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Turns out, "one condition" became a whole list of conditions. A while later, Principal Catherine sent me a text outlining the rules for our countrywide-documentary-making tour.

A teacher will be present to prevent any ideas of setting the country on fire.

ALL EYES ON ETHAN.

Strict budgeting.

Send progress videos after every step.

DID I MENTION KEEP AN EYE ON ETHAN?"

That was the actual text.

And as if things weren’t already anxiety-inducing, she assigned a dwarf to supervise us. Not to be racist, but they snore like a chainsaw with commitment issues. Good luck to us with sleeping. Worse, this particular dwarf, Mr. Dax, had a reputation for being both strict and

unpredictable—he once made a student write a five-page essay on "Why Cheating is for the Weak" after catching them copying homework. Just imagining it made my fingers twitch. Did the essay have citations? A proper thesis? Did he grade for structure?

So, yeah. This trip just kept on getting better.

Meanwhile, Shun did me a favor and asked Ethan about the car’s price.

His response? "It's complicated." The audacity.

But, of course, Max had his ways of getting real answers.

Turns out, not even winning the competition would cover the full cost. Not to mention, if we lost all hell would embrace us.

However, if I freelanced nonstop for all twenty days of our research trip, we might just manage to fix it.

And yet, here I was.

The list had exactly twenty slots. Not twenty-one. Not twenty-five. Just twenty.

So why, at 6:30 a.m. in the freezing morning, was I staring at a swarm of jocks trying to board the school bus like it was game day? FYI they weren't invited.

I gripped my clipboard tighter, fingers cold and slightly clammy. “Name?”

The first guy smirked. “Uh… Timothy Blackwood.”

I squinted at him. Timothy Blackwood was a short, glasses-wearing junior who once passed out from seeing a squirrel fight. The guy standing in front of me was built like a brick wall with the IQ to match.

“Timothy?” I echoed. “As in, Timothy Timothy?”

“Yeah.” He cracked his knuckles, and I saw the real Timothy cowering in the background.

I sighed. “Next.”

A second jock swaggered up. “Oh, I’m, uh—” He looked at the list. “Lillian Parker.”

I deadpanned. “You’re Lillian?"

“Yeah.”

“You—” I gestured at his very much not female self.

“It's twenty first century, man. Be more open-minded.”

I gave him the most unimpressed stare in my arsenal, my brain short-circuiting for a proper response. I could debate the physics of parallel universes, but this? This left me speechless.

Then, Max and Shun arrived. Max, of course, had his arm lazily draped around his girlfriend like a true romance novel bad boy, and Shun—who was actually on the list—gave me a playful flying kiss before stepping onto the bus.

“Max,” I groaned. “You're not on the list.”

“I am if you look harder,” he replied with a wink.

“That’s not how lists work.”

“That’s not how confidence works, Clark.”

He was already on the bus. I considered throwing the clipboard at his head, but physics dictated it would just be a wasted effort.

At least the next group was normal. Fred, the wildlife club captain assistant, walked in with Mia, Joy’s girlfriend, who was hauling half the documentary equipment with her. Joy sauntered in last, looking far too amused by my suffering.

“You look stressed,” she said. “You should try yoga.”

“I should try kicking people off this bus,” I muttered, readjusting my grip on the clipboard like it was a lifeline.

And then—of course—Ethan showed up.

He strolled over with that chill demonic aura like he had all the time in the world, stretching like he’d just had the best sleep of his life.

Which was unfair because I had been up since 4 a.m. making sure everything was perfect—double-checking the budget, rereading the itinerary, even calculating the best fuel efficiency routes for the bus.

“Morning, bestie,” he greeted, slapping me on the back.

“I hate you.”

“You say that, but I’m still your favorite.”

I crossed my arms. “You’re not even close, and you’re late.”

Ethan smirked. “Hey, I’m here, aren’t I? Besides, I figured you'd need time to recover from, you know… wrecking my unspeakably expensive car.”

A few jocks ooooh’d dramatically from the bus.

My face burned, and I clenched my jaw. Public attention. My mortal enemy. “Get. In.”

Ethan winked and strutted past without so much as a ‘thank you for coming up with this brilliant plan.’

And finally, Mr. Dax arrived.

Mr. Dax, our oversized dwarf of a chaperone, stomped over like he was about to announce an execution. He was barely five feet tall but built like he could wrestle a bear and win.

He climbed onto the bus, scanned the passengers, and then turned to me with an unreadable expression.

“Clark.”

I straightened, stomach knotting. “Sir?”

He inhaled deeply. Then bellowed, “WHY ARE THERE SO MANY BEEFCAKES ON THIS BUS?!”

The bus went silent.

Mr. Dax’s eyes swept over the jocks. “I count twenty-two. We’re two over.” He cracked his knuckles. “Fix it.”

The jocks all looked at each other like they were in a survival game.

Mr. Dax stomped his foot. “TWO OF YOU GET OFF. NOW.”

The first jock to crack was “Lillian.” He practically leaped out of his seat and sprinted off the bus.

The second one tried to blend in.

Mr. Dax walked up to him. Stared. Then picked him up by the collar and placed him outside. Despite that, there were some more jocks left, but he didn't seem to care too much. I guess numbers were all that mattered to him.

“There,” he grunted. “Now we can go.”

As the bus finally started moving, I distributed the map link to everyone’s phones, already running through the trip’s schedule in my head for the twelfth time.

Ethan, of course, leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “Do I get a special map? Maybe one that leads us to a hidden treasure?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s called ‘The Nearest Cliff.’”

Joy laughed. “This is gonna be fun.”

Their definition of fun was broken, remember? I was so not going to let that happen.