Burning

Part 7

"Family stuff" she replied hesitantly, an insecure look on her face-she hoped he wouldn't ask too many questions. Truthfully, she didn't want him to ask any. He stared for a few seconds, then nodded and leaned back to his seat, obviously understanding quite how sensitive she was. He wasn't going to ask. She could see that he was an easy to trust person and that he was going to leave it. Speak no more of it.
Bethan finally spoke up.
"Hana? Where even are we? Where's your house?" The landscape outside worried her.
Her voice was clearly filled with a discomforting worry that alerted Hana. Her eyes searched the bus and noticing that the bus was almost empty except for a few little kids that got off at the last stop. Nope, She thought. We haven't missed it. She looked over at Bethan with an unusual sort of smile that seemed to control Bethan's fears like a warm hug does to the searing pain of grief.
"Don't worry. The bus stops near my house in a couple of miles" she said calmly. She'd forgotten how far out of town her house would seem to the others.
Oh God, She said in her mind, they're not gonna like the woods.

A few minutes later, Hana and the others stepped off the bus. Hana wrapped her hoodie around her shoulders and turned to face her new friends. She saw Bethan's reaction immediately. She wasn't the kind of girl to say it, but the expression on her little face said it all. Hana could tell exactly what Bethan was thinking.
I am NOT going in there.
Hana knew the woods would seem a little intimidating, but they had to trust her. She walked through them everyday. She turned around and stared into the dark depths of timber and foliage, the light seemed to be reclining fast just for the occasion of taking people through it.
"Oh, come on Bethan." She said, turning around to face them again. "It's not that bad.
I walk through here everyday".
"She's right" Owen said, stepping out in front of Bethan and Luca, "Hana'll get us through the woods. It's not like it's a one hundred mile journey that'll take us nowhere in particular. It's just a forest." Then he turned to face Hana directly and asked "How long will it take to get to your house exactly?" He didn't want it to take very long. He was obviously asking on Bethan's behalf, but something in his eyes told Hana he was a bit nervous about the trek through the unknown as well. She sniggered at the thought.
"What?" He asked. Her eyes set back on the smokin' hot boy in front of her.
"Oh, not long. Just around twenty minutes."
Owen's jaw dropped. "Twenty minutes?"
At this point Luca and Bethan decided to listen and were equally as surprised.
"Are you serious? You live in a world of your own!" This remark from Luca startled Hana. So far he'd been quiet, kind and sheepish, but now, Hana was seeing a new side to him. He seemed arrogant, downright spiteful. She tried to push the true him out of her mind, just hope he was overreacting.