The Survival

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Anyone would think that I would be crying after what happened, I’m a baby after all and I seem to be crying all the time since I got to this place. Instead I’m petrified, it’s like my mind can’t come up and understand the information my eyes sent. The horrifying vision keeps replaying on my mind, as if a never-ending film. My heart squeezes just thinking about who the hand belongs to and what led to this barbaric act.

Nathan hasn’t let me go since his arms wrapped around me, and now seated on his lap while cradled up against him I try to forget the rest of the world and focus on him.

His beating heart racing on his chest firmly pressed to my ear. His manly cologne, which you would think would be gone by now, after so many days at the forest. His massive hands traveling up and down my body and not to forget the soft kisses that he gives on my face, neck and shoulder.

To say that Nathan has become my personal shelter and safe place would be accurate.

A dry boom is heard making my head snap up, Dylan is sitting not too far away from me and Nathan with his head buried in his hands. He lets out a furious grunt before getting up.

“s**t! Son of a bitch.” He is kicking and punching the trunk of a tree. His eyes closed and his lips in a frown, I can see blood dripping from his fisted hands.

“Dylan. Mate, Stop.” Nathan’s voice echoes through the calm forest.

“Don’t tell me what to f*****g do, and don’t you dare to ask me to calm down.” A growl, yes, a growl, leaves him, his chest is moving at and incredibly fast pace and his brown eyes are now deadly black.

“Beating the tree won’t resolve anything.”

“No but at least I can express my rage.” I remain quiet and watch their interaction. Not saying a word, not making a sound. “I left them for a couple of minutes to go find you, if I had stayed with them maybe I could have prevented this.”

I can see the pain shinning in his eyes, regret and sorrow is also there. For his words I can tell that he has the same opinion as me, that that hand is from one of the girls.

“Are you insinuating that it was because of us that this,” Nathan points to the hand,” ...happened?” I look at him in shock. What is he talking about? I replay Dylan’s last words in my head and decipher the hidden message. My head turns to him my eyes wide open. He is accusing us. He is saying that it’s our fault, this occurred because of us.

“I’m not saying that,” He says as if reading my mind, “But if you had stuck with us and not give into your f*****g desires of sucking each other I would be there to do something about it.” He all but spit to us. Nathan pulls me closer to his body and wraps his arms with more force around me, as if... protecting me.

“Oh, I see. Sorry that you weren’t able to be here so you could act all hero and save the day.”

“I don’t need to save the f*****g day, I could have at least tried to stop it from happening.” His orbs shift from Nathan’s to the hand still lying on the ground.

“You are such an imbecile. Have you forgotten that Ed was with them? If he couldn’t stop it what makes you think that you could?” Nathan’s voice is raising, his tone harsher and his words are getting more powerful every time he speaks.

Speaking of Ed, where is he?

If this hand is from Beth, Lucy or Sarah, where are they?

Why aren’t they here?

At that moment I hear something in the woods making me zone out of their verbal fight. I focus on the sounds around me, but the woods are quiet. I look around trying to see anything out of place, yet I only see the tall pines, the fallen leaves and snow.

The only hearable sound is the whisper from the breeze.

I adjust on Nathan’s lap and hide my face in his neck. I’m going insane, after this I need to go to an asylum or a mental hospital. The doctors are obviously going to find something in my brain out of ordinary. My mom always told me that I was crazy but I though she wa—

Another sound is heard, this time it was like something broke, like a twig.

And another twig but along with it comes a voice. A voice that I know too well.

“Sarah.” I mumble before getting out of Nathan’s embrace and sprint for dear life.

This can’t be my mind playing a trick on me, I can’t be that crazy. This needs to be real, I need them. I need Sarah, Beth and Lucy, I need to know that they are safe. Nathan screams my name, but I keep running following the sound of the voice that belongs to a pretty redhead.

My feet crash against the ground, hitting and crunching the leaves, yet I don’t care about it.

Nathan keeps calling me, yet I could care less.

My heart is almost jumping out of my chest, but it could explode inside of me and I would try to run anyway.

A figure appears not to far from me, and then another and another. I see four.

It’s them. My mind screams with joy. It’s Beth, Lucy, Ed and Sarah.

I have to see it with my own eyes, I need to see them in front of me. Safe and sound without a scratch.

You know that won’t happen. The image of a pale and purple hand flash on my mind and I have to push my legs to go faster.

From afar I see a male figure the other ones are much shorter than him. Till one turns to face me, “Kate?”

“Beth!” I scream from the top of my lungs. There they are, so close to me. I obligate myself to go faster and when I reach them I don’t give Beth time to react or do anything else because I hug her for all that she is worth it. I throw my arms around her and I grab her, stealing the air from her lungs. The warmth of her body welcoming me, and I couldn’t be more relieved.

In a nanosecond I let go of her and check her arms, then farther down to her pulse and with trembling lips I look at her... hands? Her hands are there hidden on her gloves. Not giving it, another look I see Lucy and reach for her arm and lift her sleeve, but she also has the both hands very attached to her body.

Which means…

I turn to Sarah, she looks so pale that I’m even afraid to get close to her, yet I do. I can hear Nathan and Dylan approaching us however I only focus on my task.

I take each step carefully shortening the distance between me and Sarah. It almost looks like she is a wild animal that was caught in a trap and I’m the one that is going to try to help but don’t want to scare her away.

I take a last step till I’m face to face with one of my best friends, I look down at her sleeves and just like taking a band aid I do it fast.

What I see surprises me and makes me one of the happiest people at the moment but most of all shocks me. There in front of me are her two pale hands.

But how?

“You what?” Ed asks and if I’m correct a bit of panic is detectable in his voice, he is probably talking with Nathan and Dylan, and they must be explaining what happened.

I can’t take my eyes from Sarah’s moving fingers. All of them have their hands attached to their pulse.

Without me acknowledging it I’m being pulled from her and I’m led to the place we were before, from where I run from to find them. To a normal person it wouldn’t take long to reach the local where the hand is, but to me it seems like an eternity has passed.

Gasps and muffled sounds are heard, both from males and females voices.

My mind replays once again what I saw, what I thought that had happened and above all who it was from.

They are fine. But how? I ask myself.

“Kate?” Nathan whispers my name on my ear “Don’t ever run away from me like that. You almost gave me a heart attack.” His piercing green eyes looking into mine with such intensity like he was trying to tell me something.

“You guys...” I break from the spell I was put on and turn to face Sarah, she has her back to a tree and is looking sick. I wouldn’t blame her, “You thought that this was from one of us,” She lowers her eyes to it, “but as you see it isn’t.” All of them as if synchronized show us their hands.

“We discovered that already.” Ed says.

“Then it’s from who? Who else is in the woods, with us?”