Runaways- Runaways 1

Chapter 31: Luke

I didn't want to get up. I knew we had a long day ahead of us, and the events of the previous evening had set us back a full day. We probably wouldn't get to the lake until tomorrow afternoon.

Eli's loss hung like a storm cloud over all of us as we set out that morning. We didn't get breakfast because none of us felt like eating. We walked in solemn silence. No one had expected to lose someone before we got to the camp he spoke of.

And we certainly couldn't explain why he'd died with brown hair and only a minute later it'd turned red. We all thought it had something to do with his secrets. But what were they? Would we ever know? My head hurt just thinking about it all.

I stayed close to Marcus the whole morning. I think we all agreed that we were scared. Jalen and Adrian or others like them could appear at any moment, making it all the more important that we reached Lake Apopka sooner rather than later. Aaliyah stuck close to Peyton too, and I was beginning to wonder if they were becoming more than friends. I'd seen the way they looked at each other.

I sighed. The air even felt different without fearless Eli leading the way. Marcus wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

"It's hard trying to lead us there," he muttered. "Eli always seemed to be the one giving directions. If that was even his real name." He spoke the last sentence curtly, as if he didn't know what to think of him anymore.

"It must have been. The girl, Natasha I guess, called him Elijah," I pointed out. He nodded. "Before I, you know, shot her. I don't know if I'll forgive myself for that."

"You did what you had to do." I didn't think so. I didn't have to kill her. There were other ways. "Luke don't act like I don't know exactly what's running through your head right now. Trust me. I don't think we could have made it. She was their leader, clearly, and I have a feeling that the guys' relation to her was simple: take orders. Without her they didn't really know what to do."

"The dumb sidekicks of the evil villain," I muttered. He shrugged.

"You could say that."

I kicked up dirt and leaves in a sudden outburst of frustration. "If Eli had only told us his secrets. We could have done something. And now we'll never know what he was hiding, or why he could disguise himself like that."

"I've probably read too many fantasy novels, but any chance that it wasn't just a disguise? More like he was shapeshifting, like, magically or something? That would make more sense as to why it disappeared so abruptly."

"You've got to be kidding me. Magic doesn't exist."

"How else did it happen then? What if his 'true form' or whatever is actually the red hair and brown eyes with the freckles sprayed across his nose?" But I could tell I'd burst his bubble. It was about as likely as a penguin being found in the desert. I immediately regretted making such a sharp comment.

"Sorry. I mean, maybe. It doesn't really matter now."

"There had to have been something more to it. Those older teens wanted him for some reason."

We kept taking the conversation in circles, always coming back to the question we asked in the first place: why did his form change so drastically and so quickly?

"We're going to drive ourselves insane if we keep puzzling over him," Aaliyah finally said from behind us.

"She has a valid point," Peyton agreed. "I think our best bet to find answers is just make it to the camp. It was his idea to go there. He wanted us there for something, and it had to have been important enough for him to give his life for."

In a matter of seconds both of them had summed up and refuted our entire discussion. We must have really been bored to be going on about it like that for almost an hour.

"Lunch as we go?" Marcus suggested, changing the subject. He had managed to stuff Eli's small backpack into his much larger one, which meant he now carried both bags of food.

"Sure."

By the time we were ready to stop for the night it had started pouring down rain again. None of us wanted to string a tarp up, so we ended up in a picnic shelter in Astatula. It was in the middle of a park and it wasn't occupied anyways due to the rain.

"No fire tonight I guess," Aaliyah commented.

"Yeah, it's way too wet," Peyton agreed. "Besides, I don't think we could find any wood around here."

"Do we have enough food if we eat dinner now and for at least one meal tomorrow?" I asked Marcus. He tugged off his backpack and emptied the contents. It looked like we actually had a little extra. Our home rations were running low but we had some stuff from the convenient store that Aaliyah and Peyton had stopped at.

"I think so."

We each took a single-serving bag of trail mix and split a bag of banana chips among us. There were marshmallows left over too, but Marcus claimed the bag for himself. I didn't really like them plain anyways. The rest of us split the graham crackers.

I couldn't help but notice that all of us had lost weight in the past two weeks. The rations had been enough for us to keep moving but we hardly ever went on a full stomach. Hopefully, the camp would have better food.

"Peyton, can you keep watch tonight?" I asked. I knew Marcus had switched with her the night before and I didn't know if she was taking his night or we were just skipping altogether. The latter would mean it was my turn to keep watch, and honestly, I was exhausted.

"Already planning on it," she answered.

"Thanks."

We continued to eat in silence, the only noise being the water pelting on the roof. We didn't bother hanging Marcus's hammock, instead just spreading the tarp and blanket over picnic tables so that we wouldn't have to sleep directly on the hard metal benches. It looked like Aaliyah was going to sleep on top of one table and Marcus would sleep on top of another. I was going to be on the bench next to him since the tarp was large enough to stretch over the whole table.

"Marcus," I asked just before we were going to go to sleep.

"Yeah?"

"How do we even know this camp exists? If Eli was keeping secrets from us as wild as magic or something, he could have lied about this camp. Maybe he wasn't on our side and he was leading us there for some reason."

"I doubt it," he replied. "I don't think Eli would do anything to hurt us intentionally. I think we'll be fine. If not, there's always an escape route."

"Always huh? There wasn't one for Eli yesterday."

"There was, he just didn't take it. He took the selfless route rather than the selfish one." For the first time since Eli was initially shot, I heard genuine grief in his voice.

"When you say it like that..." I left the thought open-ended. He was right. Eli had given himself up for all of us, even if he only took the bullets for Peyton.

"Maybe we should be afraid of whatever we find at Lake Apopka tomorrow either way," I whispered. "Or at least cautious."

"Probably," Marcus agreed. A few minutes later, I heard his breathing even out, and not long afterward, I drifted off too.