Found

Part Two: Worth Everything

Chapter

Five

The First Wave.

I open my eyes and flinch at the bright light of the day. We're somewhere in the woods. I see trees and bright green leaves all around. I blink a few times to clear my eyes of the glare. I'm lying on the ground, grass in my hair. Josh is across from me in the same state that I was in.

"Josh wake up." I whisper. I look around, staying sprawled on the ground, hands tied behind me. I move only my head. I see more trees and a creek. The man that was driving the truck starts walking up behind me.

"Finally awake I see." He says, he is carrying something that I can see out of the corner of my eye. The grass is crunching underneath his feet. I breathe heavily, afraid of the pain he is going to cause me. Josh still isn't waking up, the man probably dosed him with a higher dose of the anesthetic than me, probably so he couldn't defend me against him, even though I don't need his help to defend myself. I do like him by my side in a fight though. The man pulls back the thing in his hand and strikes me on the back. I scream in pain, and that wakes Josh up. The sting from the open and raw skin on my back from whatever he just whipped me with, spreads throughout my body like a virus that I didn't see coming.

"Raven?! Are you okay?!" Josh asks me, surprised. I shake my head, scrunching my face out of pain. I tighten my jaw line bracing myself for the next blow.

He strikes me again. I grunt in pain. Josh struggles against his restraints, wishing his hardest to beat up the guy whipping me. Again. I want to scream at the top of my lungs for someone to help us, even though I know that no one will come. Josh continues to struggle against his restraints, I look at him straight in the eye and he seems to receive the message, he stops struggling and lays there, wishing through his eyes that he could get free to help me.

He strikes me five more times, to make a total of eight.

"Every time you struggle or try to escape your girlfriend here gets eight strikes, if you even try to hurt or punch me, she gets ten, you get that?" He almost yells at Josh. And I'm betting it's the same for me. Josh shakes his head up and down in agreement. The man forces Josh and me up off the ground, I tighten my jaw to keep a scream in my mouth. The man keeps us walking.

++++

The man keeps shoving Josh and me forward. At dusk, we reach a sort of camp that I didn't even realize was out here. He walks us to a tent that seems to be a prison camp sort of tent. He shoves us down on to a bed and give Josh and me a change of clothes.

"Put these on, I'll be back in the morning, behave yourselves. Remember either one of you acts up and your companion gets eight or ten strikes. Here are some cloths and warm water to wash up. You're lucky I'm giving you these things, other prisoners don't get this kind of treatment." He says.

"Why are we getting this treatment, what is so special about us?" Josh asks.

"I'm not sure, those are my orders and I am just supposed to follow them, no questions asked." He answers and walks off. We are still in chains but they are long enough to work around.

Josh helps me take of my shirt so he can look at my wounds. I pull my hair around my shoulder so Josh can see the wounds more clearly. He gets a cloth wet with some water and starts to clean the dirt and dried blood off the raw skin. It stings a little bit but it's nothing I can't handle. After all I, have been shot twice. It definitely doesn't hurt more than a bullet does. He kisses my back lightly as he cleans the wounds, which takes my mind off all the pain.

"That should be good for now." He uses almost the last of the cloth to wrap the wounds so that the piece of cloth that he put on them that has some sort of suave on it stays on them. After I change and put the new shirt on carefully over the wrap, I grab a piece of cloth and ask Josh to take his shirt off, I dip the cloth into the warm water and start to wash his back, kissing him on the neck lightly as I do.

Josh changes his pants but leaves his shirt off. He sits back down on the bed and puts his arm around me. I lean into him and breathe him in. He smells as he always does, like lemon grass and spice. That smell always calms me. I put my head on Josh's shoulder and he puts his head on top of mine. We stay like that for a while, it's moments like these between the two of us that I wish time would stay still for the rest of my life so I could stay in this moment forever.

"I love you." I whisper.

"I love you too." Josh whispers back.

No matter what happens to the two of us, we stick together, and we make it through together. Always.

I wake up with Josh's arm around my waist, him laying behind me. I can feel his nice warm breath on the back of my neck. I sit up careful not to wake him. My back stings. Worse than it did before I went to bed. I clench my jaw in pain.

"Raven? You okay?" Josh asks in a soft voice.

"Is my back supposed to hurt more than it did?" I ask with a concerned tone in my voice.

"I don't think so; can I take a look at it?"

"Sure." I take off my shirt and sit down on the edge of the bed with my back facing Josh. He starts to unwrap the wound. I can feel his gentle hands taking off the bandages that rest over the wounds. He's silent for a little bit which makes me nervous.

"Joshua, what's a matter? Whatever it is, I can handle it."

"When he whipped you, did you see what exactly he did it with?" He asks.

"I saw that it was some sort of black thing, and that's pretty much all I could see."

"Well whatever it was, must have had some sort of poison on it, because you have a black vein running from the wound, and I'm guessing that when it reaches your heart...." He trails off. But he doesn't need to finish the sentence for me to know what he is going to say. If the black vein reaches my heart, I die.

"There has to be some sort of antidote, something to treat it." I almost shout.

"If I knew what the poison was, I could identify an antidote. But I can't identify what the poison is without doing a biopsy or getting my hands on the thing he whipped you with. If I try to get my hands on the thing he whipped you with, he'll just hurt you again." Josh says all concerned. I turn around and kiss him lightly. He presses me to him and I am happy to feel his embrace. I kiss him harder and we lay down still kissing. I feel his cool fingers glide across my bare skin. Every place that I feel his touch, I feel small tingles going up my spine. I want every moment with Josh to be the best moments of my clearly shortened life. I want them to be amazing so that even if I die, Josh will remember them, and keep my spirit alive.

All I can think about is how much I love him, and how much I will miss him if I die.