9. CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
SASHA
“ W e’ve been walking for two hours, Zeke.” It was eleven now and the heat and humidity had risen to unbearable levels. “Can we stop please?”
“Sure, if you want to be found.”
“Does everything have to be so difficult with you?” I groaned, feeling the muscles in my body ache. Everywhere. “I can’t feel my legs and I’m exhausted.”
Zeke was ahead of me now. He glanced at his watch and blew out air from his mouth. “I’ll give you ten minutes, but then we have to leave.”
“Thank god,” I sobbed and fell onto a boulder big enough to hold me. It was hard on my ass but I needed a respite. Sweat glistened on my body and I knew I made the right choice wearing a black t-shirt. If I had gone the other way and chosen white, then there’d be stains under my arms and breasts.
“Nine minutes.”
Zeke was so damn bossy and not to mention mean. He’d been a prick most of the time since I met him but never like this. “Why are you so cruel to me?”
Again, he saved our asses, Sash.
“Trying to save our asses here, Sasha.”
Jesus, he read my mind again. “My ass is worth saving. I feel like I barely know yours.”
This was an attempt to get him to talk about himself so I could get to know him. But it failed. Zeke just chuckled.
We continued for a couple of hours, mostly in silence. My legs felt heavy like they had weights attached to my thighs. I was desperately in need of water. Between feeling the air gust in my mouth to throwing up after landing, I was drier than an Australian summer. There was no water in sight. There were trees on top of more trees and even though the sun barely peeked through, the humidity was too high.
My wrist was still sore and throbbed. All I wanted was an x-ray and some Advil, maybe something even stronger.
“Okay, let’s take a break.”
I’d never heard such sweeter words. “Thank fuck.” I sighed. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Pick a tree, any tree.” Zeke circled his arms around the two of us. “There’s like a thousand to choose from.”
“You’re not gonna watch me, are you?”
“I might be an asshole sometimes but I’m not a pervert.”
He might not be but I was starting to become one.
I found the perfect place that was still close to Zeke but hidden behind some ample greenery so that he couldn’t see me. Hearing me on the other hand was a different story.
I looked around me to make sure that no one else was here. Ridiculous in the middle of nowhere but I was like a dog making sure there was no prey.
“Watch out for snakes,” Zeke yelled.
I hadn’t even managed to get a little stream out and I panicked. “Snakes! Where?” A subtle laugh came out from behind the trees in Zeke’s direction. “You asshole. Why do you have to joke like that?”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Well, that lit a fire up my ass.
My legs shook the moment I found a safe spot to rest in after I relieved myself. The large leaves I found were particularly useful at a time like this. Zeke dropped the backpack and knelt in front of me after I hissed in pain. He unraveled his shirt and inspected my wrist, turning it around.
“I don’t think it’s broken.” He pressed on the spot on the right side of my hand which hurt like hell. “But it’s sprained by the look of it. Gotta put some ice on it the first chance we get. You’ll need some anti-inflammatory meds as well.”
“That’s great.” I sighed. “When you find some, let me know.”
“I’m sorry, Sasha.” Zeke patted my thigh and then straightened up again. “This isn’t how your first skydiving experience should have gone.”
That wasn’t the issue. The problem was the fact that we were potentially being hunted by some psychopaths.
Zeke’s hands were rougher than what I thought they’d be. I could tell he used them to work hard. They were opposite to that asswipe on the beach who just wanted me for sex.
“We gotta go now.”
My feet burned from walking so much on uneven ground. “Please, can we stay a little while longer?”
“We can’t, Sasha.”
As nice as the animals sounded in the dense forest, it was the fact that I was too tired and scared to keep going. I kept thinking about Nick and Mike. Where were they? Were they hurt like I was? Were they bloodied and filthy like Zeke?
Nick was my friend. I cared about him. I didn’t know what Zeke’s problem was or why he refused to acknowledge that Nick was alone with some guy who may have wanted us all dead.
I closed my eyes when Zeke re-wrapped his t-shirt around my wrist. The shut-eye would do me good though my adrenaline was maintaining a high gear since the plane ride.
Zeke tapped my shoulder and I was able to see him in front of me again. “Time to go.”
I wouldn’t have been able to get off the rock without assistance. He must have known this because he reached out his hand to offer help. I accepted with gratitude.
My legs jiggled as I took the first few steps until they felt stronger again. I probably had it in me to keep going for another hour or so, but after that, I needed some sleep.
There was so much crap going on in my head. The plane crashed, Nick and Mike were missing, and there was a slight chance that a knife had my name on it. And the name I was referring to was my birth name, Lunara Badem, and that made the whole thing even more terrifying
If they did come for me, then I knew I’d have to eventually tell Zeke. But that would mean he’d enter my world and I’d be putting him in danger along with any number of my new friends. More danger than they’d ever been in.
I choked up at the thought of anyone else getting hurt because of me. Alice, Reece’s wife, was almost killed because of who my family were. Her daughter could have been left without a mother and her new baby would have never existed. Baris was killed. I couldn’t go through that pain again.
I loved Nick as a friend and Zeke was… well he was Zeke, but he didn’t deserve to die because of who I was. If this was about me indeed.
“You okay, up ahead?” Zeke checked. He was a few steps behind me again to make sure I was in view and didn’t lag. He would constantly look over his shoulder whenever he walked in front.
“What did you do before you worked on the cruise?" I asked Zeke.
“What did you think I did?”
My shoulders slumped and then I straightened my body, stretching them out again. My lower back felt so tense that an hour-and-a-half massage sounded like the perfect way to spend an afternoon if I wasn’t lost in the woods. “I seriously don’t know.”
“I worked as an engineer and before that, I studied engineering.”
“Is that what you’ve always wanted to do?”
Zeke’s footsteps halted behind me. “Hold up,” he muttered. Then he scurried along the path to catch up to me. “I think there’s someone else here.” Zeke clasped his hand over my lips and I froze. I felt his strong body behind me as he held me in place. He was afraid I’d open my mouth and scream out something that would alert the killers to our location.
He released me a few seconds later, but I dared not move just in case the danger wasn’t over. This time instead of staying behind me, he walked beside me when I finally took some steps forward. The idea of being hunted like prey made me feel scared and vulnerable. I was trembling on the journey which was going to take only god knows how long.
“I don’t know if I can do this much longer,” I confessed.
“Yes, you can.” Zeke turned his neck to look at me. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, but I do know we’ll get through it.”
His words should have been encouraging but fear still rested in my heart. I stared at the path ahead but it was dark and bleak. I shouldn’t have felt this helpless. My freedom was being threatened and I had just enough of a taste of it that I didn’t want to lose it again.
Tears threatened to fall then I sobbed lightly hoping Zeke wouldn’t notice. If he did, he ignored me.
The sky darkened. It wasn’t night time but storm clouds hovered above us. It was 2:00 pm and somehow the air cooled down with a nice wind change. My t-shirt was soaked from sweat but it was only going to get worse.
“We’re going to get hit with rain soon,” Zeke said. “Possibly thunder.”
I’ve always been told to stay away from trees whenever there was an electric storm, but being stuck in a damn forest was going to make that difficult to defeat.
The sky rumbled ahead. Zeke took his backpack off and dumped it on the ground. He looked around and pointed to an area with heavy tree foliage ahead. “We’ll tent under that tree until the storm passes.” He unzipped the bag and pulled out our not-so-trustworthy parachute. “We’ll use this to shield us from the rain.”
I thought about the plane and how this initial parachute had failed to open. “Do you think someone sabotaged your parachute?”
He quickly glanced at me and nodded. “Yeah, that came to mind,” Zeke said before we went into the spot we hoped would be the safest. “Parachutes have failed before but it’s rare and, considering all the other shit that happened with it, I’d say someone wanted to fuck me over.”
I shuddered at the thought. A lot of planning would have gone into this.
The first few drops that came down were cool on my skin, a welcoming feeling since it had been exhaustingly hot for most of the morning.
Zeke sat down next to me and covered the both of us with the parachute. I didn’t know why he kept the damn thing at first, lugging it around the middle of the forest, but I was grateful for it now.
It felt warm again beneath the tent because every time we exhaled, our breaths mixed together. And yet, I shivered. “How am I this cold?”
“You’re probably still in shock.” He scooted over and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You’ll be fine once we get help.”
His touch was foreign but everything I needed right then. I leaned into him and rested my head against his collar. Zeke tensed up and took a deep breath but slowly released it.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “If I didn’t say it before, I’m sorry. I’m not ungrateful for what you’re doing, I’m just scared.”
He kissed me right on top of my skull but remained quiet. Zeke kissed me… I’d never thought he’d touch me comfortingly let alone kiss my head.
The thunder roared faster after each lightning strike which meant that it was getting closer. This was dangerous and yet right then, being in his arms, I felt at ease. It may have been temporary but he was what I needed, so I closed my eyes just for a minute, safe in the arms of a man who practically hated me.