Chapter 18: Chapter 16 North

“We can’t just leave them.” Emily exclaimed, stomping her feet as the rest of us sat in silence around a small fire. We didn’t dare raise a big one in case it attracts Legres. Guilt was stabbing through my heart every time I thought about the people we left behind, not just the Ganesh family guard, but my classmates from POE Academy. The guilt was catching up on me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was willing to do anything just to get them back, to help them; but I knew it would all be futile and I will just end up getting myself caught as well.

Burying my face in my hands I sighed into them, trying to rub the weariness off. We ran for hours before we dared stop and without our backpack, we have no supplies save what was on us during the ambush. Which wasn’t much at all. At least we had our weapons. We were all worn from running all day and the prospect of finding a river seemed small. The girl was still unconscious and none of us know anything about medical care past the first aid basis so there was nothing we could do except lay her down comfortably.

“Does anyone have anything to eat?” Jeremy asked, Emily gave him a glare and returned to pacing around the camp fire. I shook my head at him sadly; I only had a bottle of water and a nutrient bar on me, the later was lost amidst the fighting.

“What are we going to do?” Kailey asked, looking at Steven. She was sitting on the ground next to Jeremy, hugging her knees against her chest and her face white as ghost. “We are never going to get out of here alive, are we?”

Suddenly I felt ten times worst than I already did; Kailey must be using her power without realising it. I could see everyone visibly slipping into a gloom. Without much thought I rested my head on Tom’s shoulder. The whole thing has been a downward spiral since four months ago, our luck with the Ganesh guard was just a temporary high which had actually made things worst –we were now separated from everyone else with no knowledge of their whereabouts, or even if they are still alive or not.

“Sssh.” Tom said, stroking my hair. “Everything will be okay, I promise.”

“We need to run away.” Steven said, finally answering Kailey’s question. Everyone looked towards him; he was our last beacon of hope. “We must go north.”

“North?” Emily exclaimed in a shrill voice, causing several birds in the nearby trees to take flight in fright. “There is nothing up north! Just treacherous mountains and the barren land of former Russia!”

“Exactly.” Tom suddenly said and everyone turned to look at him, there was a spark of understanding in his eyes. “They will be expecting us to run towards the nearest citybse, who knows if they had left teams towards that way to ambush us, or the city isn’t full of them, waiting for us to enter? The only way is to go away.”

“If we survive the North.” Emily muttered, scratching her head bad-naturally. “Do you have any idea how many people heads north every year and never make it out? We are going to die up there with no supplies and no back up. I would rather fight to death than starve or freeze to death”

After Emily’s exclamation we fell into a dense silence. It was really down to that wasn’t it? Starve, or freeze, or fight till we die. I wished fervently that Evanna was here; she could easily tell us where she foreseen danger and we will just choose the other option. Without her, we are as blind as night.

“Let’s vote for it.” Steven said finally, “I am in charge of looking after you, and although my better judgment is to go north, i can’t do it without your co-operation.”

I blinked, that’s the most words I have ever heard him speak in one go. I looked around at the lost faces and knew that it would take some time before any of us could make a decision.

“What…where am I?” a strange voice asked, and all eyes snapped towards the unconscious girl, who had finally woken up. “Henrie?” she directed her question at Tom when her eyes landed on him, still slightly unfocused. She was attempting to sit up and Jeremy had to help her.

“We were attacked.” Tom said, his hand somehow gripping onto mine more tightly. “You were knocked out and someone got you out.”

As if someone had just hit her with a sledge hammer the girl bolted upright and immediately winced and closed her eyes. I could only imagined how much her head hurt. “Does anyone have water?” She asked and everyone fell silent again. Another reason why we weren’t going to make it long out here.

The girl began to realise the situation as she took in our faces and lack of possession. I smiled at her and handed her what was left in my water bottle – which wasn’t much and she smiled back at me, her eyes widened as she took in Tom’s hand and mine.

Uncapping the bottle swiftly she placed her thumb on top and I titled my head questioningly. The air around her hand started to thicken and to our surprise, water started condensing and dribble into the bottle.

She was a water elementalist!

The mood change was so shift that you would have thought we had found a Class A herb. To be honest Class A Herb would even be useless to us now with no way of getting out. After filling the bottle she took a huge gulp before returning the bottle back to me. I stared at the bottle and licked my lips. I would drink the whole bottle right now if I could.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me and I clutched onto the bottle tighter. The girl’s eyes darted towards Tom, waiting for him to say something.

“I am glad you are okay Amelia.” He said finally and the girl smile uncertainly.

“What happened?” She asked, tugging her chesnut brown hair behind her ear; she was very pretty, with clear blue eyes and alabaster skin. However she also seemed very uninterested in Tom. Which was a relieve. Wait. What?

Shaking myself from my unexpected thoughts I watched as Tom explained to Amelia what had happened. My heart churned as I recalled details from the fight and I could tell Amelia was starting to feel sick; her face had gone paler and paler and Jeremy throw a panicked look at Kailey.

“You want to go north?” Amelia’s voice raised an octave when Tom got to the end; she looked around at all of us as if to check whether or not we were still sane. “You do realized that’s practically a death sentence right?”

Emily gave us all a told-you-so look and I shook my head. I understood the complexity of the situation and there wasn’t really any better choice than going up north; I guess it was just a preference as to whether to die in the hands of those mystery men or legres.

“There is more chance of us surviving if we go North.” Steven said, “No one will be looking for us there; and we wouldn’t run into anyone.”

“Let’s vote.” I said, startling everyone. I sighed, the longer we delay the more time they have to catch up on us either way.

“Raise your hand if you are in favor of going to the nearest ciitybase.”  I said and no one raise their hand; I raised an eyebrow and continued. “For going north?”

Tom’s hand went up, and I saw Jeremy wavered a little but that was it. I sighed; Steven had made himself clear and I guessed he couldn’t be bothered to raise his hand in a situation like this.

I raised my hand too; and sighed when no one else did anything. This wasn’t going to go anywhere was it?

“I will go north.” Steven suddenly declared and everyone’s head snapped towards him. Steven’s expression remained as blank as ever; without a second word Tom began tugging me behind him charging towards Steven and stopping behind him so that we were all facing the rest of the survivors together.

“We will leave at dawn. Come with us if you want; I wouldn’t force you.” Steven stated, before turning around and giving me and Tom a strange smile; it was like a stone trying to break. I could feel Tom’s hand twitching a little and I had to force down a smile. It would be inappropriate to smile right now.

There was no more conversation that night. we settled down on the damp thickets of leaves to try and get some sleep. I finally decided to put my waterproof jacket on the ground so my head would stay dry. I shivered a little at the chilly night air; his was going to be a long night. Steven was sitting on a tree by the side keeping watch; he denied all the offers of us helping, I think he was going to stay wake all night. Bless him.

I was so exhausted that I didn’t even remember falling asleep. The next thing I knew I was jolted out of sleep from rustling sounds around me. Groaning I peeked through my left eye and saw several pair of feet moving around in front of me. rolling around I wanted to fall back to sleep and felt something slipped off my shoulders.

Startled my eyes snapped over and my hand caught whatever it was on my shoulder. Popping up to a sitting position I saw that it was a waterproof jacket. Confused I looked down and saw that my own jacket was still laying with a human-shape indention that gave away where I slept last night. Holding the jacket up I saw it was several size larger than mine.

“Here.” Tom’s hand shot out in front of me with a handful of berries. I looked up at him and saw that he wasn’t wearing a jacket.

“Is this yours?” I asked, raising the hand that was holding the jacket. Tom nodded and took it back, wrapping it back around himself.

“You looked like you were freezing.” Tom explained; I remembered dreaming about snows and then a warm fire; that’s why…

“You…didn’t have to.” I said, blushing a little; I saw that almost everyone else was up and felt my face turning bright red. This was so embarrassing; I quickly ate the berries Tom gave me and got up, trying to see if I could be of use anywhere.

I caught Jeremy and Kailey stealing glances at me; they were probably wondering what to do, as well as my relationship with Tom.

Finding a hair band in the pocket of my jacket I tied my hair up gratefully; I saw that everyone was eating some kind of berries that came from god knows where. On second thoughts Emily probably got them for us; that’s even more worrying.

The sun was slowly rising casting a lovely orange glow across the sky. Steven was still sitting on that tree. I wished I have some kind of toothbrush right now; or find somewhere to have a shower. My hair was caked with mud and many other unsavoury substances.

“Shall we go?” Steven said, appearing back on the ground with miraculous speed.  Out of the corner of my eyes I saw everyone went rigid; I guessed they harboured some hope that Steven was only joking.

Falling in line behind him I looked back to see if my friends would follow; it would be bad to leave them and I wondered if I would do things differently if I was truly part of the guard. I probably would, even though we were so close to Pax right now.

“Come on.” I called out to Kailey and Jeremy, gesturing for them to join us; the two of them looked at each other before getting up slowly. But before they began to make their way towards me Emily stomped in front of them and made her way to the place behind me.

My eyes widened with shock as I stared at Emily. She was most against this and now she was the first one to comply? What is going on?

After Emily’s stand everyone just piled in behind and Steven nodded. It felt weird not having the weight of my backpack balancing me; Steven began leading the way and I looked back, a bit worried about whoever it was that was bringing up the rear.

“We will bring up the rear.” Tom suddenly said, grabbing hold of my hand again and tugging me backwards. I saw Steven nodding and we shuffled past Emily, Kailey and Jeremy to where Amelia was at the back, alone. She threw us a grateful smile and let us took the back.

“We will be fine” Tom said and I nodded. I never thought going back to POE Academy was easy, but I didn’t expect it to be a death trap like this. I stared at our connected hands and felt strangely assured; no matter what happened next, I knew that he would be by my side.

A/N

Hey I know it's been ages sicne I updated but I am back :D

NaNoWriMo and my courseworks has pretty much drained me but now they are both nearly done and I am back to Selection. You can check out my Nano novel After Death here:

http://nanowrimo.org/participants/shadowcheah/novels/after-death-425588

If you want to see it on wattpad this year let me know!

Please don't hate me for taking so long! After nano i feel like i would be better at writing more ;)