World Ashen

Chapter 21 - Kenneth

"It was Shaun. He added gasoline to the flames. He's prob—" then there was another explosion, much closer. Quickly, I darted toward the forest engulfed in flames and screamed in agony, a tree that used to be burning mostly pinned a man. "I need help, and I'm by the fire." Half a minute later, one of Dawson's "ambulances" arrived. Sarah-April and Shiloh got out of the canoe. Jensen and some of his men helped lift part of the tree and pulled the man out from under it. They placed the man on a makeshift stretcher. They loaded it into the canoe, so Ashton, Cade, Justin, and I did the same. "Please don't be Shaun," I said even though hoping was useless.

"He's unconscious," Shiloh said.

"I know," I spat. This reminded me of Jadance, who had died of burns, two, almost three, years previously.

As they laid the man on the table, Ellie silently took off his ring; the initials, SIP, were inside. "He's dead," she croaked. She turned to me. "Maybe it's not him. Maybe it's someone else, one with the same initials."

I shook my head, "it's him."

Ellie glared at me. "How can you be so sure? It's your fault, Kenneth! You weren't fast enough. I don't want to tell the kids that their dad is dead."

"Ellie, if we tried, we wouldn't have been able to stop him, anyway. He died honorably," Thomas said and his sister-in-law froze.

Instead of responding with something about Shaun, she said, "someone's upstairs waiting for you." Thomas placed a hand on Ellie's shoulder and went upstairs.

We were all silent until he came back, "we've got another son named Perseus Neal James. This war needs to stop. It's not helping, only harming." What Thomas said was right since, in six months, we lost twenty-four to Death right away.

To keep Percy, Angel, Adina, Jenna, and Shoshannah safe, we crept the battle to a frozen wasteland. We still used Dawson's bike canoe as transport, but only if someone was close to death. While August, Ellie, Kairi, and Sarah-April were in the garage, Shiloh, Lily, and I were out on the battlefield treating small wounds. It was obvious everyone was running or was out of ammo since they were looting what they didn't use off the dead. I bit my tongue, realizing we were dead unless they were out of ammo, too.

"Fall back," Jensen yelled through his walkie-talkie, and every single one of us dashed toward the bikes as several explosives flew overhead. Explosions sent debris flying into the surrounding areas, bodies being blown apart.

As I turned to get into a canoe, a man ran over, breathless, "sir! Sir, have you seen my kid sister named Aaliyah? She has blue eyes and dirty-blonde hair and she's about sixteen years old. Name's B.J. Ulrich."

"Can't say I have," I said, shaking my head. "We just finished a fight."

Jensen put a hand on the worried man's shoulder. "Your sister should be fine."

"There's always a should, basically meaning maybe or might, but leaning more toward yes, Mr..."

"Jensen Michaels. Aaliyah is fine since she just got into a canoe with my wife. We're headed back to the town of New Haven. You should also be more careful; we might have hit you."

B.J. nodded, "yeah." He turned to me. "Can — wait, have I seen you somewhere?"

I shook my head, "nope. What were you going to ask?"

"Can I ride with you? You looked like you were getting in."

"Sure," I intoned.

B.J. and I got into the canoe in silence. Stanley started pedaling. "Fresh face," Stanley said, sounding surprised.