An Echo of Royalty

8

    I stared at the ground sneaking through the tents. I ignored the stares I could feel on me. I wanted to get back to my tent without talking to anyone.

    In my tent I went to my cot, curling myself onto it. I didn’t cry. It didn’t feel like the kind of situation that needed crying. It was more of a shock situation. I have never been that close to a man before, naked. It freaked me out and now I felt awkward. Would I always feel awkward with him now? Would he remember what I looked like naked? Will that be the only thing he sees when he looks at me? Why did I let him do that?!

    I sighed, it wasn’t only his fault; I was partly to blame. After all, I kissed him back. It was mutual. I rested my head on my knees, hugging them.

    I know the day will come, when the situation won’t be stopped. I will be with someone and we will make love, letting go to each other, giving each other everything. I’ll give myself to someone completely. Will it be Joe? 

    I tapped my forehead on my knees. Why do you have to be such a hopeful romantic? I asked myself. Why can’t you be an oak tree, never moving. Be strong, and stop trying to give in!

    It’s not that I’m afraid of what could have happened; its natural. I’m afraid of the fact that I was ok with it, that I wanted to do it; all because it’s Joe. The situation would never have gone that far if it were someone else. Any other guy going into that pond after me would have had a broken nose and maybe other broken limbs.

    Being absorbed in my thoughts and not wanting to leave my tent, I shut out all other noises. I didn’t hear Sindy when she came to the door of my tent. “Hey are you in there?” 

    Blinking, I looked at my doorway. I glanced down at my knees and the now dry towel that was I was sitting on. Grabbing the blanket on the end of my cot, I wrapped around me. “Yeah, I’m in here. You can come in.” 

    She came in with a Twinkie in each hand, a bite in one of them. “I brought you a Twinkie. What took you so long when you took that bath? I’ve been wanting to talk to you for awhile.” She sat down on the ground and held the Twinkie out to me. 

    I took it from her and played with the wrapping. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

    She got cream on her face and wiped it off. “I mainly wanted to talk. I like your tent, it’s cozy. Kinda big for just one person though. How come I can’t just stay in your tent?” She looked at me.

    “Because you can’t. It’s roomy for all my gear. Plus I’ve earned it and I don’t really want someone else with my stuff.”

    She didn’t look sad but responded with an, “oh.”

    “It’s nothin’ against you, but there is an age difference and I’m to the point that I really like my privacy.”

    “I understand, it’s no problem. I’ve just begun to understand what you mean by Emily and Jamie’s attitudes. If I leave one thing out of place, they get mad. When I was setting up my cot, I had to move Jamie’s cot an inch or so and she flipped out. Then Emily and her started whispering together. It’s annoying. I’m worried that if I don’t get out of that tent now, I’ll start to act like them.” 

    She picked up my book I dropped on the ground, and started looking at it. “So why are you sitting in here instead of going outside? It’s a nice day.” She flipped through some pages. “Hey how come you haven’t gotten another book? You have been to the city plenty of times. You could have grabbed a different one.”

    “Maybe I will next time. I like that book, I always know what’s goin’ to happen. It’s the only thing in my world that I can truly control.”

She looked at me then. “How come?”

    “Well, I can’t control the vampires or I would make them all go poof. Clearly, I can’t control Joe or he’d leave me alone. I can’t control what people do. When it comes to me, I can try to control the situation as much as possible but I can’t always. It’s like throwin’ an apple in the air. I can try to catch it, but it’s not somethin’ I can control. I just try.”

    Sindy stood up. “You think too much. Situations aren’t about the control, it’s about the outcome. Try to get a good outcome, and everything else doesn’t matter. If you try to control every argument you get into with Joe, it may not turn out how you want it to. But if you just try to make it have a good outcome, then nothing else matters.” She shoved the rest of her Twinkie in her mouth.

    She tried to speak between chews. “I noticed he followed you to the pond. Did you guys talk or did he just lurk?” Standing up, she paced next to the door like she was restless to do something else.

    “We talked. If you’re bored you could see if people want to go play soccer or somethin’.” I said, eyeing her as she went back and forth.

    “Yeah, I just don’t know what to do. Hardly anyone has a book I haven’t read, and people always seem to be doing chores or something. Except you. You don’t really do a lot. Why is that?” She looked at me.

    “I do the huntin’ for the most part, so I don’t cook or clean very often. We have enough patrols, that takes up most of my time. The main thing I do is my own laundry and my own dishes. Oh and firewood too. I should get some more soon.” I dropped my legs off the side of the cot. 

    “I’ll help you. I’ll wait out here.” With that she stepped out of the tent. 

    I looked in my clean clothes pile and grabbed some. I looked at the small table mirror I got from the city over a year ago, picked through my tangled hair and braided it. Looking at my reflection, my eyes roamed over my face. Why am I making sure I look ok? I straightened, reached for the flap and hesitated.

    Could I go out there? What if I saw Joe? What if he wanted to talk about it? I don’t want to talk about it. We both already know what happened. I just want to go back to normal. Well, what was normal for me lately. 

    Stepping out of the tent, I looked around for Sindy. She was standing next to a shirtless Joe by the kitchen. Rubbing his head with a towel, he smiled as he spoke to Sindy. 

    “I so do not want to go over there,” I whispered to myself. I caught sight of Trina standing next to her tent, and she waved. I looked at Joe and Sindy once more, then headed for Trina, keeping my head averted. 

    “I see you took no time to make your tape wet.” I followed her into her tent. I had completely forgotten about my forehead. 

    “Sorry, I forgot.” I sat down on the chair I used earlier.

    “I figured you would. Your mind is always on something else. Did the bathe feel good?” She started working on my head again.

    “Well, it could have, but then Joe showed up.”

    “Did you guys bathe together?” She asked, a mock shocked look on her face.

    “Kinda.” I said with a low voice.

    She grinned at me and kept dressing my head. 

    “I was embarrassed when he first came in, but then it felt comfortable. Is that weird?”

    “Nope, you’re human, and you two already like each other, you’re bound to get even more comfortable.” She sat in the chair across from me. “Done.”

    “But I don’t want to get that comfortable with him.”

    “Yes, you do dear, you just don’t want yourself too. I hate to play the fortune teller but you two are going to be together one way or another. It’s all over your faces and the way you act around each other. It would be best for both of you to finally figure this out and get it done with. You’re going to drive Emily insane with the on and off bit with you two. She likes Joe, but he won’t even look her way. Then you guys always argue and it makes her think she has a chance, confusing her further.”

    “You really think we’re going to be together?”

    “I’ll bet heaven on it.”

    I stood and stepped towards the doorway. “Do you really believe in heaven? After everything that’s happened?”

    “I would rather believe in heaven than believe that we’re destined to do nothing but the crap happening right now.” She stood. “When you get firewood could you bring back some of the purple flowers you found last time. They’re medicinal.” 

    “How did you know I was going to go get wood? Did Sindy tell you?”

    “That girl talks as much as you don’t. She likes you though. She’s excited that your letting her help. There’s something about her though, something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

    I scrunched my face, wondering what could be so different about her. “I don’t understand why the vampires wanted her in the first place. She wouldn’t be a good donor with how small she is. She’s too young to turn right now, so why didn’t they just kill her?” I neared the doorway and looked at Sindy. She and Carter were talking. Without his shirt, his bandages on his upper body were showing.

    “You should have seen her eat last night. She had two bowls with as much meat as she could get in it. I’m not sure what’s different about her, but keep an eye on her.” Trina spoke behind me.

     “Yeah, I will. Maybe she’ll tell me when we’re findin’ wood.” I walked out without saying goodbye.

    Sindy stood next to Joe and Carter, so I called to her, “Sindy, you ready to go?” 

    She turned at her name and nodded. Looking back at the guys she said goodbye before running over to me. 

    Joe turned also. I ignored him and headed for the trees.

    Sindy kept up with me as we looked for logs. We’d passed several different sizes but I wanted to walk. 

    “So what are we looking for? We keep passing dead wood but were not picking them up.”

    “I’m enjoyin’ walkin’.” I stopped and looked around. There were sticks everywhere. “Let’s get a couple of armfuls of this kindling. Then we’ll come back and get some logs.” We loaded up and walked back to camp. We put our loads on the dwindling pile next to the fire pit and went back for more.

    “You never told me what actually happened at the pond and what you talked about.”

    I shrugged, “You didn’t really ask. We swam, washed up and I left.” I went to a log and stood at one end and picked it up. She grabbed the other end without asking what to do and we carried it back to camp.

    “Yeah, but that’s not a lot of detail. Did he profess his undying love to you? Did you guys kiss? Wait, you said you washed. What did you wash?” She stopped moving and looked at me with her mouth open.

    I smiled at her expression trying to hold back a giggle. “We washed ourselves. Not each other!” She doesn’t need the details of what happened. “We also had a sort of water fight.” 

    She smiled. “And?”

    “And what?”

    “Did he profess his love to you? Did you guys kiss?” Her lip curled.

    I stared at her, not sure what the sneer meant, “kinda and I’m not tellin’."

   Her eyes widened. “You did kiss. I thought you did. With how fast you came back into camp, without having put clean clothes on. You were blushing.” She looked back ahead of her.

    “That doesn’t mean we kissed.”

    “Yeah, but you said you didn’t want to tell. Which means you did and you don’t anyone else to know about it.” 

    She’s right.

     As we came into camp Joe headed to the piles of wood. He had an ax in one hand, still shirtless. It reminded me of us earlier in the pond, water beads slowly rolling down his firm chest, glistening. I looked down, feeling the flush on my cheeks. We laid the log down and I turned quickly and headed back out to the trees. 

    “Yep, you kissed him. That blushing of yours, and the no eye contact says nothing else.” She looked straight ahead, breathing cooly.

    I glared at her but it didn’t last. I couldn’t be mad at her. Her smile made me want to grin. We picked another log.

     “So is he a good kisser?” Sindy asked as she picked her end up.

    “My goodness, why do you want so many details? You don’t need to know everythin’ in life.” 

    “I know, but I really want to know this. I won’t ask you anymore if you tell me.”

    I hesitated before I answered. “Yes.”

    “Ooh that’s so cool. I can’t wait till I’m your age. I get to do so much more at your age than now.” She said, trying to hold a smile.

    “No actually things are about the same. Plus you could fall in love before you turn eighteen. It’s happened. Look at Emily she think she loves Joe. Then again, last summer she was fawnin’ over Rico.”

    We got back to the pile, and dropped our log off. Joe had been hacking on other. I tried not to look directly at him, not wanting to get caught looking. I turned away and headed back out.

    “Who’s Rico?”

    “He used to live with us, but left at the end of last year. He said he had family out there that he had to go find. He was on a religious mission when all this stuff happened, and got stuck on this side of the country. Hasn’t been seen since. Emily was devastated, for about a day. Then her crush on Joe started.” I stared at the ground as we walked.

    We’d picked up a log and we were soon stepping back into camp. Time flies when you’re talking.

    “You know, for someone who is afraid of getting into a relationship with Joe, you sure aren’t happy that someone else has a crush on him.”

     “It’s not that I don’t like people havin’ crushes on him. He’s a great guy. It’s when people only have a crush on him to get out of another crush. Or just for his good looks.” I sighed lightly. “It’s complicated.”

    We set the log down.

    “Yeah, because there’s no reason to have a crush on him for his good looks is there.” It came out hushed.

   I turned to look at her to see why she sounded like that. Her eyes were in the opposite direction. She almost had a hunger look. I followed her gaze. We were looking at Joe. I looked back at her. She breathed in heavy and looked back down at the ground. She inhaled deep, closing her eyes. Then looked back up at Joe, a half smile on her lips.

    I looked back at Joe. We both watched him as he stopped for a second and took a deep breath. He held the ax with both hands at his waist. He looked in our direction. He caught me looking and smiled, then winked. Puffing up his chest, he buffered it at me like a rooster to a hen. 

    I smiled, rolled my eyes and turned back to the woods.

    “That was embarrassing.” She said beside me. 

    I looked at her. She stared at the ground as we moved through the trees. 

    We found another log and brought it back to camp. Our breathing had become heavy and raspy. I rolled my shoulders. The feeling of stickiness made my shirt stick to my neck like glue.

   We walked back into camp again and set it down. I looked at it and back to the cut pile. 

    “I think we‘re good now, let’s stack ‘em up and we’ll be done for the day.” We started to stack the pieces of wood that Joe chopped, putting them on the dwindling pile from before. Sindy fell into step beside me. We finished the pile so I leaned up against the tree next to it. Sindy sat on the ground and we watched Joe finish chopping the rest. One of her hands played in the dirt, the other held her head as she leaned forward.

    I eyed the camp, watching everyone. Some were washing their clothes, others played cards. A couple of guys sat cleaning their guns. We’d be going on another patrol tomorrow so people were preparing. I watched Trina walk across the grounds to the wash tent. It reminded me of the wild flowers she asked me to find. I stepped away from the tree and headed back into the forest to find them. Sindy must not have noticed I left because, she didn’t follow me.

    The sunset wasn’t for about another hour, I still had light. The day had gone quickly, so much happened in such a small amount of time.

    I looked at the tall green trees. I loved the smell of pine. It smelt good and made everything peaceful. I hadn’t noticed how far I had gone when a saw a familiar color on the forest floor. Hey, purple flowers. I stopped and looked around to see the forest floor covered in them. I crouched and picked some. I wished I had a basket.

    I picked up the pile of flowers and stood to begin the walk back to camp. The sun had started to set. I watched my feet, and noticed something dark on the forest floor, something that even at night, didn’t seem right. What is that? I leaned down, to get a better look. They were almost black, somewhat maroon in the night. Blood.

    Out here it could be anything. An animal could have been hurt and this is what happened. But there are no footsteps. A wave of dread went up my spine. This is the forest. It could be anything. Remember that.

I breathed out slowly. Please find a dead animal. I stepped forward looking at the ground. I need to see what this is. 

    It looked like there were more drops as though it were thickening as I followed. It led to the base of a tree. The droplets turned into lines. They had been rolling down the tree. I looked up, following the runs with my eyes till my vision hit the base of a shoe. 

    My heart stopped in my chest. As my gaze moved up the body.

     A man hung dead in the branches, his limp body torn. 

    My mouth opened. I shut it and swallowed hard. I tried to look away, but my eyes would not leave Rico’s blood covered face. 

     I stared at him, my breathing came faster. I’m gonna hyperventilate. It’s Rico! He’s been gone almost an entire year. How is he hanging in a tree next to camp? 

    I have to tell someone. 

    As if in a trance I walked past the tree and back to camp. I stepped into the clearing, my eyes searching for Joe. I paced myself, afraid to run and cause panic. I concentrated on keeping my breath steady as I moved slowly. 

     There. He stood in the kitchen drinking from a faded red cup. His shirt was still missing and his chest gleamed with sweat. I wished I could think of only that. Enjoy the view I was given, but the gore kept coming back to the front of my mind, like someone shoving a photo in front of my face. 

    I walked to him, finally registering in my brain that he wasn’t alone. James and Carter stood next to him, talking. Perfect.

    This can’t be coincidence. They had to know where we were for them to have killed Rico. Just outside camp and in the field of flowers I go to. 

    James looked up in my direction, a smile formed on his cracked lips. He tapped Joes arm and signaled in my direction with a nod. The smile started to fall as he really looked at my face. He could tell something wasn’t right and walked to me. Joe followed him, his dark brows curved in anxiety.

    James reached me first and touched my arm. “What’s wrong?” 

    Breath through your nose. Slowly. I couldn’t speak for a second with the fear of bursting into tears. Joe came up and asked the same thing. They waited for me to speak. “Get Trina and Carter and anyone else who you think should hear that we may have a breach.” I spoke slowly looking at the ground. I looked up at them. James turned around and waved to Carter.

    Joe stood next to me trying to catch my eyes. “Are you ok?” 

    I looked up at him. “No, I’m not. This is bad.” We looked at each other for a moment. I could feel the movement of his hand, twitching next to mine. Fighting the urge to take his, I looked down. 

    “I’ll go get Trina, we can talk in her tent. Get anyone else you think should hear this.” 

    I glanced back up at him and walked away. I wanted his comfort, but I knew if I let him hold me I would start to cry, and I couldn’t where anyone could see me. They would know something’s wrong. I wanted to hold off on telling everyone until some of us talked about it first.

    Trina was in her tent. Walking in without knocking on the post, I set the flowers on her table. She stood up, and looked at me intently. “What’s wrong hun?” 

    “We need to have a meeting. I told Joe, James, and Carter to meet us in here.”

    Trina’s expression changed. “Something bad’s happened, hasn’t it?” She stood back and folded her arms. “Do I need any tools or medicine for it? Should I be prepared for something?”

    I shook my head and looked down. “Just mentally,” I whispered. The image of his face popped back into my head. Joe and Nick walked in, with Carter and James behind. Nick looked confused. 

   Trina motioned for them to sit in her chairs. I stayed leaning against one of her tables. Joe came to stand next to me.

     They all looked at me, waiting for my news, to find out what bad things had happened now. I didn’t want to tell them, to make them worry. My eyes started tearing up so I looked at the door way. “Rico’s dead.”