Red Lighter ✧ John Murphy

XXXII - Bon Voyage

THIS DIDN'T POST LAST WEEK BEFORE CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE DID

WTF

I'M SO SORRY

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Chapter Thirty-Two

I still didn't trust Emori, and neither did Murphy. He was unsure about the fact that she was there, but I was more concerned about HOW she was there.

She had been shot in the shoulder, and when we left, she wasn't moving, let alone conscious. So how the hell was she standing in front of us? And the same goes for her brother. He was the exact same way. What, were they possums? Did they feel the need to play dead all the time?

We were now collecting wood to make a fire, while Jaha and Gideon were on their little zen trips. Whatever the hell they were doing in there, it was annoying me that we were doing all the work while they were just sitting on their knees with their eyes shut.

Otan seemed to have a different perspective.

"Hey," he said, kneeling down in front of Jaha curiously. "Have you really been to the City of Light?"

"Shut up, Otan," Emori said. "I'm not listening to that skrish again."

Almost everything that Emori said was annoying me. What the hell does 'skrish' mean?

"Come, walk with me," Jaha said, standing up and laying a hand on Otan's shoulder. They both walked down the narrow pathway that we were planning on camping in, leaving the three of us with Otan.

"Thank god he's got somebody else to preach to," Murphy said to me, smirking a little.

"Not a believer?" Emori asked him as she put the wood down.

I narrowed my eyes at her.

"I believe you're here for a reason," he said, standing up from his crouching position and walking over to her. "Just don't know what it is yet."

"We were recruited," Emori said.

"By who?" I asked. "ALIE?"

Emori shrugged her shoulders a little. "I don't know her name. She comes to us in the flying machine."

"You mean the drone? Yeah, it's how she found us too," Murphy looked over at me, then back at her with a curious expression. "So what do you do for her?"

"We collect tech."

"You mean steal it?" I muttered.

"When we have to," she told us. "We bring it to the island, to him," she nodded to Gideon. "That's how we survive. This time she said they needed a ride."

She suddenly got up and walked over to Gideon, who was still peacefully spaced out.

"What are you doing?" Murphy asked, stepping in front of her.

"Neither of you try to be a hero, and maybe I'll leave you on your feet this time," she said.

"Oh, a hero?" I asked. "And here, I thought we were the same. Come on though, are you really stupid enough to steal from the people that you work for?"

"Shh," she shushed us. Then she started whispering. "We have other buyers. Now be quiet."

Of course, Emori wasn't as sneaky as she seemed to think she would be. She went to Gideon and tried to take the small metal pack Jaha had, and Gideon noticed. He picked her up by the throat and strangled her while she was in mid-air.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Easy, easy!" I ran over to them, with Murphy right by me.

"Come on, big fella, no harm done, just put her down. Just put her down alright?" Murphy said, getting more desperate.

I grabbed a wide log from the ground and hit Gideon in the side of the head with it. He jumped a little, and I did it twice more, but it still didn't work. I looked at him in shock, with Murphy and Emori mimicking my expression. He turned to the two of us.

"There is no pain in the City of Light," he informed us.

This somehow allowed Emori to grab a knife from somewhere in her sleeve, and slash Gideon's throat. Blood spurted out of the wound, and it didn't take a doctor to know that the simple slice had killed him. It likely hit an artery.

He dropped her, and she stayed on her feet, blood covering her face. She reached down and grabbed the backpack, and proceeded to run in the direction opposite of Otan's dead body. She was leaving her brother and Jaha behind as well.

"You coming, or what?"! she shouted at us.

We looked at each other, still slightly stunned.

"She's going to take the boat," he said. "We need to go with her or we have no chance of getting back."

I nodded to him. And so, we ran with the same girl that had tried to kill me.

Funny how the tables turn.