To Be A Survivor

Chapter 53: Tightrope

I groan when I open my eyes. My head is pounding.

What's going on?

I start to push myself up off the ground, trying to remember what happened, but it's hard to with my pounding head and sound of an engine running.

An engine... There wasn't a jeep when... What happened?

I was running. I split up from Maxine. Sam messed up... wasn't paying attention or something. I was surrounded, and then I surrendered.

Then everything just goes blank.

"Ah, you're awake. Good."

Someone reaches forward and grabs my wrists, yanking them forward which causes my chin to slam into the hard ground. Cold metal is suddenly on my skin, and when my wrists are released  I open my eyes and wipe the blood off my chin. I see the cuffs that are on my wrists. Not only that, but the cuffs are chained to the jeep that's a few feet in front of me.

I jump up, panic and fear finally kicking. I reach back to grab my axe, to break these chains and run but...

My axe is gone, and so is my backpack, and so is my knife.

I'm weaponless, and that's not even the worst part.

My headset's gone.

I look around for it desperately, and Pro. Van Ark, who is leaning against the jeep, doesn't look all that amused. He sighs and rolls his eyes. "Yes, I suppose you are duty bound to try to escape, aren't you? Very boring. Do let me know when you've given up trying."

I ignore him, instead trying to discreetly look at the jeep, hoping I'll find one of my weapons there without him noticing.

"Oh, you're looking for your headset?" He picks up the device from the front seat of the jeep, and offers a sarcastic smile as he snaps it in half and discards the pieces on the ground. "And that's that. You can stop looking."

No.

"No more Sam. No more Abel. Just me, and you, tied up to the back of my jeep. No Maxine. No Paula. No..." He looks around at the woods distastefully. "They're somewhere out there in the woods, which is a problem, but one I hope you can help me with."

I eye him questionably when a smirk crosses over his face, and he hops into the jeep, still looking back at me. "We're going to go for a little drive. Me in the jeep, and you-well, you're a runner, aren't you? Then run."

And he puts his foot on the gas peddle.

Suddenly I'm lurching forward, and my legs are going as fast as they can to keep me from being dragged across the hard ground. I'm able to keep up a good pace for now, but only because this is what he wants.

Right now he's just being a jerk, trying to see if I can go at this speed. He's trying to test how far I can go.

My wrists already begin to ache as the wide cuffs dig into my skin, and all I can think about is keeping up pace. Stay running. Keep moving.

And yet, there's a small part of me that's telling me to stop.

It might be easier if I just allow myself to get dragged. If so, I may hit my head on something and just die. Or I could die from getting dragged. That has happened to people and animals before.

A painful way to go, yes, but at least I'll be dead instead of undead. I mean, I'm almost positive I'm not going to be rescued. Abel may care for their runners more than most bases, but I don't think they care that much.