Runaway (ON HOLD)

(Tucker) Her

She's beautiful, she's adventurous and she's mysterious. She's hiding something, I can tell. Not making eye contact with me. Not talking above a whisper or a mumble, like she's scared I'll recognize her voice or something. I don't know if she knows anything about Melody O'Brien, and I can't just straight up ask her, she might get suspicious. If she does know something, she probably wouldn't tell someone she just met. If I want to find something out soon, I need to get close to one of the girls. Tara would be easy to get information from, she's vulnerable.

"Ugh. Stupid branch!" I heard Mollie say. It was about 2:00 am and I couldn't fall asleep, so I just lay on the ground. I sat up. Mollie wasn't in sight, so I stood up and started to walk around, and see where Mollie had gone to. Not long, maybe five minutes, I came to a tall thick tree. I looked up to see Mollie sitting on a branch about twenty feet up, looking above the tops of the trees deeper into the forest. I started to climb  up the tree to where she was sitting, even though I have a fear of heights. I sat on a branch with a clear view of Mollie, and where Mollie was staring off to. She looked like something was bothering her.

"You all right?" I asked with sympathy flooding my voice. She glanced down at a charm bracelet on her wrist.

"Yeah. I guess!" she answered. Her voice was shaky and mixed with pain and sadness.

"Come on, you and I both know that's not true!" She chuckled lightly, not because it was funny, but to say that she was fine.

"What is it?" I really wanted to know what's making her so upset.

She started to fiddle with the charm on her bracelet.

"Have you heard about, Melody, O'Brien?" she asked me. Finally, I might actually get somewhere with my investigation!

"Yeah, the girl who robbed nine of Kenna's biggest banks, how could I not hear!? She's one of the most wanted criminals in Kenna!"

Her eyes grew sadder, and filled with more pain and, something else, it looked like, regret!

"What about it?" I asked. Maybe I could get some more information out of her.

"Haven't you ever wondered why she did it!? Why anyone had done something like that!?" She looked at me. A tear formed in her perfect green eyes.

"No, I, I hadn't really thought about why she did it, just that she did do it," I confessed.

She nodded her head and returned her gaze out into the deep parts of the forest. The moonlight on her skin made her all the more beautiful. She was absolutely stunning. How could a girl like herself end up like she is now!?

"Well, I'm going to go to bed. I guess I'll, uh, see you tomorrow!" I said. She just continued to stare out into the dark forest that was lightened up by the light of the moon. I shimmied down the tree, not looking down to see how high up I was. When I was two feet above the ground I jumped down.

With everything that had happened today, I was happy to finally get to sleep. As I lay down Asia sat up.

"Tucker!?" she said in a half awake half asleep state.

"Yeah, Asia?" I said with a yawn.

"Goodnight!"

"Goodnight, Asia!" I said with a slight smile on my face.

Soon the night will be over and I can carry on with my investigation, but for now I can do nothing. I will find out more about Melody O'Brien in the morning from Mollie, then I can leave the group to carry on with finding Melody. The whole conversation between Mollie and I played in my head on repeat the whole night, until I had finally settled my thoughts, and drifted off into a dark uncomfortable sleep.

                                                      ***

The morning came all too soon. The sun was shining brightly on my chilled face. Faint sounds of rustling in the bushes woke me up. I opened my eyes to see Asia standing over me, staring.

"Tucker's up," she announced.

"Morning, little red!" I said playfully as I tickled her.

"Good! If you still want to travel with us you got to get moving," Tara said hopefully.

"Sure beats going solo!" I said with a grin.

I hadn't really noticed how beautiful Tara was. Her long dark brown hair brushed in her face, chocolate brown eyes that twinkled in the light. And the freckles that covered her pale white skin. I realized that I was staring at her, and quickly turned my stare onto the tree that Mollie was sitting in last night. She still wasn't the beauty of Mollie, but.

"So, where were you last night? I didn't see you when I woke up in the middle of the night," Tara asked curiously.

"Oh, I was talking to Mollie," I stated.

Tara nodded her head and returned her focus back to packing her bag. Speaking of Mollie, where is she? Just as I thought of that, she jumped down from the tree.

"Hey Mollie. Did you sleep in the tree last night?" Mollie just yawned and nodded her head.

"Are we going to go soon? If we want to get to Tanzer by tonight we might want to get going."

"Yeah, we can go right now," Mollie murmured.

Mollie lead us further into the forest. Asia was being carried by Tara, who was slouched over looking like she was going to crash.

"Hey, Tara, do you want me to carry Asia for you?" I offered her, trying to help.

"Yeah sure, thanks!" Asia climbed onto my back and we continued to walk. The sun was up higher in the sky and was shining brightly onto everything below it. The trees had sprinkles of water drops dripping off the leaves. Mollie was starting to go too fast, so I started to jog up along her side. She was staring down at her shoes. Her face was pale white, and she didn't look like she was okay.

"Mollie are you OK, you don't look too good?" She nodded her head even though it was clear she wasn't healthy right now. Tara jogged up to my side.

"Hey, what's going on!?" she asked while looking at Mollie.

"I think Mollie needs to take a break!" I said, but Mollie just shook her head no.

"Mollie!" Tara said with sympathy.

"OK! Why don't we all just have a small break," I offered.

Just off by about five feet, there were a bunch of big rocks piled on top of each other. I put Asia down on the ground so I could help Mollie over to the rocks.

"Thanks," Mollie said with a slight smile on her face.

"Yeah," I said with worry. It was probably just a cold anyways, but living outside most of the time, and having a cold can be dangerous. I sat down beside Mollie and got a water bottle out of my backpack. Mollie was breathing heavily and steadily. I got a another water bottle from my bag.

"Here." I held the water bottle out to her.

"No thanks."

"Drink it!" I said firmly. She saw that I was only trying to help, so she took the water bottle and took a sip.

"Better?" I asked.

Just as I said that, she fainted!