Broken World

19. Stuck in the middle

Seeing the fighters from Golden Woods, Rose and her few men who survived escaped from there on their horses. 

“We don’t have enough time, take everyone and fall back!” Nina ordered. 

“You heard the instruction, let’s go,” Jane said, looking at me. 

Cooper got on the horse. “I will take the children back, leave it to me,” he assured. “Clear the way for the horse to pass.” 

***

We returned to Golden Woods. The huge entrance closed behind us while the fighters on the walls killed the ghouls near the entrance.

I looked at Jane who was panting like crazy, when our eyes met, she hugged me tightly. 

“Thank goodness you are alive,” she said. “If you do something reckless again, then I will have to knock some sense into you.” 

“It’s been a while since I have been hugged like this,” I replied in a low voice. 

Out of nowhere Kevin ran up to me and rubbed his cheek against mine while hugging me. “I- I missed you, Erie.” 

“It’s Erik,” I corrected him. 

“You seem alright, good,” Ivan said walking up to me. 

“The defence commander and Jack are currently locked up, thanks to Kevin who reported us at the right time,” Nina said with a smile. 

“There are a lot of other kids under Blue Stars, who are held as captives in their base,” I informed.

“One wrong move, they can kill all the children. The stakes are high,” Nina replied. 

“No, they won’t do that… for the most part. They need them alive who will be sent to Wingston as slaves,” I informed. 

“Th-thank you for saving me,” Violet said with a cheerful smile. “I owe you a lot.” 

After that, I and Kevin tagged along with Nina and Cooper to interrogate Mr Dan and Jack who were locked up in the temporary prison. 

 ***

“Don’t call me traitor!” Jack shouted, hitting the table. “Those people from Wingston are strong, they can take over Golden Woods in a swift. I and Mr Dan protected everyone. Be grateful!” 

“By kidnapping and selling off those innocent children to those brutal monsters?” Nina said, folding her hands. 

“We had no other option. Blue Stars are stronger than us and with assistance from Wingston… we are doomed to die, but we made a treaty and kept on providing them a constant supply of young children.” 

“How?” Nina asked. 

“We used to threaten the children, and order them to assemble in the auditorium at a particular time…” he replied, lowering his head. “It went quite well until these bastards arrived!” he shouted, looking at me and Kevin.   

“Jack… man, I trusted you with my life. Never in my life, I thought… you would betray us like this,” Cooper said in a low voice.

“What do you expect from me, Copper? Now that you guys ruined our plans, they will come and destroy all of us… Golden Woods is doomed! And when everyone is dead or kidnapped, you guys will be responsible for it!”

“What you did was wrong, you made a lot of families suffer, that’s not good either,” Kevin said. 

After that, Nina and Copper went to interrogate Mr Dan while both of us returned to our room.