Irradiated

Chapter 3: Murderer

It didn't take too long for Angeli to wake up again, but when she did, I suddenly felt guilty. I had good reason, too. Good idea getting pissed off and leaving her behind, Mathias.

What she did next was something I didn't expect.

"Ugh," She moaned. I knew it must have hurt her with how I was treating the hit with such force. She looked around the tent for a while until she finally spotted me.

"You came back?" She asked, her expression timid and slightly shocked. I nodded slowly.

The last thing I did before she got hit was leave, but I had come back. After all, what kind of a promise would it have been if I wasn't there to protect her? If Karla had killed her, what good would be left in the world?

She tried lifting herself off the ground to get into a sitting position, but she wasn't able to. I pushed her back onto the ground again and said, "Don't try to push yourself to do things. You'll need to rest first." She did what I told her to do and didn't protest. I lay down after a while, tired from the events of the day. Only at a distance, did I lie down. If I was too close, it would have been awkward - more awkward than it already was.

"How long have I been here?" She asked. I thought for a while before answering. "I think it's only been an hour or something like that." She remained silent after that. I sat up and looked at her, while she stared at the "ceiling."

"Sorry for running out on you like that," I started to say. She had her eyes closed as I continued. "If I hadn't, maybe you wouldn't have gotten hurt." She didn't answer.

Until a long moment of silence, she spoke. "Were you really going to kill her if she hurt me?" I was shocked and didn't know how to answer. Would I have really killed her? I wasn't sure.

"I-I don't know. I was just really angry. That's why I ran away... I didn't want to hurt anybody." Angeli looked over at me and gave me a worried look. I returned the look with an anguish-filled stare. She tried sitting up again, and this time, she was able to stay up. I was guessing her head had stopped hurting slightly.

"Thanks," She whispered. I was questioning why she was thanking me, but I never asked.

I smiled slightly and gave her a, "No problem."

With all that had happened, I forgot about the things Angeli and I had gone out to hunt for. The Dodgers probably already took care of that, but I was still hungry. She was hungry too, by the way her stomach kept growling.

"Hey, I'll be back. I'm gonna go find us something to eat." She nodded and let me leave. I wasn't going to leave her there without some way of knowing if Karla would come back, so I set up a quick trap in front of the tent. If anyone tried to step towards the entrance, they would set off a small clinging noise from a bell I carried with me for those occasions.

I went into the storage tent and quickly spotted some of the food we had caught. It looked like the Dodgers really had taken some of the food. I took two rabbits and dashed back to Angeli before anyone could see me. To my advantage, no one had gotten in the way. So when I finished taking off the trap, I came in calmly.

"Any trouble?" She asked. I shook my head and handed her one of the rabbits. We ate in awkward silence that evening and nothing out of the ordinary happened. I kept looking up at her nervously and my heart ached at the slightly purple bruise on her cheek.

Silent night sounds invaded my senses while I sat outside the tent entrance. The day had gone by quickly and I was tired out by the time we had finished eating. I said my goodnights and came out of the tent to let her sleep. Her bruise was getting better, turning a lighter purple. My mind kept whirring rapidly while I thought about my brother. The last things he said to me were devastating, almost like my whole life had been a lie. I couldn't hold back the sudden change in the atmosphere, as if it were starting to suck me in.