Hunted

Chapter Nine - Farewell

Chapter Nine

Farewell

The next time I woke, Bella told me it had been a day since we'd arrived here and Bailey had made no progress. I looked over to him and saw his tired eyes, staring down at the radio which was now in pieces sprawled across the ground. He'd pulled the machine to bits and still had made no progress on fixing it and everyone was too scared to offer their help. Everyone except me.

"Bailey, perhaps you should let someone else look at it?" I suggested. "Both Nigel and Jamie know lots about that kind of thing and they might be able to help you."

"No, Esther," he fought. "I can do this on my own."

This continued for most of the day, with him continuing to refuse help from everyone who was brave enough to offer. Eventually I got so fed up of his stubbornness that I asked Bella and Jacoby to take me out of the storeroom and up into the library, where I could get a change of scenery and some fresher air.

The two of them got me up there easily and set me down in a little area that I assumed to be the children's library. It was a good set up, with heaps of large beanbags for me to sit amongst as well as being concealed from every window that looked in on the place. Most of them were closed by thick drapes in any case.

They left me alone to my thoughts, where I closed my eyes and took in the calmness around me for the first time since we'd left the house in the hills. The storeroom was cramped with negative energy and it had become too much for me to take.

I had barely taken a breath when a voice arose from somewhere in front of me.

"Esther."

I knew before I even opened my eyes that the voice belonged to Koby. Slowly I opened them, seeing him stand before me. Almost every time I looked at him these days he had a gun strapped over his shoulder, but it still made me sigh at how we'd once lived in a carefree environment where I loved him to the ends of the earth.

"Hello Koby," I answered, giving him a small smile.

He took that as an invitation to come closer, and sat before me. I could tell from the uncertain look in his eyes that he had a lot on his mind and I assumed that he had been waiting to get me alone so he could let those thoughts free.

"Something's bothering you," I observed.

"Can you guess what it is?" he asked.

"Me," I stated.

He nodded, pulling the gun from around his body and laying it on the floor beside him. With that gone, he looked just like the boy who I'd loved for so many years – even with the new scars running over the exposed skin of his arms and even parts of his face.

"When you went running back into the bush the day of the airfield attack, I thought I could just let you go," he explained. "Nigel had already taken off after you, so I knew you were in good hands. But the moment he disappeared into the bush after you, I felt compelled to follow. You know that even with my size that I'm a fair runner, so I passed them easily. That was when the airfield went up and I saw you flying through the air. You hit that tree so hard that I don't know how you survived."

"I never thanked you for carrying me away from that place," I said, remembering how shocked I'd been when I discovered that it had been Koby who'd carried me back to the others. "You risked your own life by doing that. If you had of been any closer when the bombs were dropped, you could have ended up just like me. Or worse. I don't know what compelled you to come after me, but thank you so much."

"Esther, before this war the only thing I was certain about was that you would be by my side for my whole life," he went on. "When I pictured the future, I only saw the two of us. When the war started, I noticed that slowly starting to fade and I thought it was just because there was such a slim chance that we'd both get through this alive, but it was more than that. We grew apart."