Ashes of Affection (Rough Draft)

Chapter Two

“Jack! Hurry!” I gasped.

I had lost all track as to how long we had been running. My throat burned as the feeling of needing to throw up and collapse to the ground hit.

“Amara! They’re gone! We can stop!” Jack called, slowing down. I reluctantly did so as well. If they caught up with us, we’d be screwed. The forest was threatening after dark. My thoughts kept rushing through my brain, making it hard to focus. The only thing that kept me moving was the fact that we had to get to the hideout before the people caught up, though I was really worried about Sage. Where were they? Were they still alive? Had the people caught them? Everything was happening so fast and it was almost impossible to keep up. “Amara, you’re on autopilot and need to calm down.”

“How could you say that!?” I snapped and swiftly turned to him. “Someone drugged and kidnapped Kai and now Sage could be dead! How could I ever calm down?”

He put Kai down, laying him against a tree before he turned his attention to me. “I get everything that’s happening is stressful but we have to keep it together. Sage can handle themselves, I doubt anyone could catch them. As you said before, they know these woods more than anyone and the creatures here seem to obey them.”

“Less than two hours ago, you were so stressed, how are you so calm now?” I demanded. His gaze fell to the ground, as he was visibly ashamed. “I don’t care how insane Sage seems to be, they’re one of us. You have Kai now, you can go back but I’m not leaving them out here.”

“It’s not like that. We have to focus on the problem in front of us.”

My blood boiled and I lost it as I punched him in the gut.

“They’re my friend! I’m not losing them again!”

He hugged me despite me hitting him again. The tears collapsed down the sides of my face as my breathing grew quick and shallow.

“We’ll get them back…everything will be okay. Just for now, we need to get Kai out of sight, then we’ll figure out a plan.” I never thought any of this would happen to us. Our town is generally really safe and everyone usually knows everyone. Things like this rarely ever happen which makes it worse and harder to handle. Footsteps dragged me out of my thoughts. “Get down!”

Jack pulled me to my knees under the bushes so we were out of sight. The footsteps were getting closer. There were about three people, two of the footsteps were lighter than the others which gave off the impression that there were two females and one male. Nonetheless, they all had bad intentions which was made clear by the sound of two knives clinking together.

“Are you sure they came this way?” One of the females asked.

“Yes, I’m certain.” The man answered.

“If you’re wrong about this, you’ll regret it.” The other female threatened.

They kept walking past but we didn’t move till we could no longer hear them. I looked at my watch and it was 11:59. The moment it turned to midnight, it started raining heavily. It’d be harder to sneak about with the soaked ground which meant we had to get moving.

“Let’s go.” I whispered as I got up. Jack followed my lead and he picked Kai up.

We walked with a quickened pace but had to also be careful as to not fall. The ground was slippery due to the mud. Despite this, we kept moving as fast as possible. It appeared that the longer we were out there, the worse the rain got.

After what felt like forever but was no more than half an hour, we reached the part of woods that I knew. We just had to keep moving as we had less than a mile till we reached the cabin. Jack was beginning to struggle to hold Kai as well as walk quickly.