Chapter 55

“we need to move” Harper announces. The sun is kissing the hills now, its red light dimming by the minute making the forest darker and the shade from the trees aids this

A day ago we would be wary of the shadows but with them gone we only have to worry about the group of men aiming for kill shots at us

Sincerely, this is a lot scarier than the shadows. At least we had a fighting chance against the shadows and now? Even Willow has lost his weapon – imagine that

He walks over me and takes out some white handkerchief from his pocket and gives Tony “tie something on that”

I really should look at the mirror at this rate because the way everyone is looking at my head feels like my brains are out and Tony is already talking like he is scared for me. I smile weakly at Harper and he smiles back before hurrying to the others

Tony folds the hanky and places it on my head, his rips out his inner shirt and wraps it over the hanky on my head, hitching it behind my head

He fastens it tight and helps me to my feet “can you walk?” my feet takes time to stand steady on the floor, that is after the faze of dizziness left my eyes. I look at the others – basically my friends and the youngest teenager.

Harper and Thelma helps willow up and Rose helps Olivia, they had tied something over her tummy

We head the fastest we could down and down the huge ditch hoping we could find a hiding place to pass the night. If they don’t find us through the night, they could destroy the island hoping we would be inside. we have only tonight to find the boat and yet if we move around much we are likely to draw their attention towards us

Flash light appears behind us moving in an uncoordinated way “Olivia, where could Harem had left the boat?” Rose asks, struggling with pulling her along, apparently she cannot carry her, it obvious though with her hands and legs like sticks – not the best time for jokes though

Olivia grunts and slips her hands from Rose’s shoulders “I don’t know, he just said the beach and I never got to it”

“what if they had removed it?”

“he said he hid it so no one would find it except…” her voice trails as realization dawn on her “me?”

“just great, another puzzle to solve” Tony says and grunts under my weight, I look at his arm and try to straighten up and shift my weight from him “don’t worry about me” He whispers “you have a head injury, you need to go easy on yourself”

“I know, but you are losing blood the more you put pressure on that arm” I insist but I stumble when I rip his hand off my shoulder. why do I feel so dizzy?

He catches me again and moves me to his other side “happy?” I nod slowly watching his scowl soften

“there they are!” A male voice behind us. we gasp and turn around, falling into the grassy area

The flash light cross through our direction and settle on the bus – had we been walking such long distance and we haven’t gotten far enough from the bus? Or is my head fuzzy again?

“check it out. count the bodies” One of them ordered and the rests follows the order

“how many are we looking for?” the blonde man among them grunts out through his teeth as he struggled to pull something from the smoking bus

“about 7 young adults and 8 kids. The old ones don't matter” the leader answers, he clicks his tongue and continues “if they don’t count up we will have to bomb this beautiful island”

“yea, there is no way we will find them, with the shadows gone and the sun going down” another one at the back of the bus says

“this is why Boss never repeats a stunt, they could just catch a hint over time” the blonde says

“I am still down for caging them the way every other person does” another voice says and I lets out a ragged breath

“if only they didn’t figure all these out. The horror story was cool though” the one at the back says, as he dropped one of the bodies close to the leader

The leader kicks the body and it turns over making my stomach growl “Just pray those bodies count” he says.

I am snapped back to the reality of the fact that if we remain here they could spot us and given their reluctance to bomb the whole island they would bounce at any opportunity for a kill shot and being chased might lead them to the beach and destroy our escape plan

“Let’s go, if we pull them to the beach they would stop us from leaving” I say breaking the silence between us

“That’s right, they are trying to check the bodies and we need to leave as quietly as we can so they don’t spot us” Tony says

We all quietly leap through the sloppy area, moving the fastest we could

Minutes slowly turn to hours of going through the forest and gasping anytime a flash light cross our way only to continue moving away when we figure out that they are still at the bus

It is completely dark out and my throbbing headache had come down reasonably though I had not check if I can now walk on my own

We walk through the last trees before we saw the tiny beach. If we had driven further we might not have found this beach because it cuts just a few miles long and at each end is high land which we can never jump from casually

Olivia takes off ahead of us, she walks into the beach and looks around the beach, her eyes stops far left, close to the water. A huge sea blue power boat is just there – out in the open! How so? The high land beside it curves in so that it covers it from people seeing it on the air

“he knew that none of the men ever came here on their own” Olivia says “and he would never have hidden it so it would be difficult for me to push it into the sea” She laughs at our shocked faces “I love you Harem” she says, almost as if she wished she could shout it out loud

“wait, you actually liked him” I ask

she lowers her head “he was working on the other side so I felt you would judge me” she scratch the back of her neck “but seeing how you are with Harper, I was like ‘oh’”

“oh God” I say avoiding to return Harper’s gaze and most especially Tony’s “I am sorry for being so judgmental in the past. I am very horrible” I say and Olivia smiles

“lets get to the boat, hopefully we will find something that would help us”

“we cannot leave yet until they leave” Harper says

“he is right, we will be spotted from the air” Willow says

“but they will activate the bomb before they leave” I say

“they still have to get afar enough to avoid the effects of the bomb” Willow responds

“they don’t know we have a boat so they will probably just head straight to activate the bomb” Thelma says

“how do we know when they had left?” Rose asks

“the sound of their helicopter or plane” I say with a breath. I am this close to freedom – not exactly freedom but it is easier to hide where seven billion people exist than in a deserted island that has bombs