chapter 12

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I wake up early the next morning. Everyone is still asleep and the smoke from the dying fire swirls up into the sky. I quietly walk down to the creek and drink some water. I walk back up to camp and sit on a log trying to steal what little warmth emits from the fire.

"Morning." I hear someone say from behind me. I hate to admit it but i didnt even have to turn around to see who it was. I kmew the voice. It was Deans.

"Good Morning," I reply

"Are you ready for today?"

"As I ever will be," I say excitedly.

"Good, now let's go over some rules." He says holding out so berries for me.

"Ok, I'm listening." I say taking them and popping one into my mouth.

"Rule one: Do what you're told when we're out there. Especially since this is your first trip. Got it?" I nod my head.

"Ok, rule two: Don't be hero. It's every man for themselves out there. Its better to lose one lives then two because someone wanted to be a hero."

"Thats a little barbaric don't you think?"

"Out here every life counts. We can't lose any more people then we can help."

"Ok."

"Rule three: Don't be afraid. Given out here that's kind of a general rule but, out there you can't be afraid. Being afraid out there can lead to you doing somthing stupid and stupid gets people killed," He says sternly.

"Got it. Be brave, be smart, and don't be a hero."

"Good job. You can go get your weapons. I'm going to wake up some the guys and well meet back here." He says and then walks away. I finished the berries then went to my tent and grabbed my sai's and a extra knife that Ryan had given me. He said it was a safety precaution and all of the guys had one no matter what their main weapon was.

Once I be sure I have everything I head back to the fire pit and a few guys were already out there including Ryan and Jess. I walk over and stand by Jess.

"Well don't you look like a badass." He says nudging my arm.

"You can thank Sophie."

"Maybe I will." He says wiggling his eyebrows up and down at me and smiles playfully. I just role my eyes and and smile back. From what Sophie told me about him he's a big flirt but was never serious.

Dean comes striding back to the fire pit with one other guy and says "Ok, now that we're all here." I look around and and there's only eight of us including myself. I figured there would be more.

"Ok since we have a new hunter with us I'll explain how this works. We don't go hunting alone. Everyone pair up." One blonde guy with shoulder length hair went over and stood by some guy with a close shaven head. I think the blondes name was Sam. and the other guys name was Roan. I'd been attempting to learn everyones name when I had down time. However, the other two guys i didnt kmow. They must have been frinds though because like Sam and Roan they quickly paired up with eachother. Anyway, this left me, Dean, Ryan, and Jess.

"I'll take the newbie!" Jess says winking at me. I take a step toward him and he flings his arm around my shoulder.

"No, she with me." Dean says scowling at Jess. Why was he scowling a Jess? He hadn't done anything wrong. Maybe I was just imagining it.

"Alright then. Ryan, old buddy, old pal. Looks like its you and me," Jess chimes clamping his hands on Ryan's shoulders .

"Oh joy." Ryan bellowed shrugging off Jess's hands.

"Ryan and Jess, you guys go North. Sam and Roan, go South. Mark and Tony, go west. Me and Linnea, we'll go East." Dean commanded looking around at all of them to make sure they understand. They all nod in agreement.

"Remember if we die, we die fighting," and with that statement we all went off in our assigned directions.

After walking behind Dean in silence the majority of the day I decided, against my better judgement, to try to start a conversation.

"Why didnt you want me to go with Jess?"

"This is your first trip. You're safer with me."

"I don't think you needed to scowl at him for offering."

"I didn't."

"I'm pretty sure you did."

"I'm pretty sure I'd know if I did," He says impatiently.

"Which you did."

"Look," he says stopping in his tracks I almost bump into him "The point of hunting is to get food and by talking you'll scare off our food. Moral of the story, shut up."

"Fine." I say shoving his shoulder and walking past him. I keep my eyes on the ground looking for tracks of any animals. After about a minute of walking Dean speaks up.

"I'm sorry," with the way he said it you'd think her never apologized for doing a thing in his life. "I just-" he trys to explain. He reaches for my hand. He dosent catch it but his hand brushes up against mine. I look up at him.

"You care about your people. You wanna make sure they don't starve. I get." I say refocusing my attention back to the ground.

"I don't mean to be-"

"I found some tracks; what is it?" I say in attempt to end the conversation. He looks at me for a few seconds but, when I wouldn't make eye contact with him he turned his focus to the tracks. We both squat down to get a better look at the tracks. They looked like hoof prints

"A deer probably. Let's follow them." I was up and following the tracks before he even finished the sentence. After about 10 or 15 minutes of following the tracks I noticed they started getting zig zaggy.

"Something scared it. It was running away?" I questioned.

"Yeah. The more important question is by what?" I didn't reply I could tell it was just a general question. If he didn't know I sure as hell wouldn't. We kept following the tracks hoping maybe the deer got away.

"Are you seriously mad at me?"

"No."

"Yes you are."

"If you know then why'd you ask?"

"I'm just looking out for my people."

"For gods sake I know! That's why I'm not mad would you get off my back." I say getting aggravated. I start walking faster following the the tracks.

"Then what the hell are you mad about?" he shouts

"I'm not!"

"You're so hypocritical! You were lecturing me about being afraid to let people in and all the other shit well who's shutting people out now!"

"Oh my god..." I say as tears well up in my eyes.

"Seriously you're crying?" He says standing in front of me. I just stand there in shock. As a couple tears silently role down my cheeks.

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't mean it; just please stop crying." I lift my trembling hand and point to the scene in front of me.

"What?" He looks at me confused. He finally turns around and sees it.

"Dammit." He says as he runs his hand down his face. The deer that we had been following was torn apart. It lays on the ground with wide eyes in a pool of it own blood. Its guts spilled out on the ground. It reminded me of the dream I had. The look of terror in its eyes like Kida's.

"Lin, I'm sorry," He walks over and his arms wrap around me."If it makes you feel any better; you get used to it." I push away from him. I fight back any tears that were on the verge of falling. I couldn't be afraid of out here. I had to be brave. Killing animals is why we were out here. I couldn't be crying over it.

"We should go before what ever did that finds us." I say hoping my voice didn't break. As soon as I said that a low growl came from the bushes behind us. In that moment I realized if we wanted to go home we would have to fight to get there.

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