by Ward, Tamryn
“Oh,” I say, “and as far as swallowing anything goes, it’s going to be you who will be swallowing. Your pride. When I kick your ass. Because that is what I intend to do. I’m a girl. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do this. When we’re through, you’ll be the one who wants to stay home and chase around a bunch of kids.”
Determined to do exactly what I said, I tie my torn clothes around my body and shove through a patch of thick brush. I’m going to find a safe place to set up camp. And then I’m going to find those other teams and put an end to this.
The sooner it’s over, the sooner I can go on with my new life. In the NDA.
And the sooner my family will have the money they need.
Chapter 26
By nightfall I have found the perfect spot for camp. We’re positioned at the top of a ravine, surrounded on three sides by nothing but air. Nobody will be able to sneak up behind us. They’ll have to approach from the front.
I volunteer to take the first shift of watch. There’s no way I’m going to sleep anyway. Instead of volunteering to scout for the other teams, my useless partner makes himself comfortable behind me. He says he needs some sleep.
Whatever.
I hide under a thin blanket then pile some fallen leaves and tree limbs on top of it, creating a screen. Henry sleeps the same way. It isn’t long before I start hearing movement out there, in the darkness.
Great. While Henry is snoozing and I’m sitting on my butt under a pile of leaves, the others are hunting.
For us.
I’ve got to do something, but I can’t leave Henry sleeping unprotected. He’s hidden well, but he snores. Loudly. Everyone for miles can hear him.
Stupid snoring jerk.
I decide to use his nocturnal noisemaking to our advantage.
One of the first things I learned as a kid was how much easier it is to trap an animal than to chase one. That knowledge is going to come in handy tonight. All I have to do is catch the other recruits by surprise and tie them up without being ambushed. I grab Henry’s rope and cut it into short lengths for later use and use mine to tie down a few saplings, hoping they’ll trip anyone who comes looking for my snoozing partner. Once I’m done, I duck behind a rock and wait.
The sound of a twig snapping lets me know someone is nearby. I also hear the husk of fabric rubbing as they creep toward us. My heart pounds so hard my breastbone aches.
Please work. Please.
Henry keeps on snoring, drawing them right toward my makeshift traps. I pray that they work and get ready to run. It’s dark. The moon is a thin sliver, leaking very faint light. I see nothing but dark shadows and darker shadows.
Pebbles crunch under a foot. A skitter of excitement shoots through me. And then I hear the snap and a dull thud. I charge, slamming into something big and warm. A male voice hollers, “Shit.” It’s Damien, Fran’s partner.
I knock Damien to the ground. We wrestle. But my palm to his jaw puts an end to the fight. I tie his hands, and he groans. One down, three more to go. Fran, Mattie and Alice are still out there somewhere.
As I stand, something whizzes past my head. I hear the snap-crack of something ricocheting off the tree behind me. The shots are coming fast. What are they? Rocks? Bullets?
Did someone smuggle a gun out here?
I scurry around the tree, crouching behind it. Sweat drips from my brow. My hands are slick.
All around me the sound of wood splintering echoes. I’m trapped but I need to end this battle. How? I’m unarmed. Based on how fast the sounds are coming, I’m pretty sure someone is shooting bullets at me. Fucking bullets! I rake my fingers through the vegetation around my feet, grab anything I can and throw it. That accomplishes absolutely nothing. So instead I stay hidden and fight to control my fast, hard breathing, hoping they’ll give up eventually.
It feels like eventually takes hours to pass. I’ve managed to keep silent, but I’m light-headed from lack of oxygen and raging adrenaline. Finally, retreating footsteps crunch away. My hands tremble as I angle out from behind the tree.
All I’ve taken down is one man. One. Meanwhile someone else is out there playing for real. And my partner is still sleeping like an effing baby.
If he wasn’t so strong he’d be absolutely useless.
Keeping watch for another attack, I move toward my pack. I need to set a trap in a new location before someone else finds us. The trap worked once. Maybe it’ll work again.
Moving as carefully and quietly as I can, I grab my rope and knife and pull a nearby sapling down so it blocks the path. Just as I loop some rope around it and pull, something pokes me in the back of the head. It’s hard--I’m guessing a tree branch. I duck down.
“Stay right there,” a female voice says.
It’s Alice’s voice. Alice has found me. I’m guessing the thing poking my head isn’t a stick. It’s either her knife or a gun. Damn it. My knife is where I left it, leaning against the tree. Too far away to do me any good.
I lift my hands very slowly and turn toward her. Thank God, she only has a knife, not a gun. “You got me.”
“Where’s your partner?” she whispers.
I tip my head to the left, opposite his real location. “Sleeping.”
“Where?”
I point, again, directing her the wrong way. “Can’t you hear him snoring?”
“No.”
We both stand silent. There’s no sound. Except for my heart. It’s pounding so hard it feels like the beat is echoing through the whole forest.
“I don’t hear any snoring,” Alice says.
I don’t either, which is another blessing. “Maybe he woke up.”
Alice turns to check, and I see my chance. I attack her from behind. She sails forward and smashes into a tree. I hear her knife fall and I dig through the prickly brush to find it before Alice does.
My fingertips graze something hard, cold. The knife. I grab it but Alice tackles me from the side. I topple over and bang my head into a fallen tree. Stars completely blind me. They twinkle everywhere. Something streaks through the air next to my ear, and tiny wood fragments shatter from the tree, pelting me. I duck.
Shit, more bullets?
Blinking to clear my vision, I scramble on hands and knees, trying to take cover. I hear pop-pop-pop. Gunfire. Someone has a gun. Is it Alice? Did she have it hidden under her clothes? The pat-pat-pat of impacts on nearby tree trunks sends tiny shards of tree into the air. Behind a thick oak now, I’m showered with tiny chunks of tree bark and sharp slivers. They pierce my skin and make my eyes burn.
Silence.
The shooting has stopped.
I’m frozen with fear. My lungs burn, and I realize I’m holding my breath. I’m terrified to move or make a sound. Is Alice waiting for me? If I peer around this tree, what will I see?
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. What the fuck is going on? This was supposed to be a simple exercise, nothing more violent or dangerous than a game of capture the flag.
Some game this has turned out to be.
I don’t move. Time drags. I don’t hear anything. If the shooter has left, I didn’t hear any retreating footsteps. Is she hiding nearby?
Air saws in and out of my lungs now. It’s so loud I’m sure the shooter must hear it. I try to slow my breathing down, but I can’t. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. My hands tremble. How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Where is Henry? And Alice?
The impulse to take a peek nags me. I have to see what’s going on. Fingers dig in dirt, searching for a small twig, something to wave. I have to see if it’s safe first. I find one and thrust it out where the shooter will see it. No shots fire. I tap the stick against the tree. The sound is loud. Anyone nearby would hear it. At least, that’s how it seems to me. Still, no shots fire.
I suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. But what choice do I have? Trembling all over, I lean down and poke my head out from behind the tree. Silver-blue light pierces the thi
n veil of spring leaves overhead, illuminating the area with weak, dappled light. It’s just enough to see that someone is lying on the ground, arms and legs askew.
I think it’s Alice.
Is she…is she dead?
I crawl on hands and knees closer, inch by inch, terrified that bullets will start flying at any moment. My fingers reach her hair first. It’s tangled in a sticky black puddle. I lift my hand into a patch of moonlight. My fingers are stained. Is it black? Red? Blood? I can’t tell. I shake her. She doesn’t move. I feel her back. Her clothes are sticky and wet. She isn’t moving.
“Alice,” I whisper. I shake her harder. “Alice, wake up. Please.”
She isn’t waking up. She isn’t making a sound. Nothing. I lean over her. I don’t hear her breathing.
But I hear something else, a sound. Over there. Not far from where Henry had been sleeping. A moan.
Hoping it’s Henry, and he isn’t pointing a gun at me, or hurt, I crawl toward him. His cover is still hiding him. I lift it.
He’s holding his side. Although it’s dark, I can tell the area he’s holding is stained. “I’m hurt. What the fuck happened?”
My eyes burn. Oh, God, I’m going to cry. “S-s-someone came. Shot b-b-bullets,” I stutter.
“Yeah, I kind of guessed that.” He takes his hand away from his wound. The dark blood coating his palm glistens dark red-black in the weak moonlight. “One hit me. At least, that’s what I think hit me. They were swarming me like fucking bees. Who shot at us?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Fran.”
“Someone snuck a real gun out here.” He winces as he tries to move.
I kneel next to him. We need to stop the bleeding as quickly as possible. I ball up the blanket he had been covered with and press it to his wound. “But that’s not fair. Shouldn’t we tell someone?”
“I doubt anyone would do anything about it. I know George won’t. Hell, he might’ve been the one who gave her the gun.”
“Why? Why would he do that?” I ask.
“To even the odds, is my guess.”
My stomach lurches. “Oh, God, I hope not. This isn’t right.”
“We’ve seen and done a lot of wrong things since we came here.” He lifts his arm. “Help me up. We need to move. It isn’t safe to stay here anymore.”
I loop an arm around his waist, letting him rest some of his weight on me. We take a couple of shuffling steps, traveling maybe three feet. At this rate we won’t get far. “I think Alice’s dead. She won’t move.”
“Shit. Really?” He sounds breathless. I worry he’ll die before morning. He needs to lie down. We need to stop the bleeding, but he’s right, we can’t risk staying here. He shoves away from me, staggering and swaying. “Where? Where is she?”
“There.” I point. “She and I were fighting over her knife when the attack started.” Memories flash in my head. The trap springing. My struggle with Damien. The shots. Damien. The shots. “I had captured Damien a few minutes before that. His hands were tied but maybe…” I glance around us. “I don’t see him.”
“Damien had the gun.” Moving stiffly and slowly, Henry stoops next to Alice’s very still, very dead body. “Bastard. You never know what someone will do when they’re desperate.”
“I can’t believe this…”
He gently strokes Alice’s hair back from her face. “Fucking bastard!” Wincing, he bends over her and kisses her forehead. “You didn’t understand her. Nobody did. Everyone is always so quick to make judgments, to decide what a person is about based on their looks or first impressions.” He straightens up, one arm wrapped around his waist. “Alice was the most loyal friend you could ever have. Honest. Brave. She was hard, yes. Maybe a little mean. But that’s because she had to be that way to survive. She lived a hard life, abandoned when she was just eight. She somehow managed to not only survive, but also took care of three other homeless kids at the same time. She helped me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.” He shoves his hand into the waist of his pants and pulls out a handgun. “We need to find that asshole. I am going to take him down before he kills anyone else.”
Chapter 27
My head is spinning.
I’ve just learned that Alice wasn’t who I thought she was. She was more than a sharp-tongued bully. Now, thanks to the fact that our training exercise has turned into a bloodbath, I’ll never see the other side of her, the faithful, helpful, protective side Henry knew. That girl--who helped other homeless kids survive when no one else cared--is dead.
Gone. Forever.
And I never knew her.
Things are so fucked up. Alice is dead. And we’ve just found Fran too. Dead. Shot in the head.
Why? I want to know why!
Instead of running around the woods, trying to beat the other teams back to base, I’m trudging through the woods with an injured guy I don’t entirely trust, and he is carrying a gun. Someone has already killed two trainees and has tried (and failed) to kill Henry and me once, and both of us expect him to try again.
We’re both convinced the shooter was Damien, even though Fran is dead. I don’t know why he shot her too, since that would mean he’s lost the competition. If he’s shooting to win, why kill his partner?
Again, why? Why is he doing this?
But it has to be him. He was in our campsite when the shooting started.
Why?
Whywhywhy!
I’ve never been so furious. My blood is boiling. My hands are curled into tight fists. I want to hit something, someone. I want to scream. I want to crush the life out of the bastard who’s done this.
But I’m trying to hold myself together. For Henry. And for Mattie. Poor Mattie. She could be shot, injured. If she isn’t already dead. I hope and pray she’s safe.
“We should go back to the compound so your wound can be cleaned. We can report to Jay what’s happened,” I tell Henry as we dodge trees. We’ve been walking a long time, for at least a couple of hours. I’m really worried about Mattie. There’s been no sign of her anywhere. Nor have we seen Damien. I’m hoping that means he’s run off somewhere…far, far away.
“No, we can’t. Not yet.” Henry looks at the eastern sky, which is starting to turn pinky-gold. “It’ll be sunrise soon. Bet that’s where the little bastard is. Sitting at the gate, waiting to pick us off, one by one.” He shakes his head. “No, we can’t make it that easy for him. I can’t even fucking run. How hard will it be for him to shoot me? We need to find somewhere safe to hide until nightfall. That’ll give us some time to make a plan.”
I understand jumping to any impulsive action now is dangerous. Damien, or whoever, is probably waiting just outside compound for us to straggle by. But it still bothers me that this means I will be stuck out here alone with Henry for another night. He’s lost a lot of blood and is risking a serious infection. Not to mention he has a gun.
And I don’t.
As if he can read my mind, he looks at me. “If you’re worried about me shooting you, don’t be. I don’t like you. More than that, I don’t like that you’ve cheated by hooking up with one of the trainers. But I’m not going to kill you. At least, not today.”
I grumble, “I feel so much better now.”
He chuckles. “Fine. Maybe this will help.” He bends down, wincing as he does it, pulls up his pant leg and slides a gun out of an ankle holster. He checks it for ammunition and hands it to me. “There. Now we’re even. If I shoot you, you can shoot me back. It’s loaded.”
The gun feels heavy in my hand. And cold. But also reassuring, since it seems I’m one of only two people out here who may not have a gun. I click off the safety. “Thanks.”
“Remember, don’t keep your finger on the trigger while you’re walking. You might accidentally discharge if you trip. Considering the fact that I’m walking so close to you, and you’ve stumbled more than a couple of times, I’m hoping you’ll take my advice.”
I move my finger off the trigger. And then I trip over a t
ree root. “Point taken.”
We slow down and move cautiously as the sky brightens, eyes peeled for any sign of movement. We catch a few deer unaware. The majestic animals stand frozen in place, dark eyes fixed on us, muscles tense. For the first time in my life I can relate to how they feel. My senses are on alert. I startle at every tiny sound. Every crunch of a leaf, every footstep of a chipmunk, every flap of a bird’s wing. I wish Jay was with me now, instead of Henry. Jay, I trust. He makes me feel safe. Henry, not so much.
“This way.” He motions toward a steeply inclined slope. Boulders and fallen trees jut out, dotting its face and creating natural ledges to perch upon. Moving as quietly as possible, we climb up the face. When I reach a wide, flat surface, I roll onto my back and breathe a deep sigh of relief. Henry perches on a tree trunk next to me. “Try to get some sleep.”
I wedge my body against a large boulder, tuck the gun into a safe nook within reaching distance, and close my eyes. My body feels heavy. I’m exhausted. My mind is dull and slow. But can I sleep? I startle when a bird nearby takes flight. No, I can’t.
I’m so tired.
Very tired.
Maybe I can sleep.
I close my eyes.
Maybe…
* * * * *
Something bumps me, nudging me awake. I bolt upright and blink at the setting sun. It takes a minute to remember where I am and why. As I turn, I see what woke me. It’s Henry’s hand. He must have tossed it when he was sleeping. I crawl to him. His skin is the color of milk, even his lips.
I touch him. He’s hot.
“Henry,” I say as I gently shake him. He isn’t snoring now. He’s shivering, teeth chattering. He doesn’t look good. I’m sure infection has set in. Already. He needs help. Now.
I try again, this time nudging him harder. He’s doing his damned best to test my persistence. Finally, his heavy lids lift, revealing watery, bloodshot eyes, and I say, “Thank God, I was beginning to think I was going to have to leave you here, alone.”
“You are.” He blinks. Slowly. His voice is almost too soft to hear. “Game’s over.”
