The Soldier

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 "My parents died when I was eleven." Jacob says. "That's how I came to live at Camp One with Blue."

Jacob and I sit in a bank of the river from where we held the ritual funeral for Leslie. We sit against a tree trunk beside each other, watching the sunset. I fondle with daises and lilies, trying not to think of Leslie, but I can't. I cannot forget about someone who jumped in front of a bullet for me, when I should've been the one who died; not her. If only I hadn't tied us together.

"My little sister, Cedar, she was just an infant at the time she was adopted, and that's the last time Blue and I ever saw her. Before your Father became the Head General and President of the NONR, Head General Dieresias took us in and trained us. I never trusted any of them, not even from the start. Not when my parents were killed in a car crash, just after they left Blue, Cedar, and I at our school. There couldn't have been anyway they could've gotten into an accident. The North built revolving roads to prevent accidents. So, one day, when I was off training for a day because I pretended that I had a fever, I snuck into Head General Diresias' room when I was twelve. Hacking into his computer, I found something I never knew about my parent's. That they didn't tell us. They didn't die in a car accident, they were murdered by the NONR Fire Squad ordered by Diresias himself." Jacob tells me this, running shaky hands through his hair.

I keep my mouth shut at this, squeezing the flowers in my hand tight between my index and thumb finger until the nectar comes squirting out of them. There's nothing I can say. Apologizing about something that I didn't do won't be solving anything. I feel for Jacob, but that's not going to bring his parents back. I'm slowly starting to realize that about a lot of things. Still, I get the feeling to hold Jacob to my chest, as if he's a child. We all have people we held deep in our hearts, gone or passed away.

What's different about me is, if I would've made a different choice, Leslie wouldn't have died.

No.

Leslie Zester is dead. It's time to get over it. There is nothing I can do about it. I can't bring her back to life, no one can.

I will miss my friend, but the main plan is to get out of the North safely. Alive.

"Jacob, we must get out of here." My hands hold his head to my neck. As I do this, Jacob runs his lips along my neck.

"Don't you think I know that, June?" Jacob stares me straight in the eyes, running his hands through my hair. "The thing is, we'll have to camp out in the woods for a while I have a feeling Commander Blue and the rest of them will immediately expecting us at the entrance to the South. Hopefully, they won't decide to look in the woods. These woods are uncharted and gratefully off their grids. The only other problem is... do you know how to hunt?" he continues, bringing his arms around my legs and shoulders to hoist me off the ground.

"Are you kidding me? My father taught me ever since I was five." I grin halfheartedly, but for some reason, I can't find any humor in it.

He sets me down and opens his backpack. "We will need weapons that won't make too much of a distraction. - Arrows; weapons like those. Um, I'll fish... did your father ever teach you how to craft a bow and arrow?" He pulls out string and an army knife. I flinch at the string. It reminds me too much of what happened on that night at Camp One.

"Yeah." I finally say, letting Jacob place the knife and string in my hands. "It may take a couple of days to craft it, but yeah. You know, to find the right kind of wood for the bow."

When I look up, Jacob is not staring at me, but what's behind me. I stop in my tracks, careful not to move.

"Let me take the knife from you hand." Jacob says.

I hear the animal growl. A low rumble, low, deep, and massive. From the sound, I'm guessing the animal is none other than a wolf.

Back on Our Land, I have across many wolves, but rarely. Whenever I did so happen to come across them, they were outside of my room window at night. I used to peer down at them from the second floor, watching them parade around the Estate. None of the times did I ever come across them in person.

"June," Jacob hisses between his teeth. "Hand me the knife."

The wolf growls a deep low rumble again, moving to where it can see the both of our faces.

Despite my stiffening fright, I can't help but stare at the wolf's majestic mane. - Hairs of white, gray, black, eyes of gold. Its teeth are red and bloody, sharp and wide. Its jaws jutted and powerful-looking.

This wolf could tear both Jacob and I apart. I want to laugh from hysteria at the irony. We ran away from the North, our danger, our home, but now we come face to face with danger where it's supposed to be Jacob and I'm safe place.

You are never safe. I remember Father telling me that on my sixth birthday when I decided to go hunting alone, knowing I was too young to go hunting out alone, and ran into a pack of wild dogs. If it weren't for Father, who followed after me without my notice, I would've been the animals' dinner.

It takes me only a moment to calm my fear. My stiffness relaxes. I slowly kneel down, bowing down to the wolf. Jacob does the same, grabbing the knife from my hand when he closes the one inch gap between us. I wrap my hand around Jacob's wrist.

The wolf stops and sniffs the air, diverting its attention from us. It growls again, howls, barking at the air.

Then, it sprints way.

We still don't move until five minutes later when Jacob dares to glance up. The wolf is nowhere in sight. We must move fast. If that wolf was alone now, there's no telling if there's a whole pack of other wolves nearby or not.

Jacob must be thinking what I'm thinking, because he says, "Let's move across the river. We've got to lose our scents. There's no telling if that wolf and more will come back."

I scurry to grab our backpacks, including Leslie's, and begin to follow, prodding through the clear blue of the Ohio River stream. Jacob follows behind me.