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note: make sure you have read chapter twenty eight first
Marisa was unable to keep still, rocking back and forth. "He should be back by now. What if something got him?"
"Well, he's not coming back until he finds Orion. That much I can say," Jayed said. He might not have known the two very well, but anyone could tell how close they were. He wouldn't be surprised if Zeke died for him.
Nico didn't stop crying. "And Talon? What about her?" Talon couldn't be dead too. He just lost his best friend and his sister in less than one week. Talon was all that he had left. She was supposed to help him get by. Give him hope. Without her, hope didn't exist anymore.
The five sat in an uncomfortable tension, the more things they said, the more upset everyone got. The more Marisa shook. The more tears fall down Nico's face. The less they thought that Orion, Talon and Zeke were actually going to come back.
It wasn't until they saw a limping figure hoping towards them that they gained optimism.
"T-Talon?" Nico squinted, and once the figure got closer, his face beamed in excitement. "Talon! You're safe!"
The girl was struggling to run, but when she collapsed into the boat, she pulled him close to her and squeezed. "Oh, Neeks, I was so worried about you!" She kissed him all over the face, and he kissed her back on the cheek. He soured, however, when he saw how red her face was.
"Why were you crying? Are you okay?!"
"What? Oh! Yes, Nico, I'm just fine," she said. "I-It was Orion. I thought he had died..."
A dark cloud of realization moved over Nico's head. He had almost forgotten. "Talon, something happened to Ty," He said quietly. Her eyes widened. Nico's hands quickly started shaking again, his voice trembling. "We were fighting a monster and they were about to kill it when it took its claw and stabbed them and-" Nico stopped. Talon, without saying anything, pulled him in for another hug, not letting him go as he cried.
"Wait," Jayed started. "Talon, you said you thought Orion was dead. What happened? Where is he?"
"And where is Zeke?" Marisa demanded, voice quivering.
"Zeke's fine. He has Orion," she answered. "He's carrying him back to the boat, he just told me to go ahead so that he could clean Orion up before he bled too much more."
"Bled too much?" Hedi asked nervously.
"He was attacked," Talon explained. "The monster attacked him from the legs, and he dropped me. I managed to light a fire to kill the monster, but by that time, the monster already did lot of damage." She choked. "His eyes were closed and he wasn't breathing, so I thought he had... that he had died. B-But he woke up, so he's okay."
Hedi let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the heavens," he said.
It wasn't until maybe two minutes after that that the last two people they were looking for came to the shore. The one running had a long streak of blood across his forehead, his hair sticking up on its own. He also wasn't wearing his shirt, and his jeans had turned into shorts, the bottoms of them jagged and rough.
When they saw who he was carrying, they understood everything Talon was telling them earlier.
"Go!" He ordered, setting Orion into the boat. Orion was silently groaning in pain, Zeke's shirt tied around his heavily bleeding arm. He looked bad. Real bad.
"Oh, Orion..." Marisa said in disbelief. She was too shocked to be relieved by their arrival.
"I'm not sure he's 'okay,' Talon," Hedi said skeptically. Talon bit her lip and went back to holding Nico, trying not to look at the bleeding wounds all over the ginger's body.
"I said go!" Zeke yelled. He held Orion to his chest, cupping his head with one hand and holding his body with the other. Orion grabbed onto his arm as he panted furiously. Zeke started to whisper to Orion, his voice breaking. "You can't die on me, Rion. Not after everything that happened, not after you already died once."
I'm not going to die, Orion mouthed. Lany wanted to agree with Orion, but they were going out into the middle of nowhere, and it was unlikely for anyone to survive, and having wounds like that didn't help his chances.
Marisa jumped out of the boat, and before Lany could ask what she was doing, she got behind it and started pushing. "Hold on, guys!" Jayed and Hedi grabbed hold of both the wood behind them and each other's hands, Talon pulled Nico even closer to her, shielding him, Lany put his arm around Hedi's shoulder, Zeke held Orion, praying to god that he held on too, and Marisa held on to the hope that the boat wouldn't break as soon as it hit the water.
And it didn't.
She smiled as she ran across the sea sand, giving the boat all of her strength. Once it floated by itself, Lany, Hedi and Jayed helped pull her in, and they started to paddle.
Hedi, Lany, Jayed, Marisa, Nico, Talon, Zeke and Orion were very different people, but they all felt the strange feeling of mixed emotions on board that boat. The feeling was neither happy nor sad, angry nor relieved. It was a combination of all of those. Because even though they were on the way to safety, they weren't safe. Even though a lot of them survived the battle, a lot didn't. And even though they knew what they were leaving, they hadn't the faintest idea where they were going.
