We approached the front of the farmhouse where I unlocked the front gate and we both walked in. The sun was shining down on us, we had to be gone for a good three hours or so, maybe even more.
“Hey guys!” Fred yelled out at us from on top of the house. “Do you like the new outlook? I figured since we have a scope on this rifle we might as well put it to use while also giving a comfy spot to sit down on.” He had a white plastic chair posted on top of the flat roof, the rifle laying down on his lap. He looked at both of our expressions, we weren’t really in the mood to comment on his new outpost. “You guys ok? Did something happen?”
“Come down and we’ll tell all of you.” Jesse said to him as we approached the front door.
His face turned to curiosity to worry in a flick of a switch. He quickly climbed down from the roof and landed right behind us as we turned the knob of the door.
We opened up and saw Alice taking a nap on the couch, Nancy was in the kitchen cooking up dinner, and William was helping her out.
Nancy darted her eyes and turned around to face us. “Hey you’re both back.” She greeted us. “Getting hungry? I’m makin some delicious-”
“We all need to have a talk.” I interrupted her.
“Oh ok.” She tossed some baked slices of potato up in the air and then back down. “This is almost finished, let me just sizzle it a bit more ok?”
“What’s going on?” William asked us.
“That’s what I like to know too.” Fred butted in.
“Sit at the couch and wake Alice up as well. Everyone needs to hear this.” I commanded.
Fred and William both looked at each other confused but complied in the end. They walked up to the couch and lightly tapped Alice on her leg.
Her eyes slowly opened and she yawned, stretching her arms out as she did. “Where’s Lee?” She asked Fred as it was the first person that she saw.
“Over there.” He pointed towards me.
“You’re home!” She jumped off the couch ecstatic. She hugged me but that joy was short lived as her lively face gleaned up towards mine. She read the situation, something serious was going on. “What happened?”
“Sit down and I’ll explain.” I told her. “We’re going to need a huge change of operations around here.”
“Why? Is someone out to get us?”
I didn’t respond to her and only motioned towards the couch.
The fear built up in her eyes as she shimmied over and sat right down in the middle of the couch.
“Ok ok the potatoes are done.” Nancy hurried over. “What’s going on?”
Everyone was huddled around the couch and were awaiting for what we had to announce.
I looked over at Jesse and nodded at her to signal that she could start. She took a deep breath and started spouting away.
“During our scavenge this morning. We were ambushed and attacked by a huge group of thugs.” She said,
“Were both of you hurt?” Alice was the first to ask.
“I don’t know about Lee but I was slashed by a passing bullet on my wrist.” She showed it to them.
Nancy gasped and walked over to inspect her wound. “My god we’ll get you bandaged up, did you bleed a lot?”
“No, but it stung quite a bit.”
“We need to make sure it didn’t nick a vein or something vital, or before it gets infected, we’ll get that patched up.”
They both walked into the restroom where Nancy pulled out the medkit and sat Jesse down on the toilet to heal it. Leaving me up front and the speaker.
“There were about twenty of them I think. From the brief glimpse I got from running away, it was safe to say it was around there.” I continued from where Jesse left off. “During our escape me and Jesse got split up from each other and we had to fend for ourselves against a small group of them. During my battle I lost my gun and was forced to climb a rooftop to escape them. I was surrounded by all of them and they were all going to chase after me and kill me. Thankfully, Jesse came and saved my life. She shot at them and killed them all. Except for one.”
I took a moment to pause and made sure no one had any confusion on what I’ve said. The silence was the cue for me to keep going.
“He said his name was Henry Murk, and he wanted to kill me. He explained that my brother killed both of his sons in an alley.”
“Eric did that?” Alice questioned.
“Remember that night where me and him came back home and we were both bloody?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, it’s coming back to bite us in the ass. Not to make this too long, but back when the first day of the fighting school ended, I got picked up by my brother and we walked home in the dark. We ran into some people wanting to kill whoever was in sight, but Eric killed them both. Apparently those two were that man’s son. He used the kill history to figure that out and went out to hunt him down. As you guys may know, Eric was killed by Runasi Haruhiko. He figured that out since I was in the news, getting the first hit on him.”
“What?” Alice stood up from the couch.
Wait, I just realized I never told her that. I haven’t even told Nancy or William about it. Even when I told them what happened to me and Alice, I didn’t spill a single lick to them. The only people who know are Fred and Jesse. The thing is, I never wanted to have that conversation with her, but now I have no choice.
“You fought Runasi Haruhiko?” She came up to me. “Why didn’t you tell me!?” She pushed me back. “You just said that you tried to stop Eric but couldn’t, why the fuck did you join him!?”
“Alice, you need to understand that I tried my best. When I got there he was already in the waiting area, so I had to sign in to get to him. When I tried to talk him out of it the deadline to back out was up and I was forced into fighting him. I saw Eric die right in front of my eyes.”
“You couldn’t just talk to him from outside!? Why’d you even go in there!? Were you even thinking!?”
“There’s no way of approaching that fence unless you get shot. I had to do it to try and stop him, I risked everything to stop him. No matter how hard I tried he just wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So you went and fought him. You got the first hit on him, and you didn’t tell me! How did you not die in the first place!?”
“I didn’t want to have this conversation with you, because I knew you would freak out like you’re doing right now. In hindsight I shouldn’t have waited so long, but I was scared to.”
“So you didn’t tell your only family for two months!?”
“Yes and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t help anything Lee!”
“I know that, it doesn’t fix anything but it doesn’t hurt to-”
“That doesn’t matter, I’d rather you told me earlier.”
“Better now than later.”
“God! Holy shit this is a lot to take in.”
“I know, but if we don’t get through this quickly enough we’ll be in a lot more trouble.”
Alice was boiling with anger and confusion, but she sucked it all up in that moment to let me finish. She didn’t go back to sit down, but stood over facing a wall and rubbing her head.
“You didn’t tell me that either.” William said. “I should’ve known, we all should’ve known.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think that you guys would look at me the same.”
“What do you mean? Of course that’s going to change things, but that doesn’t affect how I look at you. Just, you need to communicate that earlier than now. It would’ve helped to know. I just can’t believe someone as young as you were able to accomplish that.”
William looked over at Nancy who was still patching up Jesse’s wound. “Alice said everything I wanted to. I still have more, don’t get me wrong. Just, did Fred and Jesse know as well? They barely reacted when you announced it.”
“Yeah.” Fred spoke up. “I saw the news story as it came out the day it happened. I couldn’t believe someone like you could’ve done that, it boggled my mind. But at the same time I was glad for him, it took the weight of my father begging me to fight him myself away.”
“I heard about the day it happened too.” Jesse said. “Like countless people I was shocked, and thought he wouldn’t have come back alive. But, he came walking through that door and surprised all of us.”
“Both of you knew?” Alice turned around. “Yet still didn’t bring it up?”
“To be honest I thought everyone already knew.” Fred said.
“Me too.” Jesse added on. “That’s why we never brought it up.”
Alice gritted her teeth and turned back to face the wall.
“Whatever questions you have you need to save it for later, right now we have a problem to deal with.” I continued. “Me and him were both on the rooftop as Jesse kept fighting down below, he went on this huge rant. This is why I even know any of this in the first place. Anyways, he saw that I was related to Eric and formed a bunch of Runasi supporters to come and hunt me down. Apparently they’ve been doing this for the past month, and this is the first time we’ve run into him. Even though we were both on the rooftop, I was able to slide down using a pipe alongside the building. I met up with Jesse and we ran, but he said something that startled me. I may be too anxious about it, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. He screamed from the rooftops that he’ll track me down and kill me, wherever I may be hiding.”
“So I’m guessing we have to reinforce this place.” Fred said.
“Exactly right.” I confirmed. “I’ve been thinking about how to do it, and I’ve got a plan. First, we’ll have to have an overnight watch rotation. Make sure no one sneaks up on us in the dead of night. Have a first watch, second watch, and third watch.”
“How will we decide those roles?” William asked.
“That’s something someone will have to volunteer for, or just choose. I’d say I’m willing to do one of those shifts, I’m pretty sure you feel the same way Fred.”
Fred nodded.
“I’d help.” Jesse volunteered. “I’ve already done some lookout at night when I was living by myself.”
“I’ll even take a shift.” William butted in.
“Great. But we’ll need to do more than that.” I said. “I was thinking about setting up traps around this place. Like some bear traps or something that alerts us, like how sometimes people take loose cans and set them up on tripwires so they fall to the ground, something like that.”
“I’m pretty sure we can make that happen.” Fred said. “Ooo, what if we made pit traps? Like we dig a hole and cover it up to blend it in with the environment.”
“That’ll work.” William said. “We can make some wooden spikes to put at the bottom with some of the wood we have in the shed.”
“All of that is great.” I complimented both of them. “I would actually like to make a new rule. Don’t leave this house unless it is necessary to. We don’t want anyone to catch a glimpse of us and start firing at you defenseless.”
“I’m glad you’re taking these precautions and everything. But what if he never finds us.” Jesse spoke up.
“That’s why this’ll only last a month or two. I’m making sure he never finds us in that allotted time, and if he does we’ll just kill him. I doubt he’ll recuperate after we killed all of his men. Who’s even going to believe him that I’m in this town after all, he has no proof. It’s all just in case. We’ve taken too many risks already and I’m not going to let this house be overrun by the likes of him! This is the only place where I’ve even enjoyed staying and I’m not giving it up easily. And if he thinks he can just walk in and kill us like that! Nuh uh, not gonna happen.”
“I agree wholeheartedly.” Fred stood up. “When do we start?”
“Anytime you want. I highly doubt he’ll attack soon, but we should quickly get this place set up. We shouldn’t waste time.”
“So you’re saying we should start now.”
“I mean, if everyone is in agreement then yeah.”
I looked around and made sure to confirm with everyone. All of them nodded and they all looked like they were filled with courage.
“That settles it. We can start by digging holes, but I wouldn’t be upset if any one of you wants to rest before going to work.” I said.
“Where’s the shovel?” Fred asked.
“In the shed.”
“I can start digging some holes and we can put the spears in them tomorrow.”
“It’ll take more than a day.” William said. “Making those spears as sharp as we want them will take hours of carving.”
“Whatever it’ll take.” Fred said. “I’m not letting this house fall. I’ve made it my duty to defend this place tooth and nail. I want us to finally settle down in peace and not worry about lunatics coming in and ruining everything.”
“But we all don’t get what we want.” I say as I stretch out. “But we can make the best out of what we got.”
“Exactly.” Fred grabbed my hand. “Glad we can agree on something.
“Me too.” I shook his hand.
“I’ll get started now.” Fred left the room.
“Let me help.” William followed, before he caught up to him he leaned up to my ear and whispered. “Once I’m done with this I have many questions for you.” He then left the house.
“Alice.” I turned to her. “I know you have so many questions.”
“I need to know.” Alice went on. “Did Eric even show any remorse? For what he did to dad?”
I hesitated before answering. “No.”
She sighed and turned around to face me. “Of course not. Why would I assume anything like that?”
I didn’t have anything more to say, only waited for what she had to ask.
“Why are you alive?”
“Huh?” I shook my head to make sure I heard that correctly. “What do you mean?”
“If you fought Runasi and lost, why didn’t he kill you?”
“I don’t even know myself. I even felt my body getting pummeled by him before my vision blacked out. I woke up in the alleyway and back home.”
“But why? Why not just kill you?”
“Look, I’ve been trying to figure that out myself, I have no idea why he just dumped my body in the middle of an alley. He obviously patched me up since my body wasn’t broken and battered. My only guess is that he wants to fight me again.”
“Then why throw you out into the wild for you to get potentially killed?”
“I’m pretty sure that he has eyes on me. The day after we stayed over for the first time in the sewer, I went to go to the kill history to search for who killed mom and dad. The weird thing is, there was no name for them, it just said they died with no killer listed. I was caught off guard by some psycho who put a gun to the back of my head. He went on this spiel about how Runasi was this hero who weeded out the weak, Henry said the same thing. But next thing I knew was that a sniper had taken him out right in front of me. I looked around but I couldn’t see anyone, I even called out and no one answered me. Either he has a squad of people looking after me or it was someone else.”
“So he just has a bunch of people looking out for you just in case you got in a situation where you almost died? Then what about what happened today!? Why would he even risk you dying?”
“I don’t know, he has something planned in mind that I just can’t think of right now.”
“If he wanted to fight you, why not just kidnap you and train you or something? He obviously wanted you to get better, otherwise he would’ve just killed you.”
“Good point. But it’s not something I’m worrying about right now, I can’t rely on him to come in and fix all of my problems. That’s something he’ll think of too.”
“You know what, just give me time to think I can’t even right now.” Alice shoved right past me and into her room where she slammed the door.
“Don’t worry Lee.” Nancy came to console me. “Once the initial shock wears off she’ll be back to normal.”
I looked at her room and didn’t respond to what Nancy said.
It’s not about wanting her to return to normal, I want her to grow. She’s a sharpshooter and one bright girl. She’s always been that way, reading those books in the corner. Sometimes I would hear her giggling at night back in the apartment. It’s not that I never want her to return to that, but she can’t always stay the same. It’s something I needed to realize sooner than now. Whether I like it or not, she’s going to become a crazy train going off the rails that I can’t control.
In the end, all I need for her to do is live on. Because if Runasi wants to fight me, I don’t think I have much more time on this earth. Either if he wants to fight me now or later, I’ve been dragged into a fight that I cannot win.94Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgqRG3V9AkN
