“Well, I guess that makes me your uncle,” Alan says, as if it’s nothing important.
“How do you know all this?” Sin asks.
“I was an FBI agent. I have my ways.”
“An FBI agent who couldn’t find a way into Chipley?” Sin replies with snark.
Alan doesn’t respond, and none of us say another word as he slowly follows up the hill that steals every one of my breaths.
“Dammit,” Sin says, placing his backpack down on the ground as we near the edge of the cliff. “They gave me ropes to get back down, and those fucking patrols confiscated all of them.”
“How did you both get up here?” Alan asks, leaning over and placing his hands on his knees as he catches his breath too.
“Climbed,” I say.
“Well, we’ll have to climb back down, carefully,” Alan says.
A sound blending in with a passing breeze pulls my attention back toward the decline of the hill we just climbed. I take the few steps over to the peek down, looking out over the small town. “Guys, we should move quickly. Two Juliets are hiking toward us.” I sound strangely calm while informing them of this, but with the brief memory of what they did to those patrols; I quickly turn and run back toward Sin and Alan. I lower myself down to the first part of the narrow path on the decline toward Chipley, supporting myself by holding on to anything sturdy within reach.
“Reese, slow down,” Sin says, following after me.
“You saw what they’re capable of,” I tell him.
Without further discussion, the two of them follow me down the hill. I only slip a few times, and thankfully it isn’t more than a couple of feet each time. One wrong move and I know I could fall off the side of this thing.
After descending the hill for only a few minutes, one of the Juliets pokes his head over the side, looking directly at us. His face is a blur, but I think it’s the son of the man who shot himself. If so, he’s coming after us with a vengeance, I’m sure.
With that thought in mind, I speed up my pace yet again, twisting my ankles over and over. Ignoring the pain, we continue down for what feels like a half hour before we reach the bottom. But we come to the bottom without falling and that’s a plus right now. What’s not a plus is that this Juliet kid is halfway down the hill, as well.
We all break into a run, Sin now leading the way with my hand in his. My ankles throb as we move forward in what I can only hope to be the right direction toward whatever entrance or exit we came out of.
The second we reach the familiar glass wall, Sin crashes his fist into it several times, yelling for them to open it up. Can’t they see us? They must. I don’t know if they’re going to let us back in, though.
I turn around as Sin is banging on the glass, focusing on the kid that is now only a good hundred feet away from us. “Sin, he’s close.” Panic is surging through me as I consider the possibility of going out the way those patrols did. A man in plastic-coated camouflage comes to the glass wall, shaking his mask-covered head with disappointment. I turn back once more, finding the Juliet no more than ten feet from us. “Please,” I mouth to the man behind the wall.
The glass parts and Sin and I are yanked inside as the door closes quickly in front of us, leaving Alan outside. “Wait, we have to help him!” Sin yells at the man. “Help him!”
“He’s not welcome in here. Just orders from his brother. Sorry,” the man says as we’re all forced to watch the Juliet—kid—enjoy a fleshy meal covered in a pressed dress shirt and expensive pants. “Glad you two morons made it back.”
