Everyone, at this point, wanted answers to questions that weren’t even being asked yet. The situation was, for the most part, tense and if Vincent wasn’t on the verge of dehydration, he probably would have already pissed himself just from the idea of being shot. The driver seemed to be a reasonable fellow, however, even revealing his weapon which was then tossed out of the window and onto the clay dirt road. Vin’s eyes followed its descent, where it rested only a few feet from where he was standing. A part of him had the sudden urge to leap for the pistol so at least he didn’t feel so defenseless after all, but the fearful and more rational side -the one he rarely ever seemed to listen to- told him to stay just where he was. He returned his attention to both the older guy and the young girl, who as far as he was concerned, were cooperating and not intentionally provoking the group. Vincent turned to Eli and was about to add to his previous argument [i]for[/i] their case, in hopes things wouldn’t escalate into a more uncomfortable situation…

And then Nate had to open his big fucking mouth, which could be, in and of itself, considered an act of war.

Vincent froze in place, even more so than he had already been, as Nate ranted on about…[i]something[/i]. He’d apparently gone off the deep end yet again, and divulged the whole reason they were there in one fell swoop. All of it. And if there was ever a new level of stupid that could be discovered, then Nate would certainly be the one to unlock that secret. From the expressions of the others that he could manage to read, there was that moment of the unknown, and the only one who seemed to be reeling from the kid’s sudden outburst was Eli. 

“Shit.” 

It was about all Vincent could muster up and out through his lips, trying to keep his already anxious heart from beating hard enough to explode through his chest. Both his hands clenched into fists, not knowing if he was more pissed off at Nate for being so dumb, Eli for being so trigger happy, or himself for being so ignorant to be led into this whole situation in the first place. But the answer was pretty obvious: Nate. The guy who was supposedly in the business of protecting, had most likely just pulled the master trigger on the huge guns hovering over everyone’s head. And all the kid could do was take his sorry ass back into the mine shaft while the rest of the group stood there holding onto what life they had left.