Arrow

Chapter Seven: Bait

We'd been walking for a good two hours as the sun reached the highest peak in the sky. We were making for perfect timing, something I hadn't expected. The heat had picked up as we had exited the highway, reaching a small more secluded piece of road. At first, there were a few houses on either side of the road, along with a few small convenient stores. As we continued, the houses became rarer, eventually leading to nothing but overrun grass paddocks on either side. Like the highways, cars were left strewn and rotten in the middle of the road, only in lesser few. I tried not to take too much notice of the blood splattered and piled on the road beneath our boots, I tried to ignore the sight of mangled bodies towards the edges of the road. I found myself wanting to shield Coby's eyes as he continuously stared towards the morbid left-overs. He would swallow hard and fiddle with his hands, something no boy of fourteen should have been able to see.

"Staring at it will only make you freak out more" I told Coby as we fell behind the group again

"It's hard not to stare at what once was a person" He spoke, his words sounding a whole lot more mature than they usually did.

I wondered if allowing him to stare at them would toughen his perception of reality up, or if it would send him into panic. I hoped to a degree it would make him realize the severity of how easily death could occur, just how terrifying it really was. I'd seen death take over people more times than I liked to admit.

I watching Coby closely, studying his expression as he continued to eye the partial remains of the human body scattered in the long grass beside the road. His nose would twitch, his lips tightening as the rotten smell passed us. I was so focused in on his reactions, that I hadn't noticed Jaxon now lingering beside Coby.

"Hey Coby" Jaxon roughly snapped him from his focused eyesight

"Hey Jaxon" Coby replied, his eyes turning to his new company

"You seemed to know what you were doing with that pocket knife yesterday" Jaxon spoke, his small talk easily noticeable as to the intention of distraction.

Before Coby could register what Jaxon was doing, he looked in my direction, his eyes telling me he wasn't satisfied with my attitude.

"I think you need something a little bigger though, with a bigger knife you could inflict more damage, a deeper cut, the less fight it would take to kill a creature" Jaxon continued as he held his shotgun with one hand and buried his other hand into the inside of his vest. I knew where he was going, and I didn't like it. The kid was fourteen. Yes, he needed to know how to fight, be he was still a kid. My brain flipped on itself, confused.

One minute I wanted Coby to know the full extent of the world, change to suit it, the next I wanted to shield him from the terrors involved. Being with this group was changing me, and I hated it. It went against everything I was trying to teach myself about the grim reality.

"Here" Jaxon retracted his hand to reveal a larger knife, a hunting knife with a wide pointed blade "I have two of them, you can have this one" He offered as Coby's lips parted, surprised and honoured at the same time

"Just be sure to hold it right, you don't want to slice your own hand open while taking a jab at a creature" He began to instruct as Coby took the weapon from him carefully "Keep it somewhere easily accessible, but not somewhere that it can stab you when you bend over or jump a curb" He lightly laughed as Coby joined him

I rolled my eyes and picked my pace up, uninterested in hearing anymore of the advice Jaxon was giving the kid. It shouldn't have bothered me, but for reasons unknown, it did.

"Hey you" Keira spoke as she fell behind her friends a few steps to walk beside me

"Hey" I dryly greeted