The pain in my thigh is excruciating and the bruise all up my side is unbearable, but I go on. Limping and putting all my weight on my left leg, I reach the river and turn right, going upstream.
It is nearly midday and the girl – who didn’t tell me her name – didn’t come back. I got bored and left. She wasn’t too pleased to see me, though she bandaged me up. I could tell she was so worried that the soldiers would find her, even though it’s me they want. The Enlightened wants me back as I am his only suitable heir.
The forest is getting thicker and the sun hotter.
Suddenly I have an itch on my back just under my shoulder blade. Taking off my pack and placing it on the grass next to me, I reach up with my left hand and try to scratch it.
“Dammit,” I say to myself. I snap off a twig from a nearby tree and use that to try and reach the irritating itch.
“I told you not to leave,” the girl appears behind me, with her long dark hair in a plait, her big cerulean eyes set in her unblemished olive skin.
“Ah, well, I got bored,” I smile at her. She looks like she hasn’t smiled in weeks.
She stops in front of me, whilst I still try to reach that itch. “What are you doing?”
“Do you mind just … yeah, no … got it,” I sigh. “That was one hell of an itch.”
I can tell she tries not to smile. “And where did you think you’re going?”
“To an old military bunker from Before. If-”
I awkwardly bend to pick up my pack when she says: “A what?”
“An underground bunker. If the map’s right it should-”
“The map?” she interrupts.
“Yeah, just let me finish, princess,”
“Don’t call me princess.”
I carry on limping, “Sorry, it’s just a habit.” I stagger past her and say, “Come on, walk and talk.”
“You mean hobble and talk,” I hear her mutter.
“Hey, that’s mean, and because you said that you have to help me now.”
She didn’t move and inch.
“Will you help me if I told you there’s food in the bunker?”
She rolls her eyes, and lets out a big sigh from her rouge lips. “Fine, but only for the food,” she said, after pondering the idea.
I smile, lift my arm and put it round her neck. She positions her arm round my waist careful not to hurt my side.
“Yes, for the food!” I said enthusiastically. She was a small girl, only about five foot six, me being six foot three. She was well built; must be the years of being in the country, hunting and foraging, and she was the most inexplicably beautiful person I’ve ever seen. She catches me looking at her, blushes and looks away.
We walk up stream for a while, me resting on her shoulder because the pain is insufferable.
“So, where is this old bunker?” she asks as she helps me up a small bank.
“Only if you tell me your name,” I smile at her.
She keeps a straight face, “And if I don’t tell you?”
YOU ARE READING
The Grandeur
Teen Fiction"The Grandeur isn't dead; it’s alive, living on its last life. And you have to save it." When Maria encounters him, her whole life changes.
