Night began to fall, and the leaves of the trees made dusk even darker. Shadows crept from the trees, urging me to stay alert. My run had slowed to a quick sneak. If I couldn’t hear my footsteps, then neither could they. Keeping my breathing quiet and my eyes wide open, I made good time through the vast timber.
I kept my ears open for my friends, my colleagues. Knowing that some of them had escaped the takeover, I didn’t doubt that some of them would be hiding in these woods, trying to escape the predetermined fate the new world leader had planned for us. My eyes darted back and forth searching for any sign of movement, but I never saw one.
After an hour of trucking along, I crouched down beside one of the large tree trunks and sat, quiet, listening for any footsteps or whispers. I heard nothing. Absolute silence. Letting another hour go by, I waited. If someone was going to be heard, it would be now. People are prone to noise and folly especially when they think they are on the offensive, so I waited. Still nothing.
Standing up, I turned around to see a silhouette in the distance. A man. “Garrett?” I asked. Hoping that it was him, I walked forward, but he said nothing in return. I slipped my axe down and behind me so it wasn’t shown to the person standing in front of me. “Hello? It’s okay, they’re gone.” As I walked closer, the face became more pronounced, and the hair color more prominent. The red hair struck me first, then the glaring eyes. It was Smith.
“Hello, Aella,” he said.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Wasn’t hard,” he said. “When we reached the woods, I knew you would try to outsmart us. Told them to let me go on my own, so I followed you. I thought I lost you for a moment, but I waited. Waited a very long time, and just when I was ready to give up, you stood up and started looking around.” He smiled at the ground until his eyes shot up to meet with mine. “I’m sorry about what happened back there.”
I gritted my teeth together until I was able to speak. “You killed Idris. You killed our leader. He was the only one out of this whole process that gave a damn about us, and you betrayed him. You betrayed us.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds awful,” he said, as he clutched his chest. “I’m not the bad guy in this, Aella. You know that. We’re friends.”
“Were. We were friends. That ended about two hours ago,” I said.
“Well if we weren’t friends, I would have had all the crews come out here to collect you, but I thought I should give you a chance. You can still be a part of this world, a big part, just like you wanted. You could probably even be a level two citizen with the right recommendation...” he said, obviously in love with himself. “Maybe we could even make this work, right?”
“Make what work?” I asked.
“You and me. Now that Garrett’s out of the picture...”
My heart raced and my face turned hot. “What did you do to him?” I screamed. “Where is he?”
“Calm down, he’ll be fine. As long as you cooperate,” Smith said.
The axe in my hand dropped down a little behind my right leg in my hand, ready to swing. “I will never be what you want me to be. I will never work for Leslie. I will never want you and I will never stop trying to kill you,” I said as I swung the axe over my head at Smith. The heaviness in my hands turned to power as it arched over my head to deliver the wrath of its own weight and my force.
His hand rose up to meet with the axe handle, and instantaneously the momentum of the weapon came to a stop. “I don’t think so,” he said, ripping the axe from my grasps.
“Guys!” he announced to the empty woods. “Come get her!” Three-hundred strong descended from behind the shadows of the trees. Two large men latched onto my arms and shoved me down to my knees to wait in audience of Smith. He brushed off his shirt where dirt from the axe had fallen onto him and fixed his hair. Walking over to me, he came inches from my face and said, “Guess you don’t really have a choice, do you? Now, where are your friends?”
“You followed me out here, you know I don’t know,” I spat back.
“I have a pretty good idea that you’ve been coming out here for a while, am I right? I’m guessing you all have this fun little spot that everyone goes to, to get away from it all, right?” His piercing eyes drilled into mine.
“Smith, I swear if I knew where they were, which I don’t, I wouldn’t lead you to them.”
One of the crew members spoke up that was holding onto my arm. “You think she’s lying? They’ve gotta be out here somewhere. We watched a hundred people run into these woods and you’re telling me they’re all gone now? I don’t think so,” he said.
Smith barked back at him, “Well, do you see them anywhere?”
The man cowered away and returned to his duties.
Returning his gaze back to me, Smith worked his jaw back and forth. “Aella, I’m going to give you one last chance. Tell me where they’re at.”
“I really have no idea. I swear.”
“Fine, then. Let’s go have a chat with Leslie, see what he thinks.”
