Beth's lung burned from too much running, and she doubled over in pain with every breath. Wincing, she rested her hands on her knees, breathing out in heavy gasps. The forest had thickened around her, and nothing besides the tall trees were in sight. There was no sign of the shoreline, so she'd at least made it a decent distance from the ship.
'What now?' She thought, looking around her for a clear answer.
A branch snapped over on her right, and she gasped aloud as she swung around to face it. In her haste, she tripped over her ankles and landed straight onto her rear. Beth was too concerned with what was rustling the nearby bushes to really register that her backside had probably landed on a patch of rocks or a fallen branch.
She jumped when a low growl emanated from within the leaves. So, it was definitely an animal. By the sound of it, a very angry, very hungry animal…
Her eyes widened as the tiger-like animal emerged from its hiding place, stepping out into the open straight towards Beth. It looked similar to a feline, but instead of stripes the fur was a solid dark brown. It had fangs way larger than any tiger she'd ever seen as a pet of Shalulia. Baring those fangs at her, it continued to growl.
Slowly crab walking backwards, using her elbows and feet to drag herself, she tried keeping the distance between her and the giant tiger that was stalking closer and closer to her face.
"Ok…ok…calm down…" She whispered aloud in an effort to slow her racing heart rate. The organ beat a steady, fast-paced rhythm against her chest, to the point where it physically hurt. A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead.
Something behind it caught the tiger's attention, and he paused in his advance towards her. Apparently finding it unimportant, it focused its attention back onto her. Her back hit against something, a tree by the feel of the rough surface, and she whimpered, knowing that the tiger had her effectively pinned. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. She didn't have a weapon, much less the knowledge to know how to use one…
The tiger brought it's open mouth closer to her face, only a few inches away, and Beth turned her face away with closed eyes. It gave a loud roar, deafening her hearing and starting a shaking fit through her small body.
'I'm gonna die…' She thought, smelling the rotten, meaty breath of the animal as it breathed in her face. It was awful, but she was much too stressed to want to puke right then and there.
Just then, Beth heard a very loud whistle. Still in partial shock, Beth refused to open her eyes until she was absolutely sure she was out of danger. The heated breath of the tiger stopped against her face, and she assumed it had turned to look at the person who made the noise.
The tiger roared again, and a strange whirring sound started. Feet pounded and the tiger's paws landed on branches or leaves strewn about the forest floor. A hot liquid dripped against her face and she instinctively pressed herself closer against the tree behind her. She didn't want to know what was going on, even though she had a pretty good idea.
The tiger gave a cry of pain, followed by a sickening splattering sound, before something heavy dropped to the ground.
"Are you wounded?" The man, who she now recognized as Killer, asked. Hesitantly, she opened one eye, immediately taking in the massive tiger laying still on the ground a few feet away. There was blood covering the ground, pooling around the body of the animal.
"I-I'm…fine." She shakily replied, struggling to get to her feet. Killer held out a hand and she took it gratefully. Beth released a large breath, only realizing then that she'd been holding it. Rubbing at her face, strictly because it felt comforting to her at that moment, she wiped away the tears that had streaked down her cheeks. She hated how weak she must seem, even thought she had absolutely no strength at all, as evident by her run-in with the animal now lying dead.
Killer put away his weapons, which Beth realized must have made the strange sound she heard before. They looked like ordinary curved swords, but who knew what they really did. Suddenly, Beth's wrist was caught in his grip and he tugged her towards where he was heading.
"We're going back to the ship." And then Beth remembered why she'd been running in the first place. Yanking her hand away, she stepped back.
"No!" Killer stopped, but made no move to grab her again. He only looked at her from behind his mask. Swallowing, Beth decided that she'd been compliant for too long. Her inner child needed to come out and rant, and rant she did.
"I asked Kid to take off my bomb collar so I didn't have to be a slave anymore, but everyday I do almost the same things as before! I know I agreed to do anything when I asked him to do it, but it doesn't feel like I was ever freed in the first place!" Tears started in her eyes again, but she could care less at the moment. "I don't know why I thought asking help from you guys would be a good idea. You've done nothing but treat me like...like a slave! I'm not a slave! I'm a human being!
"No one talks to me, you just look at me and walk away. I have nothing, no one. And then I hear you guys talking about destroying an island just because you want to! You're bad people, killers!"
She sniffed, wiping some of the moisture off of her cheeks. "So if all of that's true," She glanced up at Killer, who still hadn't moved. "If it's true why is it that only half of me wants to leave? Why do I want to try to be friends with you guys? It's stupid!"
Beth turned away, walking over to a fallen log and sat on it, shoulders shaking as she rode out the burst of emotion that had overtaken her. She'd been the nice daughter for too long, the obedient slave for too long, the silent maid for too long.
It was about time she took a little control of her life.
Killer had stayed silent throughout her rant. "Do you know why there's pirates?" She frowned in her confusion, sniffing gently. Why was he asking her that?
"What do you mean?" He sighed before taking a seat on a log nearby.
"What do you think of the World Government?" He asked suddenly, and she shook her head.
"They're the most powerful force in the world. They bring about peace and order-"
"The World Government is corrupt. They kill people because they're in the way, coverup things that make them appear as evil." He pointed towards her neck, where the bomb collar used to sit. "They're the ones that knew about the human auctions but never did anything about it. They allow it to happen because it makes money."
She idly touched the spot where the ring used to sit, her soft skin now replacing the cold metal.
"The World Government thinks it can rule the world with absolute obedience, but pirates don't play by the rules. We live life how we want, and that means rebelling against the World Government."
There was one thing he said that reverberated through her. We live life how we want. Her entire life she'd been restricted when it came to living how she wanted. One master or another had told her how she was supposed to act, say, think, and look.
"They…know about the auctions?" She asked quietly, eyes never leaving her feet.
"Yeah. I wouldn't put it past them to help keep them in business."
Beth stayed silent for a long time. Killer apparently knew that she wasn't going back to the ship without processing everything herself, so he stayed seated and didn't make any move to bring her back. Yet. Who knew how long his patience would last?
"Does the…World Government control orphanages? Like, if a child is orphaned and-"
"That's the island's job." She nodded.
"But…the World Government is the bad one?" Killer sighed.
"Believe what you want. That's your choice."
Beth hadn't ever heard Killer talk so much, and it surprised her that he was as patient as he was. She gave a small smile, if a little humorless. "I guess nobody's really the good guy in this world, huh? Saints don't exist?"
Killer just shrugged. It seemed he'd said all he needed to say, and once again reverted back to his usual silence. Beth sighed.
"Kid's gonna be really mad at me, right?" He shrugged again and she laughed a little. "Is that your answer for everything?"
Predictably, he shrugged, then seemed to realize he did, and immediately crossed his arms. She wished she could see his face, to know what he was thinking. He was so aloof, but he didn't flaunt it about like he was better. He was…just quiet.
"We should go." He said, and she nodded slowly.
"I'm gonna start living life how I want." She declared, and they both stood. When he turned towards the direction of the ship, he inadvertently showed her his back. She gasped, noticing the large rip in the fabric, as well as the deep gash slashed across the skin.
"Oh my god, are you alright?" She went to touch him but he shied away fro her.
"I'm fine." He said gruffly, in a rough manner that Beth took as anger. Beth hadn't seen him angry before, and she didn't want to get on his bad side right after he showed her a new way of thinking about the world. She dropped her hand to her side and followed behind him, but she still worried about it getting infected.
The sky was darker than she'd realized. They must have been talking for an hour at least. They walked through the forest, which now seemed much darker than when she had run through it.
Beth thought over everything that Killer had said, wondering how she could have been so blind about her entire life before. As far as she was concerned, she was a grain of sand. Blown around wherever the wind may decide to take her.
She returned to the ship with a new determination to take back what she wanted to do with her life. Bitterly, she realized that meant going back to the very thing that had put her into her life of misery in the first place. She had to find her father.
But first, she had to deal with a very unhappy redhead.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
