All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 18: Not A Palm Tree In Sight

"Oh, I dunno, Emma...gee, why would you," he said with that same malice in his voice.

"I dunno, David, why would I?" I hissed at his back and he froze. He turned slowly towards me, then took a giant step forward so that we were only inches apart.

"How do you know my name," he spat, and then flashed the light in my eye. I winced. What an asshole!

"Relax," I cried. "I heard Joaquim drop it before," I lied. Quick on my feet as ever to cover my ass.

David seemed to consider this and shut the flash off and then turned away from me again. "It's bad enough you didn't fulfill the job you were sent out to do and I have to come fetch you with everything on my plate as it is. Now you know my name. Jesus," he grumbled.

What is this guy's problem!?

"I didn't see you complain when I was doing my job earlier in front of the guards," I countered, "You know...the one's you slaughtered at my feet."

He slowed his pace for a moment, but only barely. "Why am I not surprised that you would feel sympathy for those fucking child-killers," he said over his shoulder in a deadpan voice.

I had enough of following this asshat. I don't care what his cause was. I wasn't walking another step. I stood my ground and started to take one off of his shoes. Hopefully when I chucked the shoes into the blinding dark my aim was true enough to hit him in the back of the head.

David only stood motionless in front of me, and then the next thing I knew he had turned and tackled me to the ground, wrapping a tight hand around my mouth. I started to squirm but he shook me violently until I heard what he had been hearing. My head turned slowly and around twenty meters ahead I saw a parade of flashlights and menacing voices. A search party.

David still held me firm in his grip but I could feel his body relax as he tried to steady his breath, which tickled my cheek. I became very conscious of his body pressed into mine, its sudden cold sweat and seized tension; and I knew then: the stakes were a matter of life and death.

And then I wondered...what did I know about this man, really? He could be a deranged killer who just took down some innocent men with a martyr complex. Perhaps I'm doing society a great disservice by not calling out to the search party and alerting them to the whereabouts of America's Most Wanted. If America was still even America...

But I didn't. I realized that I only had my gut to guide me from here on in and my gut instinct was: he wasn't cold blooded...not in that way at least. And I hoped it was my gut guiding me and not some other sense more foolhardy and easily duped. What are you, Patty Hearst now? I scolded myself. The guy just killed several men in front of you as coolly as one would flip a hamburger.

We waited on the ground like that for some time...for far longer than the last audible peeps the search party made, our faces so close that we breathed each other's air. I inhaled that rich intoxicating cedar cinnamon smell of his and my head began to swim. As the forest grew more and more quiet, I felt his body relax beside mine and his large hands slowly withdrew from being wrapped around my face. As he slid away and off of me, a sudden coldness took his place.

"To the river," he whispered and I nodded before he let the other shoe drop, "We have a bridge to bomb."

~~~~~~~

A/N:

..bomb? Did he say bomb? This can't be good. Who is this David, really?

Thank you for reading this Monday's All Your Fates. The pace is really picking up. We hope that you are enjoying the slightly darker tones that are sweeping in. So far we've had great great feedback on the new schedule. Thank you so much for letting us know we were on the right track!

Vote and share. We'll see you again friday ;)

<3<3<3

~Tom

ETA:  (March 16, 2016)

The image at the front of the chapter was from a graphic novel we had planned to do called Echo Explosion. The story is based on this world and started right before this chapter, and is a sideways reality to the one that is presented here. We ended up killing the graphic novel (illustrated by Hugo Arias. colouring done by moi) when our careers went into competing directions.

I might release the script for the comic, but unless you are used to reading comic book scripts, it might be hard to read. Deciding...

~C

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All Your Fates © 2012 Carrie Cutforth, Jim Martin and Tom Liljeholm. All Rights Reserved.