The Refugees

Chapter 25: Ash

Edited

My eyes skid to where Declan is sitting. Amber is beside him, her face looking deep-in-thought as they discuss something in hushed tones. Amber's nervousness seems rather contagious. Just the way her fingers tighten and release on her ankle and her eyes slightly creased in confusion, it's all unsettling.

There are no fires to keep us warm tonight because the army would know straightaway of our whereabouts. The population of that rather small town is now scattered everywhere in the forest or dead. This is just one group out of many others. We're lucky we even managed to find a very big cave. It's bigger than the one Savannah and I found before and all 20 to 30 of us can fit in it. Everyone is quiet — either sleeping or keeping watch or just thinking about those who have died — and in some ways it's relaxing but in others it's also nerve-wracking.

I watch Declan again. Now he's looking right back at me. I hate him and that is all there is to it. Knowing he's so close to Savannah, Amber and Robert doesn't put me at ease whatsoever so I put my guard up. Savannah's head rests on my shoulder because she fell onto it in her sleep. That's typical Savannah for you. Always so random and careless. My back is against the wall of the cave and I can feel the cool edges and it soothes me.

Declan is just a few meters away, sitting in the middle of the passage, surrounded by other people but only talking to Amber. He's there, with his army uniform, the sign of a traitor to both the army and the townspeople.

Suddenly we hear something. A loud noise. A low rumble. The army is on the move in their tanks. Everyone awake twists their heads towards the entrance. Some that are asleep groan. And then there's Savannah; she simply stays fast asleep. There could be an apocalypse and she would still sleep through it. Her father comes over and sits next to me on my free side. He looks up at the ceiling before speaking.

"Thanks Ash," He says softly, "for taking care of Sav. She wouldn't have made it here if it weren't for you."

"No problem. She also helped me, you know. Things would have been boring alone." I admit to him, my face rather bland and emotionless as usual and as I like it, and Robert chuckles.

"Starting to soften a little?" He teases.

"Of course not." I cut in before he can utter more irrelevant things regarding me.

He pauses for a while, passively looking at the other side of the cave wall in front of him.

"I may not always be with her, so I'm glad I can count on you to protect her." He tells me his gaze serious.

"Why don't you just tell her? It'll make things less complicated. Right now she's still so confused as to why all of us have already anticipated this in advance. I couldn't really explain why then, but once she realizes you're also concerned she'll definitely start asking herself more questions." I tell him as a fact rather than a complaint.

"I intend to, but not right now. She's not ready." He replies, his voice solemn and deep.

"When will she ever be ready in your mind? You've been waiting for the perfect moment for months now. If by any chance you don't make it back to tell her, then she'll look at me for answers, that is if we suppose I even make it back myself, and she'll be hurt because we didn't tell her beforehand. I lost my family without any real warning..." I pause and both our stares harden as we recall the massacre. "You can't let her lose her only family without her having any knowledge that it is a very foreseeable possibility." I hide my rising anger with discretion but I know Robert senses that I'm upset with him because of this.

"Well it doesn't look like anything is going to happen to me right now. Things are working out. I just need a little more time. In the meantime, where do we go? Anybody sane would know we can't stay in this forest." He says closing off the subject.

I sigh.

"Well we said we'd go to the Dome. We have no other choice after all. We aren't ready yet to get into Gendale and we can't risk starting the mission if we don't have a respectable amount of weapons and ammunition. After we're ready, and we have more people, we go to Gendale. Mrs. Nightingale has a house in the outskirts where we can stay before we meet up with the others." I tell him once I think about an appropriate and rather accurate answer.

"Ok, I'll go discuss with the others and see if we can get up earlier to make a move on."

I nod at him before he gets up and starts to leave the rest of the men who are in charge of this small group. Then I spot Declan and Amber making their way towards me and immediately I feel my fists clench. Amber sits on my right because Savannah is laying by my left and Declan sits just in front of me. The space between us feels too close for comfort. I glare at him and I'm sure even through the dark night he can see the hatred I have left for him. What does he want?

"You know, your friend is hot." He tells me and I feel my jaw and fists clench even tighter. "What? Just repeating the words you used before to describe her to the group." He says teasing and grinning as usual. Too usual. What's he trying to accomplish?

"Declan get to the point." Amber shuts him up, but Declan isn't always so easily persuaded.

"What do you want?" I strain to say through clenched teeth, still glaring at him. He pisses me off and he knows it which is the reason why his smirk gets bigger before he sobers up quickly on his own and the malicious glint in his eyes is gone.

"On a serious note, I have some inside on what's happening in the army." He tells me his face now fully concentrated and I know he's here for business. He used to be my best friend and that's now long gone, forever, but I can still tell how he functions. He's often the type to kid around most of the time but when he gets serious, he's serious.

"What is it?" I ask him, my attention now fully devoted to him. Declan is never serious unless he's in battle, and only when there are a lot of men on the enemy's side, or when it's a really important, and his look tells me Robert and I may be getting some serious bad luck after all.

"They want to speed up the Destruction of the World. They never intended to do what everyone thought. They're not going to bomb up the World nor are they going to drug everyone to sleep. They'll assess everyone to decide on whether they want to keep them or not. They want to build the perfect nation. Anyone who doubts them, is "ugly", has an IQ of below 95 or has "bad genes", with a personality problem or anything which would consider then as "imperfect", so to say, will be euthanized."

My eyes widen. This is a major change of plans. This changes everything.

"I'll let you ingest this information. You can go tell Robert afterwards." He tells me, already getting up to go sleep elsewhere.

"How do you know about him?" I ask him just before he leaves, panic laced in my voice.

"Everyone in the army knows him. He's everyone's biggest target at the moment since he's the one who has acted the most to stop The Destruction of the World." He says turning back to look at me one last time before walking away.

My eyes widen even more. This isn't good. Not good for Robert or us. They'll stop at nothing to try to get us now. They know Robert's face.

Shit.

I wonder if Robert already knew all this. Is this why he has decided to tell me about the things that he fears he may never be able to tell Savannah himself. I look at Savannah's peaceful face and I vow to protect her to the best of my abilities even if Robert can't. I have to in order to save that peacefulness in her face, to keep that innocence intact, the very thing I wanted to destroy not too long ago.

~~~

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