When Everything Changes

Five: "Unbelievable"

 I’m stuck in a predicament. 

Now that I've met Peter's brother, I’m not sure what to do now. I really haven't thought this far ahead.

I don’t know what to say to him. Do I just casually bring up that I’m trying to escape from the containment we’re in? Or do I make a cover story? He already knows that I'm hiding something based on our first interaction, but he is as well. He isn't just some random guy following the daily schedule, he wouldn't have held a knife to my throat if he was. So the question I ask myself is, do I trust him?

“It’s a risky move you’re making there,” Aiden says, drawing me away from my thoughts and making my eyes move from the spot they were staring at at the ground. 

When I don’t answer, he continues, making a gesture towards his hair “the pink hair you’ve got going on.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “It’s a dead giveaway if you’re trying to blend in.” 

“I like it,” I shoot back.

“Do you like being dead?” he asks rhetorically. 

I roll my eyes. He doesn't have to be so cynical. “I’m not dead.” 

“Not yet,” he mutters, possibly not for me to hear, but I do. “Either way,” he sighs, “with fighting skills like yours, you already have little to no chance of surviving whatever it is you’re doing.” 

My irritation spikes with each word. Does he have no optimism? “Is that an invitation to teach me?” I ask sarcastically, not expecting him to say anything. 

“That depends,” he looks at me seriously, catching me off guard. “What’s in it for me?” 

I bristle at his words. What’s in it for him? This has nothing to do with him. I’m ready to retort but our attention is drawn away from each other as Olivia and Peter come through the trees back towards us. Olivia decided to go for a walk, and I did my best to remember her words from earlier and not say anything about it, and Peter followed to “make sure she stays out of trouble” he had said. 

“Where have you two been?” Aiden asks while looking at some notebook he’s been holding in his lap for the past twenty minutes. 

“I found a clearing a little ways that way” Olivia points to the left of us “and I explored it a little. It’s amazingly secluded, I don't think I would have found it but he” -- she looks at Peter -- “kept getting distracted by all the plants and went off the trail a bit.”

Aiden chuckles under his breath, still looking at his book. “Yeah, Peter has a zeal for plants and nature.” 

I watch as Peter immediately becomes defensive. “I do not,” he protests. 

No one says anything for a moment before he stalks off in the opposite direction they just came from. 

Olivia and I watch him go until we can’t see him anymore. Aiden briefly looks up at us, noticing us watching where Peter left, he waves his hand around in a dismissive gesture. “He’s okay. Maybe a little embarrassed but he’s okay. He’ll be back in a few minutes” 

He looks at Olivia curiously for a moment before turning back to his book.

-*-

The crunching of leaves gets louder and we all look up in the direction they’re coming from. 

“See?” Aiden says “I told you he’d be back soon” 

The footsteps are now loud enough to hear just how fast they’re going. He’s running.

“Guys..” I begin.

Everyone looks up as Peter comes into sight, rushing through the trees towards us, a look of panic on his face. I jump to my feet, my bag already on my shoulders as Peter reaches us. The others all have stood up in defensive positions as Peter’s arms flail around in frantic motions. “the howlers..” he gasps through breaths. 

“What..?” Aiden begins to ask but that was all it took for me to call out “let’s go!” and rush out of there, making sure to keep Olivia in my sights.

Everyone rushes through the woods, trying to get away from whoever is around us. Olivia pushes herself in front of everyone “we’ll go to the clearing, it’s our best bet” 

No one protests as she leads us a little farther through the woods. 

“Where is it..” she mutters to herself as she slows down, her head turning left to right as her eyes flit around. 

“What are you looking for?” I ask, slightly out of breath.

“The opening” she says quietly, more to herself, as she continues looking around. 

“I guess it’s a little too secret, hm?” Aiden comments casually. 

I glare at him before helping Olivia to look for whatever it is she’s looking for. “Care to help then?”

He looks at me like I've said something ridiculous “well, I’m not the one who needs to hide”

I scoff and walk away from him. “Unbelievable” 

“Here!” Peter calls out. We all turn to look at him and see him pointing towards a dense thicket. The bushes around it create a barrier that looks like nothing we could get through and I’m sure have thorns, but I watch as Peter finds an area that more full of tall grass and low branches of rhododendron than bushes. Olivia goes after him, maneuvering her way through the branches. 

I look at Aiden, waiting for him to go ahead of me but he just stands on the other side of me and crosses his arms, tilting his head towards the opening, a silent way of saying go.

I pull back on the impulse to fight him on it, wanting to tell him he’s not in charge of me, and I walk into the abundance of trees and tall grass. As I do my best to duck under branches and ignore the rough feel of the grass on my legs, I wonder if that was Aidan's way of keeping us safe, or if he was just trying to satisfy some sort of hero complex he has. 

My foot catches on a root hidden by the grass and I fall forward, because of the position of the rhododendron branches, my shoulder is scraped by a branch as I fall into the grass. I hiss at the pain that washes over my shoulder and I push myself up, forcing myself to move the rest of the way, I refuse to focus on the cut on my shoulder before I get to the clearing, lest I panic. 

When I take the last step out of the thicket, I feel like I can breathe easier. I take a deep breath and walk closer to the center, away from Olivia and Peters prying eyes to look at my shoulder. 

I turn away from them and look down at the slight red stain that covers my blue shirt. 

The fabric of the long sleeve is torn slightly and a bit of the cut shows. 

“That doesn't look fun” 

I jerk my head up to look at Aiden whose eyes are looking at the wound on my arm. 

Im startled when he walks up to me and begins to lift his hands up to my arm. I jerk my arm away from him before he can touch it and he looks at me disapprovingly like a parent would look at a child when they’ve done something wrong. “Give me your arm” he demands 

“No. I can do it myself” I say stubbornly. 

“Woah” Olivia gasps as she stops in her tracks, looking at my arm which had bled significantly more in the last few minutes. 

“You should let him fix it” she nods at Aiden “I know you don’t know anything about first aid” 

I thrust my arm out towards him begrudgingly knowing she’s right. “Fine” 

He reaches out again pausing momentarily to look at me in case I jerk back again. “I’m going to need to rip this, alright?” he says motioning to my shirt sleeve. 

I nod in approval and he takes each side of the fabric, beginning to make tears around the arm until it meets the other side and he pulls the sleeve off, leaving me with one long sleeve and one short sleeve. 

Oliva and Peter look at me with varying emotions. Olivia looks concerned as she keeps looking between my arm and I. “I’m going to be okay, Olivia” I try and reassure her. 

She doesn't answer but she nods and walks away. I don't take it personally, our relationship is strained at the moment and I know she doesn't like seeing me hurt. 

 It’s always been like that. Even though im older, she’s always worrying about me. Of course I worry about her too, just in a different way. She’s always been there when I've fallen and she always makes sure I’m okay. She stresses when things like this happen, when she feels I’m in danger, no matter the severity. This time isn't any different. 

“We’re going to need water” Aiden looks up at me from his bent position, “do you guys have water?” 

“Of course we have water” 

“Peter!” Aiden calls “will you get the water?” 

When he doesn't answer, we both look behind us to find peter a few yards away hunched over. “Peter?” I call

Aiden makes a noise of understanding and turns back to inspect my arm. “He doesn’t like blood. It makes him nauseous” 

Olivia walks up with a water bottle in her hand. “Here” she looks at me for a moment before turning away. 

“Olivia” I call out to her. She turns around and I catch her eyes “can we talk later?” 

“Mhm,” she hums “maybe when you’re not dripping blood” she looks pointedly at my shoulder and nods at me before walking away to where we all put our things on the ground. 

“This may hurt. Not as much as the antiseptic you’re going to need though” Aiden mutters before beginning to pour water on the wound to wash out the debris 

I jerk away at the contact and he sighs in irritation. “Can you hold still?” 

“Yes” 

Aiden glares at me “Well then can you-“ 

“But the day I start listening to you is the day I care about what you say” 

I jerk the bottle away from him and begin to do it myself, ignoring him as I say “and that's not today”

He runs a hand through his hair, glaring at me as he does before storming away like a child. 

-*-

After digging through our first aid kit and wrapping some gauze on my shoulder, I walk around the perimeter of the clearing, looking for any sign of life that might find us.

I’m walking in a circle for about the fourth time before Peter calls out to me. “Gabriella, do you want some food?” 

I guess eating something would be beneficial instead of looking for something I’m not sure I’ll find. At least with some food in my system I’ll be ready to leave as soon as possible. Where I’m going, I’m not sure. 

I hadn't thought so far ahead. I like to plan in the moment, thinking long term has too many unknown factors that could change anything. I've been thinking about what to do for a while. With Aiden here, he’s most likely our best bet on moving along. Find out anything he knows, and move on. Peter said he was a red anyway, that has to be a sign that he knows something. 

I know that all the airports have been shut down. There is no need for anyone to go anywhere so there is no need for planes. They used them once when in the beginning they took all the children to bases around the area to be evaluated for their rank, work, family, usefulness, future. They were taken and everything was decided for them. 

I’m still not sure what happened with them there. I was never one of them.

“I’m going to eat it if you won't” Aiden waves a protein bar in the air lazily and looks at me expectantly. 

I walk up to him and take the bar from his hand. Walking away I go over to tap on Olivia's shoulder. She looks up at me and I smile at her hopefully “want to eat together?” 

For a moment I’m afraid she’ll reject me, that she’ll turn away and ignore me. “I could use your help figuring out our next steps” I say, hoping she’ll give me a chance. And I really do need her help. She’s better at seeing the whole picture than I am, we’re better together.

Relief floods through me when she nods and accepts the hand I hold out to her. We walk to another part of the area and sit facing each other. I don’t reach out for her, I keep my hands in my lap, resisting the urge to hold hers. “I’m sorry Olivia, I really am. I never meant to be so overbearing-” 

“It's okay,” she cuts in. she sighs “I know it was all done with good intentions. I guess I just felt left out, like I didn’t matter” 

“You are the most important thing in my life, Olivia, I act like that because I care so much about you. But I never wanted to make it seem like you have no say in anything. I will always need you” I try and speak as honestly as I can. Everything I say is true and I need her to know. 

“Thank you” she reaches for my hands and I link them together. 

“That’s why I need your help” 

She looks at me curiously “with what?” 

“Next steps” I sigh “I’m not sure what to do next. You’re the expert at seeing every side to a situation”

“Next steps” she murmurs to herself. “Well, I think we need to trust them” 

I narrow my eyes “trust them with what?” I’m not about to go telling them anything that could give them leverage over us. Anything more.

“They need to know the situation if we’re going to get any help from them.” she argues 

“How do we know that they’ll help us in the first place?

“You’re the one who brought Peter to us, clearly you must have thought we could do something” she’s right. When I brought Peter with me to the clock tower, I felt more confident in my actions, I’m not sure if I was thinking straight, but I figured we could do something to help us. Maybe it was the need for something other than the loop we were stuck in, but we’re here now, and she’s right. We need to do something before they either go against us or leave us without anything. 

So after a moment, like a river rushing through my body, clearing all restraint from my shoulders making them drop off the highest mountain, I relinquish control to her, putting my trust in the one person who I really do trust. I nod. 

Looking back over to Aiden and Peter, Peter laying on the grass with his arms behind his head looking up to the sky, and Aiden sitting against a tree against the outer edges of the clearing we’re in, looking in the book he had before our adventure through the woods, I prepare for the next step, the next change. And my body feels hot.