WARIDI ✔️

Bonus Chapter Three

DEAN'S POV

"Dean! Come on friend, let's talk about this." A deep baritone yelled out from a distance.

I lay crouched on the wet forest floor trying to calm my breathing and gather my surroundings. Survival training was a bitch, like why would I need to learn how to survive in the forest with nothing but a pocket knife. I was hungry, cold and wet, I hadn't slept properly in days and I was pretty sure I had a couple of cracked ribs from fighting off one of the bad guys the night before.

"All you need to do is light the distress beacon in your pocket and we can call it quits." Another gruff voice yelled getting closer.

Yeah, not happening, I thought to myself as I assessed my options.

I knew that I needed to get out of the forest if I was going to live. The men Alberto had hired to help with survival training were taking their roles very seriously but then again so was I. I needed to make River proud of me and that meant surviving this grueling ordeal.

I heard leaves crunch under a pair of military issue boots a couple of meters away meaning I needed to keep moving but I couldn't. I had hurt my leg an hour ago while fighting one of the men and after knocking him out, since I couldn't as well kill him, I had realized that he had cut me. I was losing blood, coupled with fatigue, dehydration and starvation meant I did not have long. Only two men were left from the half dozen Alberto had released to go after me and they were the deadliest. They had been tracking me for days and I was always one step ahead of them until now.

"How's that wound? You need medical help and we have that, just surrender." Number one yelled.

I was definitely going to surrender. The only way I was leaving the forest was either in a body bag or after taking them out and I was leaning towards the latter. The body bag was not literal since they were using none lethal weapons but at the same time losing would suck.

I looked up ahead and saw a tree whose branches offered me enough coverage for me to think over my next plan. I stayed low like Alberto had taught me, plus how the movies showed me and crawled on my bely to the tree. I went around it and found a way to hoist myself up until I was well hidden by its branches. Once I knew I was safe, for the moment at least I took a moment to breath and think about my next move.

You see in the movies where a boxer is defeated in a match, or a kid is bullied at school and an expert takes them under their wing to help them train and its only for like half an hour in the movie, well that's very misleading. It was not as easy or as aesthetically pleasing as the movies made it out to be. I was tired, my body hurt in places I didn't think possible and I only got four hours of sleep every night and even then I could not rest easy because I kept getting attacked in the middle of the night. Like what I was going through at the moment. Alberto and Evan had kidnapped me from the mansion and dropped me off in the middle of the forest three days ago.

"Best of luck brother." Evan grinned at me as he handed me a pocket knife.

"Remember what I taught you and you will be fine. Only use this when you take all of them out or you want to surrender. I'm rooting for you." Alberto replied giving me a tiny button like device.

They shoved me out of the van and sped out leaving me stranded in the middle of the forest. That had been three days ago. I had been sleeping in trees, drinking water from tree barks and taking out men armed with stunt guns and tasers. It was pretty badass, like living my own Rambo movie but I was tired and needed it all to end.

At the beginning of meeting them I really liked Demi, Evan and Alberto but after having them torture me for weeks, the sight of them made me shudder with fear. River was exempted from my hate because she was the love of my life, my wife and the reason I was torturing myself in the first place. If River ever asked for proof of my love, then this would be it, no doubt about that.