A Greater Lesson

Chapter 17: On the Run

She decided that she could continue traveling with Kolan.  After all, he did help rescue her.  Besides, he had apologized.  He had said he thought about her and had felt bad for her long after the fact.  His saying that is probably what changed her mind.

I had to make up an excuse to leave Kolan and Rivka a couple of times and I left into the jungle.  When Jerghund and his men captured Rivka, one thing that they didn’t take was the necklace I’d bought her.  Once out of sight, I pulled it out of my pocket along with the one I had found broken on the ground, and begin to mix them together.  This was the second time I’d left them to work on it.  I had been interrupted the first time and had only gotten halfway.  Now I was finishing what I’d started. 

Half of the river stones were loose in my pocket.  I pulled out the string that held the other half of them and slid the eagle from the other necklace into place.  I replaced the stones where they belonged and fastened the ends of the string.  I held it out and looked at the necklace.  Would she like it?  I hoped so.  I just had to find the perfect time to give it back to her.

We stopped to camp when the daylight dimmed.  We ate from our storage and prepared to sleep.  I watched Riv fall asleep before I would let myself.  During the night I was awakened by a scream.  I jumped up ready to attack, but it had only been Rivka.  She was dreaming.  She was talking and screaming in her sleep again.  Kolan awoke and looked over to see the problem.  I shook Rivka. 

“Wake up!  It’s just a dream wake up!”

She opened her eyes and gasped.  She began to cry.  I leaned forward and gave her a hug.  “It’s just a dream,” I patted her back as I tried to soothe her.  “Shhhh, it’s okay.  It’s just a dream.”

I looked at Kolan over her shoulder.  He looked so ashamed.  This was the third night in a row that she had screamed in the middle of the night since Kolan admitted to being there.  I wanted to help her, but I didn’t want to know what had been in her dream.  I didn’t want to think about what she had to go through.   All I could do was be there to comfort her when she woke up.

Sometimes when we all awoke, I would notice Kolan’s eyes were puffy, as if he had been crying during the night.  We all had dirty pasts, but I wanted to know his.  I knew he had worked for Garis, but there had to be something else.  What was the real reason he was afraid of Garis?  I wanted to know what Garis had done to him.  I was even willing to share my own story if he were to spill his.  Perhaps if we all knew each other’s stories we could be united better than we were now.  We could be like family, like the ones we lost.  Before that could happen though, he had to tell us.

I never asked him though.  I felt like it would be rude to just flat out ask him what had happened.  I waited for the conversation to come up somehow.  Maybe if Riv talked about when she was with Jerghund the conversation could come up.  All I could do was wait and hope he would tell me while we traveled because I wasn’t going to press for information.  I wasn’t going to force him to tell me. 

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For the longest time I had trained myself to forget the past, to never think about what had happened.  Of course, I couldn’t control the dreams or those periodic thoughts of my family, but I had kept them inside for so long that they had become minimal.  Now it was the way it was in the beginning.  Everything I saw and everything anybody said reminded me of my mother.  That night was on a constant replay in my head.  Everything had come back to me since I’d found out about Kolan.  I had heard the story from his point of view.  What he felt and saw when it had happened.  The reason I think I hated his side of the story was because of the lack of emotion.  Things didn’t happen slowly in his story.  Everything just happened, and there was no fear, no pain.  I didn’t like it because it had been the same story.  We’d been in the same exact situation, in the same house, and it had hurt me and not him.  Yea, he had apologized.  Yea, he had explained how he felt about how my life must’ve been.  Yea, he had shared his respect, and that’s what made me let him stay, but it still bothered me.  I couldn’t grasp that we were in the same house at the same time when the worst thing that had ever happened to me happened.  I couldn’t grasp that the man responsible for such a terrible thing had rescued me, I was traveling with him.  I just had to thank the gods that I had Xik with me to help me through everything.