Eve of Tomorrow

Chapter 5

Dawn

I flatten myself to the forest floor just in time to see a knife fly through the space where I"d been standing a second ago. “Run!” Corey"s command urges me forward as I get to my feet and take off through the mess of charred and twisted trees of the unfamiliar forest.

I"m fast, but my pursuer is faster. He uses long strides to gain on me as I allow myself a moment of hesitation and a single glance back at him. That"s all he needs to close the gap. Still moving, I see him hurdling forward and then blackness envelops me.

I"m only out for a minute or so. The half-n***d, tattooed man has an arm around my throat and warm blood trickles from where the tip of his knife is pressed into my back.

Corey"s eyes are cold as he stands with his g*n trained on my captor. “Let her go,” he demands.

“You are the trespassers here,” the man responds.

“We don"t mean any harm.” Corey lowers the g*n, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Why are you here?” He doesn"t remove the knife from my skin.

“Let the girl go and we can talk.”

For a brief moment, I think he"s going to do it. Instead, his arm tightens, making it hard to breathe. I gasp for air and struggle against him.

“My tribe is hunting nearby,” the big man says ominously. “If you shoot, they"ll come.”

One look at Corey tells me that he"s already thought of that. I see his lips twitch up into a smile before he hides it with a grimace. I hear the crunch of leaves underfoot before the arm goes slack at my throat and the man jerks against me. I clench my teeth as his knife cuts into my back before he falls away. My body sways as I fight the need to, but Ryan is there to catch me.

“Where were you?” I say as loudly as my voice can manage as I inhale sharply. I step away from the dead man. Ryan"s blade protrudes from the back of his head.

“Damn freedom fighters,” Corey curses, holstering his g*n.

“Sorry,” Ryan starts. “I"d gotten pretty far ahead of you guys.”

“We need to stick together,” Corey states.

Ryan nods his agreement. They don"t seem as shaken up as me. This is hardly the first time we"ve been attacked since leaving the Rebel compound weeks ago, but it"s the first fight since reaching the wastelands two days ago. We"re in their territory now. The freedom fighters reign supreme here. That"s why most avoid this place at all costs. The tattooed warrior clans fight without abandon and no one really knows what they fight for. A long time ago, they actually were fighting for their freedom. Now, that is just a name.

“Do you think we should have questioned him?” I ask when I get my wits together.

“He wouldn"t have told us anything,” Corey answers gruffly. “And we aren"t torturers.”

“It"s up to us to find my sister.” Ryan steps on the dead man for leverage as he pulls his knife free and cleans it on his pant leg.

“He said his tribe is hunting near here.” Corey starts to move. “We need to keep going.”

I wince at the thought. My back hurts where I was cut and my shirt is sticky with blood, not all of it mine. It"ll heal though and I don"t want to slow us down. We can"t stop until we find Emily. Ryan"s kid sister was taken by the freedom fighters during the fighting in Texas. We left her outside the walls, thinking she"d be safer. We don"t know what they want with a 10-year-old American girl, but it can"t be good. I don"t look down as I step over the dead man and follow Corey and Ryan farther into the woods.

Hours later, we"re still walking, but I can"t keep up anymore. We haven"t had a proper sleep in days and our food supply is running low.

“Ryan,” I yell, hoping he can hear me despite the distance between us. He does. He turns and jogs back.

“You okay?” he asks.

I don"t know how he still has so much energy. Maybe it"s the fear masking as adrenaline running through his veins, pushing him to find his sister quickly.

“We need to set up camp to get some rest,” I say.

“It"s still light out,” he protests.

“She"s right,” Corey agrees. “Now that we"re in the Wastelands, we want to travel at night to use the darkness to hide us. We"ll rest until the sun goes down.”

Ryan drops his shoulders in resignation. He knows we"re right and his argument disappears. The boys set up a makeshift camp while I check the packs for what food we have left. There"s half a loaf of stale bread and a bit of meat that we cooked a few days ago. It"s not enough to fill us. The hunting has been sparse for week now and we"ve given up our expectations of regular meals. We do have plenty of water, though. Two days ago, we came upon a stream where we were able to bathe and fill our empty water bottles. I take a swig and the water slides down my dry throat and drops into my empty stomach, triggering the nausea that only the truly hungry know.

I pass out the food and scarf mine down. It"s all I can do to keep from trying to pick the crumbs from the ground. I do have some dignity left. Corey takes first guard and I lay back, hoping sleep can ease my weariness.

“Dawn.” Ryan lightly shakes me awake and I sit up suddenly. He pats my back to calm me, his fingers finding the blood crusted into my shirt. “Are you okay?”

“I"m fine,” I say as I rub my eyes and stand. “My guard?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice is absent. “But you"re hurt.”

“It"s just a small cut.”

“Let me see it,” he says.

I sigh, lacking the energy to argue, and do as he says. I lift the back of my shirt and wince as he touches the spot where my skin has been split, pouring water around the edges.

He cleans away the blood and says, “I can"t do anything about the shirt.”

“It"s fine,” I say.

“Okay,” he begins. “But there"s no way I can sleep. I"ll sit your watch with you.”

“You need rest.”

“I"ll rest when Emily is safe,” he replies. Knowing there is no way around his stubbornness, I shrug and we sit in silence for a while before he talks again.

“Who is this guy?” He motions to Corey"s sleeping figure. “I mean, we"ve been on the road with him for a while now and I still don"t know why he came.”

“Corey is a Texan,” I start, unsure if I have the right to tell this story. If we"re going to make it, Corey and Ryan need to trust each other more than they have. “He lived in one of the farming villages with his parents. His mom, Bria, was sympathetic to the Rebels. She"d pass on messages for them.” I pause and close my eyes as a picture of Bria comes to mind. This isn"t easy to talk about and my voice cracks when I keep going.

“When Gabby and I escaped Texas, we were helped by a woman named Allison. She was Bria"s Rebel contact inside Texas. Corey"s village was our last stop before reaching the Rebel compound. Bria hid us in her home, but we were found out by Texan soldiers. Bria got us out in time and sent Corey with us. She knew what they were going to do to her.”

Ryan"s silence tells me he understands. Bria and her husband were killed. Ryan had to leave his home because of his father aiding foreigners. They have a lot in common.

“That"s why Corey hates the Rebels?” he asks after a while.

I grimace, wishing it were that simple.

“He also saw Gabby kill someone point blank.” I look away, unable to watch that bit of information sink in.

Everyone at the Rebel base knows that Gabs killed the Texan farmer and tried to kill his son. It was only because of my intervention that Matty is alive.

Ryan laughs suddenly and I scowl at him before he explains, saying, “Aren"t we quite the group? An American, a Texan, and a British Rebel.”

“I feel like that"s the beginning of an epic story,” I say with a laugh, but I stop laughing when I feel a stab of pain radiate from the cut in my back. The heroes in epic stories always suffer and, in real life, they don"t always save the day. I sigh and shake my head as I watch the last rays of light leave the woods.

We wake Corey before the moon is high and start moving again. We don"t know exactly where we"re going, but I feel like we"re close.

So close.