Lethal Weapons

Chapter 8

Ginger and I helped Jen get back to camp. Claudia walked silently beside us as we made our way back. At the truck, Sean sits on the edge of the carrier with his hands clasped together in his lap and his head low. "I've got her from here." Ginger tells me. I nod and walk away. Jen hiccups and sobs as she is numbly laid down in Ginger's van. Claudia scoots herself next to Sean on the truck. I want to sit there too but I'm not sure how to handle Sean yet. I don't know what he's battling inside, which is weird.

"Where's Link and Leo?" Sean asks, finally looking up. But he didn't ask me.

"They stayed behind at the cliff." Ginger answers.

"Why?"

"Talking, I guess? I don't know."

I sigh as I sit down on the grass. I wrap my arms around my legs and bring them close to my chest. I rest my chin on my knees. "What are we going to do?" Claudia asks, breaking the silence. All I want is to hear something other than guns and the occasional blast from an explosive. And the screams.

We all shrug. Jen jumps at the sound of a huge boom. I glance over at the break in the trees where the cliff is. Link and Leo seem to be in a deep discussion. Looking back to the van, Jen sits in Ginger's lap. He cradles her in his arms like a little girl. It makes me yearn for my father's arms around me. I feel my throat tighten at the thought of my parents.

"We have to go back." I blurt out. Everyone, even Sean, looks at me.

"No!" Jen yells. Ginger shushes her but she goes on. "I don't want to go down there!"

"Sh, Jennifer it's alright. You don't have to go."

Ignoring the fact of Jen and Ginger, I say, "We have to go back."

"What do you mean?" Sean shoots me a look. My heart jerks a little.

"I mean what I say. We have to get back home."

"And how do you expect we do that?"

"I don't know, but we can't stay up here forever."

"I don't want to go down there. Did you see those men? They had guns!" Jen says hysterically. Claudia looks from Jen back to me.

"You have a point, Riley, but Sean's right. We could die." I look at my friend since elementary school with disgust. "What?" she asks.

"We could die?" I repeat what she says.

"Yea."

"Those innocent people down there died! They didn't have an advantage by being hidden in the woods like we are! How selfish are you?"

"Stop you guys. You're upsetting Jennifer." Ginger tells us.

"This whole thing is upsetting!" I say.

"What is? The fact our lives just took on a one hundred and eighty turn, or that I want to live?" Claudia yells at me. Ginger gets up form the van and starts leading Jen away from our camp. Claudia gets up, too, and follows them away. Now it's just Sean and me. He stares at me with a frown.

"What is it, Sean?" I ask with an edge to my voice.

"You had no right to talk to her that way."

"That was selfish of her to say that! Those people died down there, and we're up here alive."

Sean's eyes widen as he nods matter-of-factly. "Yea, we're alive. Thank God we are. He saved us from being killed. That's the point."

"What is? That we-"

"Stop, Riley. Okay? Just stop. She has a right to want to live, we all do. They, those people down there, had a right as well. We're alive for a reason, Riley. Don't you want to live?"