And then again.
She stopped when Eva crashed to the ground.
My ears rang in the silence of the room. It felt as though my entire body was zipping through a tunnel at high speed.
I came back with Leslie’s words. “Take this. You two need to get out of here. Save yourselves.”
“Come with us,” Leah said as she took the gun.
“I can’t,” Leslie said shaking her head. “I can’t leave my mom. She needs me. Eva was right though, they’ll blame you two for this.”
“Are you sure you won’t come?” Leah asked again.
Leslie nodded. “I’ll be okay. Good luck.”
She turned and ran down the hallway. A door at the back opened with a squeak and closed with a bang.
“I guess we leave out the back,” Leah said. “Think we have time to get our bag?”
“I think without we won’t make it far,” I said.
We ran to the cabin through the shadows. It didn’t seem as though anyone was looking for us. There was no commotion but surely, people must have heard the gunshots.
Leah grabbed the bag and strapped it to her back. I took a quick look around the cabin. It wasn’t that I would miss the resort, it was that I was going to miss having a roof over my head.
It wasn’t until we were several miles south of the resort that everything hit me. My dad was gone… murdered right in front of me.
I dropped to my knees and buried my face into my hands. My shoulders shook as I mourned the loss of my dad.
It didn’t give me any solace to know that both Eva and the man that murdered him were dead. Leah and I were back out in the unknown, with rain falling on us in the middle of the night. There was a good possibility that we were also as good as dead.
Leah placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry but we need to keep moving.”
“I know,” I said. A soft gulp caught in my throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t give it another thought. Let’s just keep moving in case they’re following us,” Leah said looking over her shoulder into the shadows.
I looked up into her eyes. “I’m not sure there is a point.”
“Adam,” she said helping me to my feet. “We survived before the resort and we can survive after the resort too. Other than unlimited food and a roof over our head, the resort hadn’t been that great. We were always looking over our shoulders. Hell, we were trapped inside while everyone else was able to roam around freely.”
“I know,” I said as we walked. I wiped rain off my brow but it was instantly replaced with new droplets.
“We’ll find somewhere and we’ll be okay. People just can’t work together. There is no kindness. No trust,” Leah said before hesitating. “Once we find somewhere safe, we’ll board ourselves in and avoid everyone else for the rest of time.”
I took Leah’s hand into mine. There was nothing but sadness inside me but I had to bury it. I couldn’t let the awfulness of everything get to me because there was someone else besides me I needed to think of.
Leah needed me.
She was strong and smart and if something ever happened to me, she’d be okay. Leah was tough but together, we were better off. I was there to watch her back and she was there to watch mine.
If we were going to survive longer, it was because we’d work together. In a way, we had an advantage because we weren’t alone. We had each other.
Leah and I would find a place. We’d figure out a way to make things work. As long as we had each other, we’d be okay.
That’s what I’d tell myself.
30
Stevie
“Drop it!” the big guy shouted.
“Don’t do it,” Shawn urged. “Shoot him. Shoot them both.”
Shooting them both wasn’t an option. Not because I didn’t want to but because I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough. Someone, likely Shawn, would get hurt.
I set the gun down on the floor next to me and raised my hands.
“That’s a good girl,” Mr. Beard said as blood oozed out of a crack in his lower lip.
I’d almost done it. With the help of Lucy, I had nearly managed to get us out of the mess we were in. But now, I was unarmed, everyone was tied up, and there wasn’t anything else I could do.
“Say good bye to your friends,” Mr. Beard said looking directly into my eyes.
I shook my head, refusing to say good bye. Stupidly refusing to give up even when there was no way out.
“No skin off my nose,” He said raising his gun.
It felt like everything had switched into slow motion. My eyes focused on the dark circle at the end of his gun. The rest of the room seemed to shrink and the darkness was all I could see.
The sounds of the storm outside vanished. It was like I was slipping away before anything had even happened.
The pop of the gun was mind-numbingly loud. Everything around me started to spin violently.
I was surprised I didn’t feel pain. I hadn’t felt the bullet tear into my flesh, searing me with its excruciating heat.
It was like everything around me cleared and I heard all of the sounds at once. I hadn’t been the one to take a bullet.
“Shawn!” I said turning.
I met his glassy, blinking eyes. Shawn was fine but the big guy that had his gun to his wasn’t.
Mr. Beard’s eyes were on his friend but slowly started to shift back to me. I picked up the gun and fired it until it was empty.
He hadn’t even been able to fire a
