Chapter 33: Overturned
Whoever had jumped me had made sure that I wouldn't get to see, all while subduing me in a matter of seconds.
He used brute force. Roughness. Why or for who, I didn't care. But if he thought that I was just going to surrender to him like the old times, then he couldn't be more wrong.
I kicked and wrestled with all my might, but suddenly, out of nowhere, someone else lifted me off my feet, then tried to place me in a small container.
I screamed for my life. "Help! Help me!"
Someone clamped a hand on my mouth. I couldn't see or yell a thing now. And whoever was working on my feet was doing successful. A few seconds more, and I was being shoved downwards.
Audra!
Guys!
At least, that was what I was trying to scream. Even Neil would help me at this point. People were trying to kidnap me.
Had they kidnapped my friends too?
With this question in mind, I tried to fight my way out of the container. It had smaller sides like a box. Or a coffin, maybe.
Nevertheless, someone put a lid on the top, silencing my screams.
It hadn't been a few minutes after, when the earthquake suddenly began.
Harsh. Trembling. Making me clam up. And then I realized that the container I was in was being transported. By who or what, was a mystery that I wouldn't get an answer from, unless I did something.
So I kicked and tried to punch my way out of the box. Only to bump my head on the sides. It was cramped inside.
Ten minutes passed.
Then an hour.
My legs had completely fallen asleep on me, when the lid was finally opened again.
Screaming at the top of my lungs, I lunged up, punched whoever it was on the other side. Hit one straight on the eyes.
"Ahhh!"
"Grab her!"
It was a fight that I wasn't willing to lose. Yet several hands seized me. And just when I thought that all was for naught, someone removed the thing from my head. And Audra, touching my cheeks real firm, whispered, "It's me, Pax. It's us!"
The brutal hands that was fighting me earlier left me alone. Coupled by a groan coming from my side, as Neil walked in front of me, to show me his face.
A developing bruise was forming on his right eye, which he was trying not to touch.
"Ow!" he complained. "What the hell?!"
"Shut up, Neil. Let her breathe."
Audra and Neil took one step back. But my heart was still racing.
What was going on?
And where the hell had they taken me?
Glancing around, I was stunned to see that we weren't in my room anymore. Much less in the deck. Or even in an area of the ship where we should be.
Instead, trees from above quivered like dancers, along with the gust of the wind.
And me, receiving the chilly air that came with it, shivered and shrunk onto myself.
Audra, seeing this, quickly embraced me. "Let's get you warmed up," she said. "Neil, please remove the rest of her binds."
"Alright, female. But you owe me another one. It hurts."
The two of them worked like a team, while I was still reeling from all of this, but soon I was asking. "W-why?"
"We all had to get out of there," Audra explained, while she helped me lift my feet. Looking down, I found that I was stepping from a crate, much like the one we'd used to get inside the ship. Now, they had used it to get me out. "But they were spying on us." She continued. "Blackwell's men. So we worked on a scheme. It took us two days to finally convince you."
"Convince me of what?" I looked at her.
It was so good to get on the ground again. I was so grateful that I wanted to kiss the grass all around me. But with Audra looking at me with such affection on her eyes, I couldn't help but feel betrayed instead.
I mean, how could she stare at me like that but still keep me in the dark?
Neil, finally freeing me from the rest of the binds, walked to my front again, gave me a disapproving glance. "Oh, don't look at my best friend like that, Leighton," he said. "It was hard for her to convince you that we'd abandoned you somehow. Be a little bit more grateful, won't you?"
My eyes squinted at them both.
Audra, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, said, "Blackwell had expected us to gang up against you when he said that he'll release us in exchange for your life. And he would have succeeded had we not patched our relationship beforehand. But still, he left tracers in the ship to spy on us, to see what we would do. So we gave them a show. We're hoping that they'll think we'll deliver you to Blackwell in exchange for our freedom in a few days time. But all in all, pretending to do this will definitely buy us time."
I exhaled a long breath. They could have just told me all this easily. Not leave me wondering on my own.
But then again, I wouldn't be as convincing as I was. For a second there, I thought the tracers had really gotten me.
Neil, massaging the area around his eye, added, "Everyone thinks we're still children, you know? But what they don't know is if you teach a child to kill, he would do it sooner or later." He scowled. "And I'm not really this deep, but this crap is getting to me."
"Wait," I said, not meaning to brush off what Neil had just said. But in all of these explanations, I had forgotten one thing. Our group was incomplete. "Where's Hanz?"
Our tallest, and coincidentally, most vulnerable member apart from me, was sitting beside a campfire when I walked further down the trees.
Audra and Neil allowed me go there alone, assuring that there were no tracers nearby anymore. They had worked hard to lose them all evening.
At present time, though, face lit up by the radiance of a small fire, Hanz, who could have learned how to build a camp from the boy scouts, didn't glance at me when I sat there by his side. Simply poked the flame with a stick, gaze all over the embers.
I didn't want to break the silence, but still I had to say, "Thank you for not leaving us, Hanz. For sticking with our group. . . And I'm sorry. . . For everything else."
The wind blew. And even the jacket that Audra had lent me before coming there didn't give me much warmth.
But her scent clung to it; sweet and bitter, giving me strength.
"I hope you can forgive us for keeping about your mom's from you," I whispered. "It was my fault. I just dragged Audra into this."
At that, Hanz's head turned to me. Afterwards, eyes clear as I'd ever seen them, said, "I'm not mad at you. Or Audra. I never was."
"Then. . ."
"I was shocked." He inhaled long and deep, before his shoulders collapsed down.
I could do nothing more but to lean to his side. We. Us. We were a small family. And I knew exactly how he was feeling. To lose someone was a terrible, terrible thing.
"I'm sorry if you might have thought that I'm going to turn you over to Blackwell," Hanz said, swallowing hard. "But I was so lost at that point. My mom's. . ."
I found his wrist, squeezed it. I couldn't say anything anymore. It was the only way I knew to comfort him.
Soon, I could hear footsteps; two of them, getting closer to us. But there were no danger for it was only Audra and Neil, the two of them coming to join us.
Audra's eyes flickered to me and Hanz before she shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry as well," she whispered.
"Me too," Neil supplied, though he hadn't had a clue like Hanz. He was blindsided by us, but he didn't seem to mind as he raised a bottle in his hand. "Nicked this from the ship at the last minute." He and Audra came closer, huddled with us in front of the small fire. "What do you say to drinking to your mom's, Peterson? We just got out of the ship, and I know we shouldn't be reckless now, but I feel like getting a bit buzzed."
Hanz gave him a reluctant nod, to which Neil grinned and started removing the wine bottle's wrap.
"Alright then," Neil murmured. "For Hanz's mothers, who were the most gorgeous female's I had ever seen, aside from Audra here. May they turn other women in heaven lesbian. May they have a party every single day, disturbing the angels like us. To them!"
"To them!" we all cheered.
Laying under the stars, huddled in a sleeping bag a couple of hours later, was not bad at all. It was a luxury.
According to Audra, they had planned this escape for two days straight, buying one or two things from the stores of the ship to help us through our journey back into the world.
We had sleeping bags, flashlights, even a good supply of food. Nevertheless, even with all those comforts, we didn't know where we would go from here and what we would do. Tomorrow, we only had about eleven days left. Eleven days from when Blackwell said that the rest of them should surrender me from their own freedom. Eleven days from us being torn apart or not.
Our situation was this; if my friends didn't surrender me to the scientist as Blackwell had demanded, we would just keep on running our whole lives. But if they did give me away, who knows what that man would do to me? He would probably kill me. It was not far from that.
And so cuddling with Audra that night, I began to make up my own mind. To ponder. To wonder, whether we should surrender or do what we did best. To take a flight yet again.
"Not asleep yet?" Audra whispered, her warm breath tickling my ear.
"No. . ."
"I see. . ." she murmured.
God, I missed talking to her. Even if this wasn't really deep talking. Even if she had just asked me a simple question. It felt like those two days had stretched into forever. A forever that had really done a number on me. But still, I would have killed for anything like this, especially when we were back in school.
Her hands, underneath the sleeping bag, snaked around me tighter. "I want to live like this," she whispered. "I want to live with you under the freedom of the stars. Is that asking for too much, Pax?"
"No," I murmured.
Her mouth touched my ear. Audra knew exactly where to go. Her hands, seeking now, massaged my stomach gently. "So we will," she said, almost too wistfully. "We'll live like this. We'll be happy."
"Not yet," I said, both to her advances and her statement, which understandably made her stop.
Audra, hand moving towards my arm now, glanced at me with reluctance. "Anything on your mind, Pax?"
Yes. As much as I wanted to be with her like this, as much as I wanted to cuddle forever, we both knew that this was just a small break in our journey. This world. This life. I didn't want any of it. Not like this.
Turning to my side, I gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Before dawn, when we take our shift watching over while the guy's sleep, I'll tell you small details about it. But for now, let's just go ahead and rest," I said. "I'm too tired for today. Let's sleep."
Audra's eyes automatically closed. She was just like that. She never gave me pressure. She knew how to wait. And just for that, I forgave her for keeping me in the dark at the ship. But she could no longer protect me. It was now my job to protect us both.
At the break of dawn, even the boys were rising up again, ready to join another day with us.
We each just had a couple of hours sleep, and exchanged turns guarding each other. But the moment they were awake, it felt like we all had pretty restful naps, especially when a few minutes more passed, and we began to start another fire.
"What's for breakfast?" Hanz asked, eyes puffy from his crying session last night, but otherwise was smiling again. A good sign that he was recovering. A good sign that I could finally tell him my plans.
"Not beans," Neil answered, searching through his bag.
They had four of it; one for each of us again. Like Audra had said, they had bought everything from the ship. The amount that Hanz got from his watch was more than we could ever need.
For now.
Hearing Neil, Hanz folded his sleeping bag, turned to the other guy with a scowl. "Well joke's on you, tough guy," he said. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm no longer vegan."
"And I care because?" Neil remarked.
The two boys were back on their banter, which inevitably made me smile. Almost everything was going back to normal. Because of this, I waited until after breakfast to tell them what I had been thinking of all night.
The four of us surrounding the dying fire, I looked at each of their faces until I stopped at Audra's, whom I hinted a little information to this morning.
But still, she looked surprised when I told them this. "I want to fight."
"Fight?" It was Neil who had spoken, smirking at me. "Fight how? No offense, Pax, but your arms are like spaghetti."
"Speak for yourself." Already, Hanz was defending me, and I hadn't even told them the best bits yet.
"You want to fight what, exactly?" Audra asked, eyes squinting at me, hands playing with a stick. "Another boxing match? Another wrestling?"
"No." I shook my head. "I don't know if you know, but I want to fight Blackwell."
Neil was definitely chuckling now, pointing at me. "With you and what army?"
"With me. With just me alone," I cleared.
The three of them glanced at each other. Audra, the most confused-looking one, turning to me again. "Pax, what are you saying? Blackwell has tracers."
"And I don't care."
Neil slicked his hair back. "Okay, she lost it," he said. "Audra, can you please give her CPR? Or I will slap your girlfriend, I swear."
I shook my head at him. "I know I might loseâ"
"Damn right you will."
"And I know this is insane." I ignored Neil. "But how many mothers do they need to kill to contain us? How many relationships had they torn apart? I. . . No, we. . . I mean, look at us. All we'd been doing from the start was to run away."
Audra, looking like she wanted to support me, seized my hand on hers. "I understand that," she said. "We all do, right?" But only Hanz nodded with her. Anyway, she continued. "But this is ridiculous, Pax. If you fight them, you will die."
"And I'm not even afraid of that."
Audra shook her head "No. My answer is no."