The Force (Fighting Freedom Book 1)

by Paige Clendenin

  It might have been better that way. If Paul would have killed Jake, then it would all be over for him and he wouldn’t have to witness all the bad.

  After all of that, I will see my brother, Zac, and Mar, leave me. Those are the three that have been in my life from the time of my first memories.

  Lastly, Jake will leave me too. We haven’t known each other for that long, but what I do know is that we love each other. I would rather watch him die though, than for him to see me.

  I will miss them all, but not for long, because Chi will live, of course, and he is going to be the one to kill me. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but he is going to do it.

  “Liz.” I can hear a voice in the distance.

  “Liz.” The voice sounds a bit closer than before.

  “E-Liz-A-Beth...’ The voice is yelling now.

  It is then that I realize that I am being woken from this strange and horrible dream world and brought back to the real one.

  “Liz,” Mar says, as she shakes me to my senses.

  “Yeah,” I say, through the haze of a deadly sleep.

  “Look,” she says as she forces me to a sitting position. “Come with me.”

  I get up and sleepily follow.

  In front of me I see Magi and Jake huddled over a cot. I’m not sure at first what is going on, but then Jake steps out of the way, and I lose my breath.

  “Shawn!” I scream as I begin to cry.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  In front of my eyes sits the most wonderful thing I have ever seen. “He’s awake,” I say as I dizzily bound from where I was standing.

  “And sitting up,” Mar says.

  “And talking too,” Zac adds, in his high pitch childish squeal. In the process of getting to Shawn, I notice that Leah too is sitting up on her cot and looking more alert than I have seen her since she first woke up.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Shawn says. “A bit confused and weak, but other than that, I think I am okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I say as I give Shawn a hug, and then I walk to Leah and do the same.

  “What’s the plan?” Samantha asks.

  I didn’t even notice her standing there. She is always one for getting on the ball. I notice that she is looking a bit funny, and I wonder if she is feeling alright herself. She is always pale but is looking as white as a sheet at the moment.

  “Yeah… I have a plan,” Jake says as he gets to his feet. “I think we stay here another day… let them get their strength back. Liz looks a little unsteady still, and you aren’t looking all that great yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” she argues.

  “Never mind you feeling fine, I think we need to give the others a chance to get stronger.”

  “Whatever,” Samantha says. “But just so you know, if someone finds us, I am not sticking around to take care of your sick friends. At some point it has to be every man for himself, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jake answers. “But you do what you think you have to do.”

  “Deal,” she says.

  Jake walks away from Samantha and back over to where the rest of us are huddling around Shawn. I kiss him, and he kisses me back, but it feels odd being affectionate in front of our whole group.

  “You all should rest for today,” he says as he pulls away from me. We will leave at sun up.”

  “Mar and I will go look for a good water source and fill the bottles,” says Eli.

  “That’s a good idea,” I say. “Look for any food out there too,”

  “Okay,” Mar says as she and Eli walk out through the woods, water bottles in hand.

  Derik and Magi break up who will be on watch and when so that we can all have enough time to rest. Mar and Eli will take the first watch, Jake and I the second, and Derik and Samantha the third. Magi will stay with Zac, Shawn, and Leah in the makeshift tent that we created out of two fallen trees and some branches.

  I rest well with dreamless sleep while Mar and Eli keep watch. Knowing Jake is laying close to me helps to keep the bad away, and for the first time in days, I slumber with no interruption from the terrors that always seem to find me.

  “Liz… Jake… your turn,” my brother says as he and Mar lay down in our place.

  I am excited to be alone with Jake for a little while even though we are not actually alone. The sun is down now. Chi is strapped to a large elm tree to our left, sleeping.

  Jake and I finish off some berries and half a fish that was left for us from dinner, and we have six hours ahead of us to be as alone as we are going to be.

  “This is nice,” I say, with a smile. “The sky is clear, the stars are out, and I get to be with you.”

  “This is nice,” Jake agrees.

  Ever so alert, we let our guard down just enough to be as happy as we are going to be at this day and time.

  “I love you,” Jake whispers as he rubs my cheek with his hand.

  “I love you too Jake,” I say. “So much.”

  I put my hand on his hand as he continues to touch my face and look me deep in the eye. After a moment of deep reflection of each other, we kiss and it feels so good. I am getting better with the intimate moments, and Jake is getting better letting me be in control of timing.

  I slide closer to him on the hood of his old green Dodge, and he slides in closer to me.

  Even though the night is warm and humid, I shiver with his every touch. I don’t care that he sees it either. He touches the small of my back, exposed by my half un-tucked shirt from The Force.

  I pull away a little, reminded by my own shirt.

  “We have to find different clothes,” I say.

  “We will,” he says with a sigh as he continues to hold me close.

  He kisses me, and I let him. Things become intense for the longest time. It’s like our bodies know that we are in a war, and this may be their last chance to soak up each other. His hands sneak up the back of my shirt, and mine up his. He feels so muscular and manly even though he is only nineteen, I have to remember that a life of fitness has been his everything since he was little.

  I am starting to feel self-conscious again and even though I am trying to fight it, I start to pull away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks gently.

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  “You’re perfect,” he says. “You don’t have any reason to worry.”

  “I’m not perfect, Jake…. And how did you know that’s what I was worried about?”

  “I told you that I know you better than you know yourself,” he says with a laugh.

  “That may be but….”

  “But nothing,” he interrupts. “I love you the way you are.”

  I give a small laugh as I slide down the hood of the truck into a laying position looking up at the stars. Jake does the same thing, resting with his arms behind his head. I turn towards him and wrap my arm across his chest, letting my AK-47 fall to his side.

  “Listen to the sounds of nature,” he says. “Don’t you wish that this could be our life? To live in the wild, and not have to worry about anything?”

  “I do,” I say. “I really do, but that’s not reality.”

  “I know,” he whispers, and then we lay there quietly, looking up at the sky.

  I wake to Jake’s watch alarm going off. Our shift is over.

  “Jake,” I say, franticly. “Get up. We fell asleep.”

  He jumps up gun in hand, and I pick mine up as well. We do a quick check of the camp and Chi and find that everything is how it should be.

  “We will keep this our little secret, ok?” Jake says with a laugh as he kisses me on the forehead.

  “Deal,” I say with a small smile.

  We wake Samantha and Derik up and position ourselves to go back to sleep.

  It takes me a while to fall asleep, although it only takes Jake a minute. I lay listening to his breathing as I watch Samantha and Derik sitting on the truck in tota
l silence. Finally, sleep takes me over as well, and again I am so thankful for this day of rest. Who knows how long it will be before bad things come our way again; we need to take advantage of every second we can get.

  What seems like an eternity later, I am woken up by screaming. The most horrific screaming I have ever heard.

  It’s Mar. I would know her voice anywhere.

  After shaking off the morning disoriented feeling and blinking the blur out of my eyes, I look in the direction of the screaming. Mar seems to be okay, however, shaken. She is still screaming and pointing in the direction of the truck.

  Franticly, I search for Eli to make sure he is ok. I see him moving closer to the truck with gun in hand and feel the ever-present mixture of fear and relief rise back up in my chest.

  Jake tosses me my gun as we quickly head towards Eli and what the cause of Mar’s blood curdling screams might be.

  I can see from beside me that Magi is standing in the door of the makeshift dwelling, holding her own gun. She nods to me, and I can only assume that she is giving me a sign that everything and everyone is ok in the tent.

  My stomach drops, and my breath leaves me as soon as Jake and I reach where Eli has stopped.

  Laying in the bed of the truck is Derik… unconscious or dead… I’m not sure. He has a bleeding gash on his head, and it looks bad. He also has a knife wound to the right shoulder.

  Looking around for any other signs of trouble, it is becoming obvious that Samantha and Morimoto Chi are nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “We have to go now!” Jake yells as he leans over the tailgate of the truck to check Derik’s pulse.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, “What about Derik?”

  “He’s alive, but not for long,” Jake whispers, so only I can hear, and then turns back towards camp to address us all. “Morimoto is out there; wether Samantha helped him escape, or he got loose and she is out there chasing him, he knows where we are.”

  “What about Samantha?” Eli asks. “What if she tries to come back and find us?”

  “We won’t be here. Every man for themselves, remember? Isn’t that what Samantha just said yesterday?” Jake replies.

  Before my brother can even comment, Zac walks towards the truck with tears in his eyes.

  “Is he dead?” asks Zac, as he wonders upon the scene.

  “Hay Mar… Why don’t you come get your brother,” I say.

  “Well, is he?” Zac yells in Jake’s direction.

  Jake kneels down in front of Zac and places his hand on Zac’s shoulders. “Buddy… he isn’t dead yet, but yes, I think he is going to die.”

  “Why is he going to die?” Zac cries.

  “Somebody hurt him, little man,” my brother says, as he too kneels beside Zac. Mar is now beside him as Zac buries his head into her side. Her screams have now turned into tears. Her and her brother now cry in unison, and for some strange reason, I can’t bring myself to feel any emotion at all.

  Zac pulls away from Mar and looks at Magi. “Give him a shot, Magi… It worked for Shawn, didn’t it? It worked for me.”

  “This is different, Zacie’,” Mar says, trying to comfort him.

  “No, it’s not!” Zac screams, as he runs into the woods.

  “I’ll go get him,” says Eli.

  My brother takes off into the woods while Jake and I start to pack up our stuff.

  “What’s going on?” Shawn says as he wanders out of the tent.

  I do not think I will ever get over the feeling inside me while I am both happy and sad. We have not seen Shawn walk in over a month, but just ten yards away lays Derik, who is lifeless.

  Leah too wanders from the tent, walking up beside Shawn.

  “Samantha is gone…” I say. “Chi too… And….”

  I try to figure out some way to tell them about Derik. After all, Leah and Derik are in the same family group.

  “Leah,” I say, trying to steady both her and I. “Derik got stabbed… And…”

  “And what?” she asks.

  “And he’s not going to make it,” Jake blurts out.

  “What?” Leah says. “Where is he?”

  I point in the direction of the truck, and she begins her journey to see where Derik lay dying. Shawn weakly wanders with her. When Leah peers into the back of the truck, she immediately turns and buries her head into Shawn’s shoulder. He holds her and lets her cry.

  It occurs to me that Leah and Derik were a new addition to our group long after Shawn went unconscious. I didn’t know who they were before, although I had seen them hundreds of times. Did Shawn take the time to get to know them at the complex? Or is this their first real meeting?

  I can see out of the corner of my eye that Eli and Zac are heading back towards camp, and that makes both Mar and I release a sigh of relief.

  “You didn’t handle that right,” I glare at Jake.

  “The best way to give bad news, is to give it quick. It hurts the same, but this way the giver of the bad news won’t have to suffer as long holding it in,” he says.

  “Well, it’s killing me,” I say as I huff away.

  By the time we get all of our stuff packed up and hide all signs of us ever being there, Jake and I have made up, and it is now time to do something with the old, green pickup truck.

  Magi walks beside Leah as they go one more time to check on Derik. She was able to bandage his head, and stop the bleeding in his arm, but his heart rate has been low and breathing shallow since we found him.

  Jake and Eli are following them with one of the cots with handles to transfer Derik onto, but before Shawn, Zac, Mar, and I can even make it over to join them, my fears become reality the second I hear her crying.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Zac asks, innocently,

  All I can do is nod my head yes as a tear drops down my face. I may not have known him for long, but he died because of me… because my sisters have been taken. He didn’t have to join us, but he did. He would probably be dead already at The Force anyway, or have been hauled off by The Elected, but that fact comforts me not in the least bit.

  We all stand around the truck, trying to seem strong, but that is nearly impossible, considering what has already happened and what we feel is sure to come. After some great contemplating, we decide it would be best to push the truck a little further into the woods and then set fire to it. Jake reluctantly oversees that as his old green Dodge goes up in flames.

  It was Leah’s decision to leave Derik’s body in the bed of the truck. She said that she had read once that it use to be honorable in some cultures of old to burn the bodies of those who die in a war, and, like it or not, that is what we have found ourselves in the middle of.

  Now with camp behind us, and the death of one of our own, we set out on foot in search for what may come.

  Our group of eleven has quickly dwindled down to only eight of us. With Chi and Samantha missing and Derik gone, that only leaves Jake, Mar, Eli, Shawn, Magi, Leah, Zac, and myself. Jake keeps telling me that I am so much more than what I say I am, but I think he is wrong.

  Towers stand strong for only so long, but at some point they always crumble.

  “We have to find some transportation,” Magi says. “Shawn and Leah can’t walk forever.”

  “I’m okay,” Shawn says.

  “I’m fine too,” Leah argues.

  Shawn and Leah seem to be sticking together. As they walk, they help each other, and every now and again, when I can hear Leah softly cry, I notice Shawn try to comfort her in some small way. A touch on the shoulder, a hand to the back, a tender embrace it doesn’t matter, he just finds some small way to make her feel better. He must be hurting too, but I don’t know how to make things better for him. Maybe in even the slightest way, Leah can help do that.

  “What’s that?” Zac asks, as he points to the edge of the woods.

  “I don’t see anything,” Eli responds.

  “There,” Zac points again. “On the edge o
f the trees, there are about six specs moving along the woods.”

  “Maybe some wild dogs or something,” my brother answers, without even bothering to look back in the direction of the moving objects.

  “I see them too,” Mar says. “Those are no wild dogs, they are way too big for dogs, but what are they?”

  “I have no clue,” I say. “But whatever they are, they are getting closer.”

  Now in the distance, accompanied by the moving specs, there is a low roaring sound.

  “Oh no,” Leah yells, and Shawn throws a hand over her mouth.

  She is taken back for a moment, but then he whispers something to her and backs his hand away slowly.

  “Utility vehicles,” I say, as my breath leaves me once again. “What do we do,, Jake?”

  “We steel one of them,” he says calmly and sure of his answer.

  “And just how do you think we are going to do that?” Magi asks. “There are six of them with I don’t know how many people in each, and we only need one.”

  “Shawn, Leah, and Zac, you guys and Magi go a little deeper into the woods. Stay there an hour, then come back to this exact spot.”

  “Got it,” Magi says as she and the others begin to walk further into the woods, Zac hugging Mar just before joining them.

  “You three come with me,” Jake says, referring to Mar, Eli, and I.

  We sneak in a little closer to the small road that lay on the outer limits of the woods. The trees thin out the closer to the road that you get so we decide to stop moving several yards into the woods.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Jake says. “The road looks to be straight and narrow until it hits those hills over there.” He points to a group of hills a half mile to our right. “If we can get there before the trucks do, I think we can manage to help the last one separate from its group.”

  “How?” Eli asks.

  “Just trust me, Eli… I can show you better than I can tell you.”

  Just like Jake thought, we arrive at the hills minutes before the vehicles do. They are going at a leisurely pace, and Jake thinks they may be searching the woods for something as they drive… maybe even us.