Marked

Chapter Twenty-Six

The sea of raw, terrified faces nearly forced her into giving up. There was so much desperation in the face of this tragedy--the weight of it threatened to crush her. But instead of letting that stop her she allowed it to push her forward, to be her fire. She needed to hold on to that fire, that will to fight, now, more than ever before.

Poachers wove in and out between the restrained bodies of her people (because they were her people now) and were loading them onto the aircrafts by the dozens.

For a moment, all she could do was observe.

Then, she wildly scanned the crowd for any signs of Juan or Hector.

When she found them both, dismay washed over her. They were no where near one another, no way for her to rescue them both unless she magically multiplied.

Juan was on a stretcher already being loaded up into one of the jets. Hector was among the next row to be evacuated. Her eyes shifted from one to the other, trying to decide what to do first, who to shoot in order to free them both.

No one noticed her as she pushed Abby into one of the lines of people being loaded, the one where Hector was struggling to walk in a few people up ahead.

The ship people shot her withering looks that she could feel burning into her like knives. She wished she could offer them some type of hope, tell them it was her perhaps, but she couldn't afford to blow her cover.

Juan was pulled the rest of the way into the gaping mouth of a nearby jet and Rachel could only watch helplessly. She stroked her rifle, wanting to unleash her bullets on all of them right then and there. But there must have been at least fifty poachers, not counting the ones within the jets or the ones searching down below.

She had to find a good vantage point. A place where she could take cover and shoot at them with ease, maybe from within an aircraft where she could wait until the ones inside went out to retrieve more prisoners.

That seemed as good a plan as any.

Abby groaned beside her as the line inched forward.

"I'm an ally," She sobbed. Rachel wished she could tell her to shut up or even one slap might suffice.

One aircraft over, she spotted her mother, her lip bloody as she awaited her turn to be loaded up. They were but mere yards away. If only she could send her some type of signal. But dressed as she was, how could she ever expect her mother to recognize it was her?

A sort of panic began to build in her chest. Would she be able to keep all her loved ones safe once the bullets started flying? How would she avoid hitting any of the ship people? Was her aim even good enough?

Eyeing her mother again, she caught her doing something peculiar. The poacher assigned to her line moved to the front. Ruth's hands were bound but she shifted her head to the shoulder of her jacket and shoved a bright metallic object out of her mouth and into a slit in her shoulder pad.

Was that a scalpel she'd had in her mouth? What was she thinking?

Could it be that her mother hoped to get close enough to Nicolas to kill him?

At least that was a mission she could certainly get behind.

Ruth looked up and saw that Rachel was watching her. Rachel stared at her but didn't move. She tried to make eye contact, to make it known that she had seen what her mother had done and make it clear that she didn't plan to do anything about it.

Ruth's gaze was unwavering though she saw her swallow hard.

Rachel turned away from her to look at Hector. All she could do was hope that it had been enough of a message.