for a moment, confused by the strange question, before launching into her argument once more. “Well, the police for one. My
parents
.” Dylan felt a little thrill at being able to say that in the plural for the first time. “When the train doesn’t arrive at the next station, do you not think the train company might wonder where it is?”
    She raised her eyebrows here, secretly pleased with the strength of her line of reasoning, and waited for him to respond.
    He laughed. It was almost a musical sound, but underpinned with a hint of