The Claiming

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Where are we meeting him?" Alec asks Vain, giving me a sideways glance.

"At the old mall at the bottom of the mountain," Vain replies blankly.

I lean into Alec.

"How far away are we?" Alec presses on.

Vain's knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel a little tighter. "Maybe thirty minutes? Quit asking all these questions."

It's now or never.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I groan, clutching my stomach for good measure. "It's morning sickness. I might puke..."

Vain immediately brakes the vehicle and pulls to the side of the road. "Not in here, you won't!" Vain jumps out of the car to let us out. I make a quick glance at Alec's bounded hands behind his back. I don't know how we'll do this...

"Out, out, out," Vain says as soon as he opens the door. I struggle from my seat and stumble out onto the gravely road. I make it as realistic as I can to fall into the grass and make retching noises as I dry-heave towards the earth.

"Please let me be with her," I hear Alec pleading. His voice cracks.

"Fine, fine. Go."

Come on, Alec... Just when he's not looking and—

WHACK!

I turn my head to look over my shoulder immediately. Vain lies on the ground motionless with blood pooling around his head, dripping from his crown.

"Alec! Did you kill him?"

Alec stands over him with a baseball bat gripped tightly in both hands, his elbows at in awkward angle from the rope around his wrists. "No! At least I don't... No, he's breathing!"

"How did you get your arms in front of you? I thought you said you were going to break the rope?"

"I thought I would, but then I remembered that I'm double jointed in my shoulders."

"What?"

Alec laughs. "There's time to explain later. We've got to get out of here before he wakes up. The guy has a gun on him."

Alec drops the bat.

"Does he have a knife or something?" I ask, glancing down at Alec's bounded wrists hanging limply in front of him now.

"Good call!" He kneels down beside Vain, a little hesitant at first.

I struggle to my feet without using my hands and tread cautiously over to Alec and the unconscious Vain.

"Ah, here!" He weasels out a dagger from Vain's belt and holds it up.

I nod with a weak smile. "Let's go."

***

We run at first, but we tire quickly from our lack of energy. We were barely fed in the jail cell, and even when we were, I couldn't eat. I remembered being held captive by Walden far too well with the feeling of imprisonment. And that feeling diminishes my intention to eat. I feel the pain, but I don't want anything in me. It's as if my body protests.

We made our way through the woods off-road to avoid being seen out in the open. Alec cut our ropes once Vain was out of sight. We took the ropes with us to keep the evidence off our trail.

Now we travel up a dirt path that leads back up the mountain, but in a far different direction than where Winslow Wood is.

"I want to know how you found that bat," I say as I lace my fingers through his. My hand presses perfectly against his.

Alec grins. I can tell he's forcing his mind to forget about the true downside of this all—that we had to leave his family behind. "It was under his seat actually. Right in my reach. We got lucky, Belle."

But I shake my head. "We didn't get lucky. I think God is just keeping a close eye on us." I smile up at the sky, half-expecting to see a broad, perfect face shining down on us.

Alec lets out a huge sigh. "I don't understand how your faith never falters even when we get in terrible situations like these. Do you not ever blame God for putting us through it anyway?"

I shake my head. "I've always believed everything happens for a reason. God has a plan, and ours just isn't as simple as everyone else's."

Alec wraps an arm around my waist. "That's probably the number one thing I love about you, Belle. You always have hope for a better future."

I look at him somberly as we climb over a fallen tree together. He goes over first, and then helps me get my footing, being that I'm much smaller than he is. I've watched him grow an inch or two while at Winslow Wood. I feel like I've shrunk. "I wasn't always like that," I say. "Remember before the Claiming? I was a wreck. And when Walden took me? I felt as if I had no life left in me. I stopped eating and caring."

"When did it all change?" Alec says. He squints his eyes to see ahead, but it's hard with all the trees and underbrush in the way. Vines seem to squirm their way down the tree trunks in slow motion, but they are immobile in reality. As we come near one, I pinch one of the vines with my thumb and index finger, feeling the leather-like tube across my skin. I'd never really felt more safe in nature than now, with all this life covering us from view and attack.

"When Walden was going to rape me. I prayed as hard as I could for God to just save me. Somehow. And He did. By sending you." I smile at him and squeeze his hand.

"I wish I could have the faith you do," he mutters.

"But you do!" I protest. "Before the Claiming, you had faith. When I was taken by Walden, you gathered up your faith and took it with you when you rescued me. You have faith now, guiding us through the woods. I think our faith is stronger together."

Alec grins. "This is the sappiest conversation we've ever had."

I tilt my head. "I think the sappiest is when you re-proposed to me in our kitchen."

He laughs, the sweetest sound to my ears. "All right, fine. The second sappiest conversation."

I giggle, but then his smile falters. "What do you think will happen to my parents? To Riah and Chance and their family?"

A shudder runs through me at the thought. "They are technically innocent, so hopefully Alice has enough mercy in her to spare them."

"Do you think we'll see them again?"

I bite my bottom lip. "I guess this is when we have to have hope."

My stomach feels as if it has been stabbed by a knife.

Hunger.

I haven't eaten in a day. After being restored from starving myself in Bayfell, it's harder to hold out very long. My stomach growls, making a dying whale noise.

Alec wipes the frown off his face and chuckles. "Guess it's time to find food. We have a knife, so I guess we could try hunting..."

"We can't catch anything with that! And besides, have you ever been hunting before?"

Alec shrugs. "How hard can it be?"

I laugh. "All right, genius." I glance up at the forest canopy. "There's some birds up there."

"Ew, no! That's just a bunch of intestines! No real meat!"

I shake my head with a hopeless laugh. "We're going to die out here..."

Not to mention it's cold enough to snow again soon.