“I just like the BOOM!” Ashley muffled her own laugh, realizing she said it too loud. “…also, I get to kill demons, so there’s that.”
Carolyn continued timidly. “…I didn’t want to be left behind.” Everyone fell quiet for a moment, and Mey squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“I want to prove myself,” I muttered. Finding a place to belong sounded too corny, but no less true.
Everyone’s heads turned towards the Lieutenant, he simply furrowed his brows at us. “Bark all you want, none of you have deserved such a treat.”
“We don’t even know your name,” I pointed out, sending him a sharp glare.
“Good, it’s none of your business.”
We sighed simultaneously, before leaving the subject behind.
Eventually our little camp settled into a more comfortable silence, with Nate humming quietly, andbadly. Ashley twirled a small trinket that looked suspiciously like a detonator while Carolyn curled into a ball.
The squad leader kept watch, though I noticed that even while mocking us, he hadn’t let his guard down once, not entirely.
The night was tense, but for the first time, they had begun to feel like my unit.
CHAPTER
7
During the night, we took turns sleeping.
Two awake keeping watch, while the others got some rest. Ashley and I took the midnight watch; it was uneventful, some crickets sounded, the air was gentle but cold.
We refrained from conversations, trying not to bother the others or draw attention to our location.
Ashley grew restless, being still wasn’t her strong suit at all. She began gathering straws of grass and braiding them together, silently teaching me.
When I tried, the grass only broke… another try, the same result. I blew a strand of my brown hair away from my face, my impatience quickly turning into frustration. When the fourth broke I took a sharp breath, almost letting out a scream.
A wide smile appeared on Ashley’s lips as she tugged on my sleeve and placed her well braided grass bracelet around my wrist. Confused, I stared at it and then at her. The warmth in her smile made all the anger inside of me evaporate. Her blue eyes almost seemed like glass, her mind seemingly far away, yet her smile was for me.
I took her hand in both of mine and squeezed, as I mimed, “Thank you.” I had no idea how much this meant to her, or what memories had been awoken by it, but her feelings were real and that meant everything to me.
I kept struggling to make a matching bracelet for her, desperate to repay her, but the end result was terrible. Regardless, she gracefully took it before I tore it apart, and slid it onto her wrist.
Finally, it was time for Carolyn to take the next watch. Our Lieutenant was supposed to join her, but when she tried to wake him, he shrugged her off and turned away. Ashley and I sat against a trunk, shoulder to shoulder to gain some warmth, before we dozed off.
Something was chasing me, in the darkness. Why was it so damned dark!? It was warm, like a desert, I felt sweat building up around my forehead.
“Ethalyn,” a voice echoed. Was it my own? Was it a woman, a man? I couldn’t tell.
Fire erupted all around me, caging me in a circle. The smoke rose high up and beyond it was only darkness.
The heat from the flames was unbearable, my skin felt as if it was melting. The air was hard to inhale, the thick smoke tearing at my throat. Embers sparked from the flames, threatening my feet.
Shit!
Desperately, I searched for a way out, for a small opening somewhere in the flames. There was none, insteadmy eyes found a shadowed figure lingering on the outside…
“Who are you?” I shouted, but that cost me what little oxygen I had left, as smoke claimed my lungs.
I began coughing, it hurt, my whole body ached.
The glow brightened until it seared through my eyelids and I woke up, choking. Heat licked at my face, real this time. Shouts cracked through the night. Nate was carrying his sister, who was coughing violently, towards open ground. Carolyn was swearing in panicked bursts, and Ashley clutched her satchel as if her bombs could help against the flames that had already devoured the trees.
