I pull an arrow and crouch low to the ground. I shut my mind off. I try to not think when I'm scared shitless.
I can hear Jake behind me walking, no doubt completely upright and picking his teeth with a piece of grass. If he starts humming I decide to shoot him myself. The grass on the side of the highways is long. As I slip through it the wind plays with it, making it whisper. The birds are not the kind who warn you of prey, they're scavengers. They want you to die.
The long grass sways and plays with my hair.
My heart is beating faster when my foot touches the gravel on the side of the highway.
I look back at Will. He nods. Jake's lips curl into a smile. I can't help but want to smile with him. I see myself back at the cabin for the briefest of seconds. Images of he and I laying on the couches fill my mind. I smile remembering the way we tried not to get caught staring at each other.
My mind snaps back.
I close my eyes and listen to the wind. There is no sound. I climb out of the huge ditch and walk quickly and silently up onto the broken asphalt. It's started to crack from the weather and lack of care. Where my foot steps first it crumbles. My eyes scan every inch of the deserted highway. Burned out cars, sit staggered along the long straight road. The people caught in the traffic jams when the tidal waves were coming or the bombs were dropping to contain the sick. They fled from their vehicles. They left everything and ran. I remember running. My father had waited too long in his friend's bunker. It was the only mistake he ever made.
I shake my head back to focusing. I slip between an old burnt SUV and the skeleton of a small car. The hood of the car is lifted and the battery is gone. Not uncommon.
"Which way?" Jake asks louder than I would like.
"Shhhhh." Will whispers soothingly.
The gravel on the other side is a welcome sight. When my feet touch the grass I break into a run. The bushes hit me in the face when I enter the forest. I run until I see the tree I want. I climb it and sit with my arrow pulled and at the ready. I scan the highway and the ditch vigorously.
Jake is huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf below my tree, "Oh man you can run. Holy shit. I thought your leg was hurt. Whoa."
"Jake." Will is back to being Business Will. There is no fun with him, only survival.
I don’t take my eyes from the road. Nothing moves.
I am about to climb down but I wait one more second. I see the bushes across the highway move. I pull the arrow back tighter.
It looks like an animal. I can't see it clearly.
"I see something." My voice is low.
"What?"
I shake my head, "Animal. Dog maybe."
"Shit."
I look down through the thick branches at Will's look and raise and eyebrow.
"Trackers."
He doesn’t finish the sentence and my eyes are scanning across the highway again. The animal is gone. Nothing moves. I climb down fast and turn to face the dense woods, "That way."
Jake looks pained, "Seriously. We're going to run some more?"
I look at him and nod, "Think about what it's like for Anna right now. She's terrified. She thinks the breeder camps are what we all think. She is waiting for her turn no doubt."
He flinches, "Jesus Em. Easy with the visuals. She's my little sister for Christ's sake. I'm not bitching. My leg is just killing me."
I glare, "Is it bleeding?"
He shakes his head and looks down at his pants, "No but it hurts."
"Climb the tree and wait for us." I hand him the water bottle from my belt.
He shakes his head and looks at Will who is stoic.
"Will I'm not staying."
Will licks his lips and thinks for a second, "You can't hold us up."
Jake rolls his eyes and sighs, "Let's just go." He points into the woods.
I hold the water bottle out for one more second but he doesn’t take me up on the offer.
I turn and start to run. My leg is sore and my stomach is empty. In my haste I never stocked up. Anna has been hard on my rules.
When the sun is setting, we are where I want to be. Jake hasn’t complained and Will is starting a small fire. I take my bow and find a nice quiet spot to sit and wait for something to make a sound.
The silence of the woods is alarming. I've never been in the woods here. I'm exhausted but I focus.
I hear the crunch of a stick. I raise my arrow in the direction I heard it. A large hare hops over a branch and sniffs the wind. It's ears twitch. It smells me. I release the arrow anticipating the hop it does. The arrow slices through the neck of the rabbit. It tries to move for a second and stops. I wish this isn’t my life for the seconds it takes me to retrieve my arrow. I gut the hare where I killed it. I never bring it back with all its guts. Leaving guts outside the cabin proved to be a mistake. I skin it quickly with the skinning knife my granny had always kept in the cabin. I leave the animal's remains and carry the carcass back to the fire.I hear the cracking of the wood when I get close.
Will is standing over the fire and Jake is sitting on a log next to him.
"So is there something between you two?" Will asks but doesn’t move his face.
Jake shrugs, "I don't know. She's a tough one to get to know. We kissed. It was a mistake."
Will looks at him and smiles, "I hear that. You remember the Laura Croft movies where Angelina Jolie was all hot and quiet but would kill anything that moved?"
Jake laughs and points, "Yes. Exactly. Jesus, give her some pouty lips and bam, Laura Croft."
I feel my insides trembling. I don’t remember the movies they're talking about. I can't help but want to cry.
Will laughs and shakes his head, "But what a bitch though hey."
I grab a rock from where I'm standing and toss it back a few yards. They can't see me if I crouch down.
"She's back. Manners." Will speaks low and starts poking the fire. I stand and walk from the bushes. I just want to throw the stupid hare down and leave them there, but my stomach is growling. I am exhausted. I will stay as long as it takes to eat and then I'm sleeping in a tree. Maybe if I'm lucky I will fall in my sleep and wake up in heaven.
Will holds out a small sack, "I have some potatoes from the camp and tinfoil."
I nod, "Okay." I feel awkward. Kissing them both was obviously bad, but having them call me a bitch after they kissed me is awful. Having Jake say it was a mistake is killing me. I can't look in his eyes. I walk around him and find a good stick to make a spit with.
I search the ground around the fire until I find a good branch. I strip the small branches and leaves from it. I smirk and I shove the stick into the open neck. I am imagining it's one of them.
"You're a scary little thing."
I frown at Jake who is watching me get the hare on the spit.
"It's a compliment."
I don’t stop frowning. It doesn’t feel like a compliment. Even if it was it wouldn’t stop the pain of the kiss being a mistake.
I build a spit with rocks and branches and twine from my backpack. Will has sliced the potatoes and laid them in the tinfoil. He places them high on a rock with a flat surface in the fires circle of rocks.
Will glances at me, "So what's the plan?"
"Get captured and free us both."
He laughs.
"I can do it."
He shakes his head, "I know you can it's just funny that’s all. You're willing to sacrifice yourself to save my sister?"
"She's the first person I've met that I liked. Genuinely." It's a dig at them both. Fuck them.
He raises his eyebrows, "Fair enough." He looks hurt. The image of the girl in the short shorts doesn’t leave my mind easily.
Jake looks hurt, "What am I chopped liver?"
I smile, my granny used to say that if I hugged my grampy first. I hate that I'm smiling. I hate that he makes me smile so easily.
He grins at me and I remember his hands on me. I can't stop staring at his lips. It makes me feel sick.
Will clears his throat, "So how will you get captured?"
I shrug, "Just act lost near the area." I glance at Jake who is still staring at me. His grin hasn’t left his face. I dig my stick in the dirt and draw a circle. I hit a rock and dirt goes flying up at Jake on his stump.
I laugh. He wipes his face clean, "Thanks."
Will laughs, "Stop being a baby."
Jake shakes the dirt out of his hair, "You did that on purpose."
I put my hands up with the stick in them, "I didn’t, I swear." I wish I had.
"I don’t think you should go in there, Em."
I dig the stick again, "I have to." I don’t say that I led them straight to her. I don’t say that it's all my fault. I don’t have to. We all know it's true.
Will turns the hare on the spit slowly. The smells are starting to make my stomach make noises I haven’t heard since before I found the cabin.
Will looks around, "When you get captured you need a way out." He gets up from the fire and mutters, "Jake turn the hare." He goes to a tree and rips off a branch. He sits next to me on the log. The warmth of his body touching mine sets my nerves on fire. I swear there is electricity where our arms and legs touch.
He bends down and draws a rectangle. In each of the corners he makes small boxes, "There is a section that is for the women who are pregnant or about to be impregnated. This is probably where you'll go. Then this wing is for the younger girl who can't have babies yet. This is for the women with the babies. This is where the little girls are kept. Girls they raise to be breeders." He moves the stick to the other side and makes a smaller box, "This is where the men are, if there are any men. Sometimes they don’t have any there." He clears his throat nervously and draws an X in the middle but off to one side, "This is the fertility lab. This is where the lab coats and doctors and cleaners all stay. This is your only chance. They will have a dump somewhere near the clinic. The garbage goes every few days."