I've kind of vanished off the face of YWS, haven't I? Very sorry - life has caught up with me and has me relentlessly by the throat. Anyway, here's a new addition, if anyone is still following this. Enjoy, and be as cruel as you want.

By the way, I would like to return the favor of the people that have always read my work, so if you would like to have something reviewed, please let me know.

Chapter Eleven

I’d never actually seen a stampede, but what I experienced next seemed pretty close. It was chaos. As soon as everyone came to the same realization that I had—the bus had pulled to a complete, utter stop alongside some field—pandemonium broke out. There were desperate shrieks, and people shoving towards the door. A man, eyes blazing and reason gone beyond reach, began slicing his blade every which way in his fight to get to the door. One woman had the misfortune to stumble into his path, and I turned my head away, but her cry echoed in my head.
The rush was so instant, so unexpected that I didn’t have time to move out of the aisle. I fell onto my back when one of the twin girls jumped over me, her foot catching my lip. I tasted the sharp, copper flavor of my blood fill my mouth, but I was getting kicked again. “Let me up!” I screamed, and someone stepped on my hand.
The swarm was everywhere, feet and hands and faces and screams. I kept fighting to stand, but every time I found my feet I was shoved or something hit me. No knives found any part of me, but I grew frantic.
I was just beginning to hyperventilate when a hand firmly clamped my arm and yanked me up. “Move,” Knight’s deep voice snapped in my ear. For once I was too relieved to argue or snap back. He pulled me along down the aisle of the bus, and when an elbow flew at my face he again yanked me out of the way.
“My sister!” one of the twins shouted. “Has anyone seen my sister?”
I turned, but Knight forced me forward. “You’ve done enough rescuing today,” he said, and as we passed the dead general he stooped and wrenched my knife out of the old man’s chest. Blood spurted from the stab wound I’d given him, and I wanted to puke.
“Do it later,” Knight said as if he’d read my mind.
I wondered for an instant where Tommy was, but I didn’t ask. Knight kicked a man out of the way who was draped across our path, and I cringed. The bus was only half-emptied yet, and I felt a warm body press against my back. Then I felt cold metal on my skin, and I stiffened. Knight didn’t notice and fought to the door.
“Oops, sorry,” Tommy said in my ear. I sagged, breathing heavily. The feel of metal was gone, now somewhere in Tommy’s pocket, no doubt.
“Don’t touch me!” a familiar voice screeched when we came upon her. She was stuck to a seat, and I saw that her skirt was caught on a spring.
With an impatient growl, Knight attempted to pass her. But she was convinced he was going to pull a knife on her, because the businesswoman went nuts, screaming and trying to rake his face. Calmly and coldly, Knight hit her in the stomach.
While she was doubled over, we kept going. There was a snarl of people at the door, all of them having tried to jump out at the same moment. My eyes were trained on the floor, and when we neared the steps going down to our escape I drew back when I saw drops of blood.
“There’s no way we’re going to get through this,” Knight shouted. More people were pressing in behind us, and my head was spinning. The cut in my scalp was throbbing.
“You okay?” Tommy’s hand pressed down on my shoulder in genuine concern.
“Shut up, Tommy!” Knight jerked his head to glare at the two of us. “There’s nothing we can do for her or for us until we get off of this damn thing! Now how do your propose we do that?”
“Where’s my sister?” one of the twins wailed again. From what I could judge, she was somewhere in the back of the bus.
“Only one thing is going to make everyone move.”
The three of us turned in unison to face Shelia. Her son was trapped against her by her protective arms, and those childish eyes as they met mine were huge and luminous and terrified. Shelia stumbled as she was jostled form behind—a man leaped up over a seat and another tackled him as he went down—but her gaze was steady.
“Well, if you’ve got any ideas, I’d love to hear it!” Knight chirped brightly.
If it was possible, Shelia’s grip on Patrick tightened. She nodded at Knight like they’d made some kind of agreement, and I felt more than saw something pass between them. “Only one thing is going to make them move,” she said again. “Fear.”
Knight’s dark eyes had narrowed. He pursed his lips, glanced at the bus door where people were shrieking and struggling against each other. His expression was contemplative, weighing the options. He looked back at Shelia, and the breath caught in my throat when a sly, bitter grin briefly quirked his mouth.
Then he shocked me by shoving me at Tommy and jumping up onto one of the seats.
Nothing could have prepared me for what popped out of his mouth.
“I have the bomb!”
At first no one listened. No one stopped their hysterics and fighting. Knight raised his voice even louder, and I stared at the vein bulging out of his neck.
“I have the bomb!”
It happened slowly, but once one person noticed and stopped doing anything, everyone did. Once Knight had their attention, all emotion dropped from his young, yet old, face.
“It was an agreement with them,” he said next, referring to the government or the people who ran the experiments—I wasn’t sure which. Maybe they were one and the same. “They gave me money to swallow it. And Gregory wasn’t lying, by the way. My heart is the trigger; the bomb is set off by high blood pressure and increase in tempo. And all this action is starting to get my blood pumped and this big ol’ heart going, kapiesh?”
No one reacted. What could we do? He’d done what he’d set out to do—he’d inspired fear in everyone’s hearts. I could practically hear their thoughts: Is he telling the truth? Will the bomb go off any second now? How can I save myself?
Knight waited only for a few moments for them to process their thoughts, the outcomes, and the way to salvation. “All of you,” he said, pointing at the throng still crushed in the narrow folding doorway, “move. Now. Or I swear to God I’ll do anything to get this thing inside of me to go off.”
No one could doubt him. Even I experienced an instant of chagrin before I remembered that he was only performing, acting to save our necks. He should definitely think about a career in the theatre, I thought faintly. Audiences would surely lean forward in their seats when he came onstage, irresistibly drawn in by his characteristic intensity.
“Shift to the left and I’ll move my arm,” a man finally said, talking to the college girl who was crushed into his side.
If I hadn’t watched it with my own two eyes, I never would have thought Knight’s rash plan would work. But slowly, moving almost sluggishly in their terror, the once-panicked people untangled themselves. As soon as the doorway was clear, a boy darted out into the open air before anyone could react or attempt to stop him.
A sound reached my ears, and I frowned. “Knight, what’s—”
He shook his head at me, a quick jerk of his dark head. Part of me rebelled at being rebuked like a child, but I smothered the feeling. But the sound came to me again, and I forgot about the people crowding around the doorway, itching to leave but fear holding them in place. I actually stood on my tiptoes to see out of one of the windows better. Was that a flash of red…?
“Let them go!” Tommy hissed under his breath at his brother. Startled, I settled back on my feet and looked at him. “They won’t try to hurt you if they’re gone,” the large boy added. His arm was pressed against mine, and I could feel his sweat smearing on my skin.
Tommy was roundly ignored. “Listen up,” Knight raised his voice once again, though there was really no need now; he had everyone’s undivided attention.
“My friends and I are getting off,” he went on. “And if any of you so much as blink, you’ll regret it.” His dark fathomless eyes flashed and the threat hardly seemed empty. Not when it came from him.
“I don’t understand why—” someone started.
“As soon as we are a hundred feet away, you will count,” Knight cut in. “To thirty. And then you are free to do what you want.”
“This is bull—”
“I wouldn’t speak anymore if I were you.”
Mutiny was stirring among some of the experiment contenders. Instinct was urging me to say something to Knight, but even from how little I knew about him I did know I would just be disregarded again.
“Wren, you go first,” Knight directed, not sparing me a glance. He was watching everyone else. “Shelia, you and the kid next. Then Tommy. I’ll be behind you. Go.”
I could feel someone’s breath fanning down on my cheek as I moved down the aisle. People parted for me like they were the Red Sea and I was some kind of Moses. Shelia pressed in tight behind me, and her hair brushed the back of my neck when she turned her head a bit. There was a squeak as Knight jumped off the seat he’d been standing on.
Sweat—my own this time—broke out on my skin, and I moved quickly, eager to get off and have this nightmare behind me. It was hard, feeling all those hostile gazes on me and knowing someone might want to put their knife between my ribs. Just a few more steps, I told myself. Just a few more now.
The closer I got to the door the more crowded it became, and soon I was hunching my shoulders in an attempt to avoid touching those on either side of me. It was too close, though, and my arm dragged across the front of a man’s shirt and I nearly tripped over a leg in my way.
“No one touches her,” Knight called out abruptly. No one said anything, and then the open sky was in front of me, actually accessible. Possible. Plausible. I’d never loved the sight of it more, and I jumped down the three steps remaining, jarring my teeth but uncaring.
Shelia and Patrick came out a second later, and Tommy also made it out safely.
“Walk,” Knight ordered from within the bus.
Several things happened then. A girl I didn’t recognize sprinted past, and something white and huge caught the corner of my eye. I turned to see a second bus pulling up to the field, and at the same time I saw it I heard someone inside our own bus say to Knight, “I don’t believe you, boy.”
Someone—Tommy—had grabbed hold of my hand and was dragging me towards the line of trees. I whipped my head around to gape at the bus parked a few hundred yards away from ours. The folded door had already burst open, and a flood of people were running in every direction. Panicked screams sounded throughout the field, and then I saw the average-looking man brandishing his knife with a skill and a coldness that bespoke of the source of their fear. He sliced off a young boy’s arm and while the kid was clutching at the stump and shrieking he coolly slit his throat.
They’ll be throwing something at us soon. Just wait.
As soon as Knight’s words popped into my head, I remembered Knight himself.
“Tommy! Where is Knight?” Gasping, I jerked my hand out of Tommy’s grasp—it was easy to do because his skin was slippery with sweat—and skidded to a stop, just feet away from the trees that would provide cover and safety. Shelia and Patrick didn’t pause or look back; they kept running and soon vanished in the greenery.
My eyes sought out the dark head, the intense eyes among all the people screaming. The man with the knife was finishing off a small girl now, and I clutched my churning stomach in terror and disgust when one of her organs spilled out onto the golden grass.
“Knight,” I whispered, barely aware of Tommy tugging frantically at my arm and trying to yank me away. “Where’s Knight?”
… and then the man-killer looked up and his cold, hazel eyes landed on me. His gaze flickered down to where my hands were still clutching my stomach, and I felt more than saw the conclusion thudding to a halt in his mind. She has the bomb.
Oh, god. “Knight…” I whispered, feeling myself falling down, down, in a sinking spiral. I didn’t hear Tommy, didn’t comprehend his frantic tugging or even the fact that the man was now coming toward me with slow, certain steps.
“I’m right here.”
A drier hand snatched mine now, and then it was Knight pulling me into the trees. I followed like a child, darting a terrified glance over my shoulder to see if the man was behind us. He had vanished.
“Come on, Wren!” Tommy was panting beside me, his dull, mousy hair plastered to his head. My mind cleared, and I crashed back to earth.
The screaming was fainter now as we left the horror in the field behind, but I could still smell the blood, feel the fear, see the pain. “That man is killing people,” I told Knight, who ignored me and dragged me deeper into the woods. “We should do something!”
“You know, for someone who seems so into saving people, I can’t help but notice how often you’re all talk and no action.” His grip tightened painfully on my upper arm and I winced in fury. A branch scraped across my cheek, and the cut smarted.
“You don’t know anything, idiot. How long have you known me, an hour? Why don’t you just—”
“We can talk about this later, princess,” Knight snapped impatiently, and finally let go of me. “Right now, we run.”
Anger choked me, and I stopped again, clenching my fists. I forgot all about my moments of anguish when I’d thought something had happened to him. “Screw you!” I hissed.
Knight paused for a moment and faced me, raising his left brow in sardonic question. I realized that he was presenting me with a choice. He might as well have been saying, You can come with me and live or stay here and die. My face flushed and I hated him right then. What made him so damn—
“We’re running out of time.” Knight’s voice slashed through the silence. “What’s your plan? And you should know right here, right now, that if you decide to endure Tommy’s and my company, I don’t want to hear any more arguing. You listen to me, and you don’t question any of my decisions.”
“Okay, Dad,” I said through my teeth.
“I’ll take that as a no, then.” He turned away, and Tommy threw me an apologetic , helpless glance before moving to follow.
The trees suddenly seemed too close, too foreign and dangerous. I watched Knight’s black leather jacket stretch across his back as he jogged away, and I knew he would disappear without a regret or another word if I let him.
Let him go, pride said.
You don’t know anything about this kind of survival. It looks like he does. Just go with his stupid rules, for now, common sense urged.
He’d saved my life once. More than once, probably. I would be dead if it weren’t for that infuriating, bull-headed idiot. What were my chances of staying alive in this hellish experiment, if I had no knife to defend myself and no abilities beyond sewing some mittens?
I may have done many brainless things, but I determined that this wasn’t going to be one of them. I swallowed and darted after the two boys.
“Wait!”

Wow it's been a while. I remembered this story and always will. But I was sure surprised to see a new chapter. Better late than never.
You introduced a new character- good. Already I want to know who this mysterious guy is. It seems like your setting up for something, correct? I really hope to see some more action soon. I don't know what it is about this story that makes it so realistic. Whatever it is, good job.
To be honest, I found it a little gory. That's my opinion anyway. I can't think of anything else to say, all I know is that I'd like to read the next segment.
Post more soon ok?

YES!!! YOu poste another one!!! I love this story sooooo much!!!!!
*blinks* omg.... is there to be more???

I love The Experiment and I hope you post more soon. I am dying to know what happens to Wren, Knight and Tommy. I read the chapters this afternoon and couldn't stop until I had read every last word, simply I'm hocked and can't wait for more.