A new Dawn (Clementine x Louis)

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Keep. Moving. Forward.

The girl nodded grimly.
"I did, they don't believe me, you tell them."
The soldier raised his eyebrow and watched the kids in front of him, they seemed pretty skeptical about the situation.
"I know the Delta isn't the right place to put trust in but I am not like them, I came here to help.", he explained while playing with his hands.
AJ noticed a scar on his backhand that reached to his palm, something seemed to have cut right through his whole hand.
"I was not able to help like I had imagined, they used me as a weapon, as a soldier, as the complete opposite of what I wanted to accomplish. Then I started training you kids and my kindness found quick response from the children, especially Sophie. When she was forced to be the ruthless trainer she came to me and told me everything about what happened, I was and am the only person she trusts in here and so do I."
He paused and took a breath of the stale air in the tent, the atmosphere was tensed. AJ was confused of what to think now, this man seemed pretty nice and trustable, like he had said, he was the only kind trainer inside the Delta base.
"So you know about her past?", Aasim asked.
Lars nodded and pointed at each one of them.
"You're Ruby, Aasim, Willy and Violet, the kids that lived in the boarding school with her. Sophie talked to me a couple of hours ago, she has a plan to get us all out of here but you have to trust us."
The kids were mostly convinced by what the soldier had said, even though there was some mistrust left they agreed to help with Sophie's plan. Lars had thanked them and left the tent, leaving them alone to discuss.

A day had passed without any news from the two, they had been outside the base to carry out some kind of negotiation with the fractions that rebelled against the Delta.
Today was the day Sophie and Lars would return, AJ was anxious to know how they would escape from this evil place, he wanted to go home again. He had dreamed of hugging Clem and Louis the last nights, homesickness was eating him up from the inside. The young boy had never thought that he would miss his family so much when he got separated from them, sometimes he had even wished for just that.
There had been some days when the two had annoyed him, always forbidding the things that were cool. And there was that constant kissing between the two, it was getting on his nerves, especially because they didn't tell him about many things that concerned their relationship.
"You'll learn when you're older.", they'd tell him every single time he asked. Not knowing stuff was just so frustrating for him, he had hoped for them to go on a long mission so he would have his quiet. But now he regretted all of this, he wanted them at his side so badly that he'd get red eyes from trying not to cry.

His thoughts were interrupted abruptly, the morning call woke up the four persons next to him, they groaned in unison because of how little sleep had been given to them. He rose from his bed and felt how full his bladder was, he needed to get to the toilet as fast as possible. Grabbing and putting on his clothes in a hurry he ran into the general direction of where he had seen the blue plastic toilets, his small legs carried him as fast as they could.
After a couple of minutes he found them and opened the door to one, the smell of chemicals mixed with human excrement was piercing but he didn't mind. He let out a long breath as the liquid left his body, his mind was getting settled again. He banned the thoughts of his home from it, he needed to be as strong as Clem now, he couldn't let the feelings make him soft. It was like she had always said: "Keep moving forward."
"Keep. Moving. Forward.", he whispered to himself and narrowed his eyes into small slits. With a last splash his bladder was emptied and after pulling up his tattered pants he started to make his way back to the rows of tents.

Without thinking about it he opened the tarp that closed the entrance and saw who was standing inside, Sophie and Lars were standing in the middle of the space and turned around when he entered.
"Good, now we're all present. I have good and bad news for y'all, the first one is that the mission we were in on ended pretty poorly, the leader of the Delta got ambushed by a small group of people and he has a hand less. He's furious about how four people could breach the perimeter and nearly kill him, especially if one of them was crippled. Because of that he has ordered every possible unit to the front, he wants to end all of this, meaning that you will be there too. Good news is that this could make our plan easier, we could be outta here in a couple of weeks!", the woman told them, her excitement was notable in the last sentence she spoke.
The mood in the room started to improve, AJ was almost dancing right there on the spot even if there was no music to support that. The two soldiers smiled at their reaction until Violet arose and asked a question all of them had in mind.
"You're coming with us right?" Lars was the one that answered, his face was riddled with concern.
"Sophie is but I, I don't know. I need to support and protect the children here if something happens, the war is not over yet..."
Ruby stepped forward and hesitantly placed her hand on the mans shoulder.
"Are you sure? We have still some time left, we can take you with us."
Lars shook his head, he was determined to stay.
"No, it's okay for me, I can take care of myself. Anyways you'll need a man on the inside who provides you with information."
AJ felt the resolution of the man, there was nothing that would convince him otherwise. Sophie cleared her throat, she didn't want to ruin the moment but she had to.
"We move out in the evening, try to pack together all the stuff you have and take some of these with you, we're going to need them.", she said and passed around a funny looking hatchet.
AJ examined his and found a small hollow compartment at the bottom of the grip which was filled dry material and a small rod made out of some sort of metal.
"Those are some survival hatchets with magnesium rods inside, since the Delta doesn't hand out weapons to recruits I stole some of them for you. They are part of my plan, we will use them in the time after we escape but until then keep them concealed okay?", she added as she saw the confused glances of her friends.
The five nodded and packed the tool away, they didn't want to take any risk. Lars thanked them and said, "We have to go now, there's a meeting for the superiors that we shouldn't miss, see you all later at the trucks."
The two opened the improvised door to the tent and left, leaving the teens to ready up for what was coming. AJ repeated the catchphrase one last time to make himself strong, he needed to be strong, he would get back to his quasi parents and there was nothing stopping him now.

"Keep moving forward."