The Shattered

Chapter 12: Homeward Bound

     As promised, there was a hallway stretching out to our left, with a doorway about halfway down on the left, and the door at the end of the hallway. They snuck quietly down the hallway after Gabe, trying their best not to make noises as they stumbled across the dark, uneven packed earth that made up the floor of the small hut. Rinnie almost ran into Gabe's back when he paused in front of the open doorway, she was so focused on not falling over her own feet. Gabe held up his hand, signaling them to stop and wait while he checked to make sure that it was safe. He slowly stuck his head out from behind the doorframe, quickly following it with the rest of his body. He scurried to the other side of the door, then turned around and frantically motioned Rinnie and Ethan onwards. Rinnie ran forwards, Ethan following so close behind her that she could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck. As soon as they had made it across the doorway, Gabe turned back around and began to move briskly towards the back door, which stood slightly ajar, allowing a little bit of fresh air into the hallway.
    "Go, go, go!" Gabe whispered, slipping behind them and shoving them both towards the door ahead of him. They went through the door, and again, just as Gabe had said, there was a storage room, although it had obviously been badly built. The wood had been stuck into the ground vertically, and it was extremely obvious that no one had even attempted to make the logs fit together nicely. There were gaps all along the walls, and when Rinnie took a second to glance over at Ethan, who stood agape, horrified by the awful woodwork. Rinnie stifled a laugh and pushed him towards the wooden slab at the back of the storage room that apparently passed as a door here. Gabe quickly took the lead again, heading quickly towards the makeshift door that Rinnie had just noticed. He took hold of the knotted rope that had been threaded through a hole in the door to serve as a handle and threw his body weight against he piece of wood, which gave way with a loud crack.
    Gabe's eyes grew, and his fear was palpable. He frantically swung his gaze around the room, before it landed on a big stack of something covered in a burlap cloth.
    "Quick! Hide behind there. I'll cover for you." Gabe said, and Ethan spun on his heel and immediately headed for the shelter, grabbing Rinnie's wrist and dragging her with him. They ducked behind the pile and soon they heard voices.
    "Hello? Gabe? Was that you?" An unfamiliar voice asked, and Rinnie held her breath. What if Gabe had abandoned them? What if he had set them up?
    Her fears were almost immediately disproved.
    "Yeah, sorry Ace. Didn't mean to startle you. I was just trying to get this door open so that I could take a breath. Just getting dizzy, that's all." Rinnie could feel herself relaxing. He sounded so calm and relaxed, she could just imagine him standing right outside, leaning on the doorframe, calmly sucking fresh air into his lungs.
    "Oh. That's okay, you didn't really scare me or anything. Just kind of wondered what was going on, I suppose." The man, Ace, replied.
    "That's good. Sorry for the disruption anyways." Gabe said. They heard footsteps retreating back down the hallway where they had come from, and a quiet oomph, where the man had apparently run into the wall.
    They remained in their hiding place for a few silent minutes before Gabe's face appeared around the side of the burlap wrapped item.
    "Coast is clear, I think." Gabe whispered to them. Rinnie stood up, stretching her legs and arms quietly. They had started to cramp up because of the small space and uncomfortable position that they had been in. Ethan stood up silently behind her, and she could see him impatiently tapping his fingers against his leg.
All three of them headed towards the door, Ethan bringing up the rear with Gabe in the front and Rinnie sandwiched in between. Gabe paused by the door, swinging his head side to side to make sure that they weren't being watched. He turned around, looking at them both to make sure that they were ready. They both nodded and Gabe turned back around and sprinted out into the night, Rinnie and Ethan on his heels.

They curved and wove through the silent buildings that lined the town, the only sounds were the sound of their sneakers on the pavement and their breathing. As they neared the outside of the village, the small shacks that must have  served as houses began to thin, and the gardens that had occupied the lawns of the houses that were closer to their prison became more and more sparse, and the weeds that grew wild in the forest near their home became more and more frequent. Before fifteen minutes were up, the trees on the edge of the forest were visible, and they were rapidly nearing them.
"Hey!" A shout rang out from behind them, from one of the five houses that were still within their vicinity. All three of them stopped dead in their tracks. Gabe slowly turned to face the maker of the shout, while Rinnie and Ethan just stood still, facing the forest. They were so close. This could not be it. They could not get caught, when the forest was literally almost at their finger tips.
"Cara! What are you doing here?" Gabe said, although not quite in the tone that Rinnie had been expecting.
"I could ask the same of you! Who are your new friends?" Cara asked, and Gabe pulled Rinnie and Ethan around until they were facing away from their escape. "A, I asked you first, and B, I'll answer that once you've answered me." Gabe replied, and Rinnie could yet again hear the smile in his voice. This kid was all joy. The girl that had shouted at them turned out to be taller and lean, with dark hair cascading down her back. Her eyes were a vibrant blue, so bright and full of life that they looked like they were glowing even in the dark and nearly moonless night.
"Haha, fine." Cara said, mockingly, "Mum got mad at me and decided to send me outside tonight to fend for myself. I was on my way to the prison where I thought you would be working when I got distracted and ended up wandering around. By the time the distraction was gone, I figured that you would have gone home anyways, and I wasn't really sure how your mom would react to me climbing into your bedroom window to ask if you had a place that I could sleep tonight. I was headed over to Rocky's. Kind of hoping that his spare room would be open, I suppose. Okay, I've spilled my guts, your turn." Cara had spoken extremely quickly, so when she stopped talking, Rinnie's head was still spinning. She looked at Gabe, who seemed completely nonplused by her outburst, and she wondered at how he had kept up with that story.
"Well, I was hoping to go on a night trip for food into the forest, but dad wouldn't let me so I snuck out after I went to the prison. These two were new to the village and I caught them out after curfew, so I thought that I would bring them along for company. This is Rinnie and this is Ethan." He motioned towards them when he said that, and Rinnie had to use all of her willpower not to flinch when he said her name. Her real name. That seemed dangerous to her, but maybe Gabe actually knew what he was doing.
"New ones, huh?" Cara asked, her eyes softening with pity. "Well, good luck." And with that, she disappeared back around the nearest house in a swoosh of dark brown hair. Ethan let out an audible sigh, relieved that this stranger was gone.
"What the hell?" Rinnie hissed, whipping around to face Gabe, who looked stunned by her sudden outburst. "How could you be so calm? And to use our real names? What the hell do you think this is?" By the time she finished talking, she was right up in Gabe's face, and he was visibly shaking. She felt Ethan's hand on her shoulder.
"Rinnie, back off. I'm sure he knows what he's doing." Ethan calmly stated in a low voice. Rinnie took that chance to spin on him, just about ready to rip his throat out.
"Did it take you just twenty minutes to completely forget the doubt that you had about him? Remember that you didn't want to bring him along? Hello? Answer me!" Rinnie was so mad at them both that she had no control over the volume of her voice any more. It had begun to rise above acceptable we're-sneaking-out-of-a-prison-and-trying-not-to-get-caught volume. Ethan clapped a hand over her mouth, and along with Gabe's help, he had dragged her into the forest, kicking and attempting to bite his hand.
Once they were a safe distance into the forest, Ethan set her down on the soft pine needles on the forest floor, and sat down beside her, stroking her hair in an attempt to keep her calm. It was working. Rinnie took a deep breath. sucking in the cool smell of the forest, the smell of animals and water and trees mixing together to form the smell of home.
"We're really going to make it, aren't we?" She whispered, looking up at where she thought Ethan's face would be.
"Yeah, I suppose so." Ethan replied, the sound coming from a little bit to the left of where she had been looking.
"Well," Gabe said, brushing himself off, "We should probably get going, just put some distance between us and the people before daybreak." He paused. "If you're done trying to attack me for telling my betrothed your name."