The Revolt

PART SEVEN

--PART SEVEN--

Someone's jostling me. A hand on my hip, they rock me side-to-side, gentle at first, but with each persistent shove, they become more impatient.

"What..." My eyes fly open and immediately my hand comes up to cover my face. It's dazzlingly bright. Too bright.

"We overslept. Come on." It's Chase. I'm still lying on him and the second I lift my head up, he's gone and out the entrance of the cave.

I try to blink the shock out of my eyes, which are watering from the brightness. The sun is high in the sky and it's already fiercely hot. I glance down at my shirt and see it darker than normal--sweat and dirt.

"Chase?" I call after him, hoping he'll come back in. I don't want to leave just yet.

"We can talk as we go," he yells back. "Come on." In a lower voice, he adds, "Before I have to carry you."

I roll my eyes and push myself to my knees, letting my arms release their tension in a stretch above my head. My stomach gurgles, making a funny rippling feeling in the pit of it. I've felt this before, much worse than now. Still, it's uncomfortable. I'm hungry and my body's demanding food.

I get to my feet, ducking my head as I walk outside. Instantly I'm hit with intense sunlight and heat. I feel the urge to run back into the cave, but the look on Chase's face tells me that we need to push on. I tell myself I'll get used to it in about an hour or so, but in the back of my mind, I kind of doubt it.

"Are you thirsty?" Chase asks. He's looking sideways at me in concern, his eyebrows pushed to his hairline. I command my eyes to stop squinting and my upper lip to come down from its perch above my teeth. I'd been making a face without realizing it.

I shrug, but answer, "Yes." I hadn't thought of it before then, but my tongue feels like sandpaper, gritty and scraping painfully against the roof of my mouth. There's the bitter, disgusting taste of dirt in my mouth, which I know can only be washed away with water. Unfortunately for me, we don't have any.

Chase doesn't reply. I expect him to eventually, maybe tell me we'll get some soon, but after five minutes it becomes apparent that he isn't going to answer me.

Another five minutes and I'm struggling to keep up with Chase's long strides. He slows for me, watching his feet to make sure that he can see mine, too. If he can't, he stops until I catch up, and then continues on. We walk for a few hours, sweating and panting in time to each other's footsteps. Neither one of us says a word, but I'm content with just his presence. Last night keeps running through my mind, the way Chase had offered himself as a pillow and comforted me against the cold and the hurt. I don't think it meant anything, and I'm sure it doesn't, not to Chase, but I'm not sure I would've been able to make it through the night without him.

"There should be a shack somewhere close to here," Chase says. My eyes snap to him, burning in the direct line of the sun. I look back down at the ground.

"I saw it before," he tells me, squinting and looking around us. He's slowed down substantially. "I'm hoping it's got something in it."

My head swivels at his words, careful not to look into the sun again. I look for any sign of a building, even a collapsed one, but all I see is vast, empty desert dotted in dying bushes.

"Who in the world would live out here?" I ask him, dropping my eyes down to my feet. I can't bare to look around anymore; it's making me dizzy and my hope is quickly dissolving.

"Retrievers," Chase answers matter-of-factly, and he doesn't sound frightened at all as he says it. My heart, however, lurches and my feet come to a stop. After escaping the camp and spending the night in the cave I can't imagine being brought right back to where I started. And though I wished that they'd kill both Chase and I, I knew that if it came to that, it would just be Chase.