Lucas didn't remember drifting off, but he must have. He awoke to Gia covering his mouth with her stump arm, mere inches from his face. Her brown eyes gleamed dangerously. She raised one finger to her mouth. Then pulled her arm away and motioned for him to follow.
He stayed close behind as they skirted the tree line. He tried his best to keep quiet, but everything seemed too loud; his footsteps, breathing, even his heartbeat seemed to scream his location.
Gia came across a fallen trunk and swung herself over. Lucas followed, his feet scraping against the bark, and landed with a thud on the other side. Gia yanked him down into a crouch next to her, rolling her eyes.
"We're being followed," her voice was near inaudible. "Three of them." She didn't sound too alarmed, but something felt off. "They're going to find us if we don't do something, now. Here."
Lucas felt his stomach drop. "Why can't we just keep going? Get to the camp and then they'll help us, save us. We don't have to-"
"Lucas," her voice was calm. "We have to. All I need you to do is stay hidden." She slid herself back over the trunk and sprinted to another tree about ten feet away. She leaned against it, looking down at her nails, all casual-like.
She didn't look up as three men rounded the corner and headed straight towards her. They stopped a few feet from her. The big muscley one nodded to her, "Gia." he boomed. The forest seemed to silence at his deep voice, holding its breath, as Lucas did now.
"Harris," She finally deigned to look up at them.
"I thought we'd be able to have a fair fight last time," he said.
"I'm not sure where you got that idea from. It was three versus one."
"Was it really though?" Harris asked. The two men with him began to protest, but quieted when he raised a hand. "I came prepared this time." he held up a long knife.
Gia lifted her own, it's blade glinting off the moonlight. Then it was a blur of movement as the guy rushed at her. It was to dark to see what was happening from Lucas's position, but he could hear the shuffling of feet and the occasional grunt of pain. He watched as their dark figures rushed at one another, then danced away. They were evenly matched. They fought for several minutes. Lucas couldn't tell who was winning, that is, until the hulk of a man went down. Gia was on him in a flash. She raised her knife high overhead and brought it down. The man released a scream, rolling to his side. The hilt of Gia's knife protruded from his hand, pinning it to the ground.
The two others rushed at her. She managed to fight one of them off, but the other one had managed to grab her from behind. She thrashed in his arms, unable to get away. Lucas turned away, readying himself to hightail it in the other direction. He crawled towards a tree a few feet away and slithered around to the back of it. He pushed himself up and took a deep breath, preparing to run for it.
But he couldn't.
He would never make it to the camp without her. And even if he did run, they would come after him. There was no good way out of this. He loosed a breath and stepped out from behind the tree. Gia and the men paid no attention to him.
He flicked the safety off his gun and aimed. "Crap," he muttered. He looked down the sights but it was so dark, and the two of them kept moving. He'd barely been able to hit a nonmoving target in daylight. There was no way he could make the shot.
"Hey," one of them shouted at him. It didn't seem like he had a choice. Lucas fired.
The man holding Gia let out a string of curse words as he fell backwards. Then Gia was running at Lucas. She leapt over the fallen trunk and grabbed Lucas's hand as she passed, not slowing down.
They crashed through the woods, running as fast as they could, tripping over stumps and rocks. It didn't take long before Lucas was breathing heavily. Gia was barely winded. He pushed himself to keep pace with her.
When they had gotten far enough away, Gia slowed to a jog, then walk. Meanwhile Lucas just threw himself on the ground, gasping for breath.
"Shit," Gia panted. She bent over, putting her hand on her knee, trying to catch her breath. "Shit," she said again. She glanced at her right bicep, where a deep gash was slowly knitting itself back together. "You shot me, " she panted.
"What?" Lucas gasped. He raise his head to look a the wound on her arm again. "But I hit the other guy."
"You hit us both."
"Whoops, " he grinned.
Gia plopped down on the ground next to him, laughing. Lucas couldn't help but join in. It felt good just to laugh after everything. It had been a long time since he'd laugh like that.
When they had finally calmed down, Gia said, "We should keep moving."
"Yeah," he agreed. Neither one of them got up to move. Instead they continued to lay there in silence. Finally, Lucas had to ask, "You knew them?"
"Yes," she sighed. "Harris and I used to be good friends. At least I thought we were."
She sat up then and pulled down the collar of her shirt to reveal a tattoo. Lucas gasped, and sat up to get a closer look. Three dark horizontal bars went across her shoulder. "I know those. The men, " he sputtered, trying to make sense of his thoughts. "The men who killed my mother."
"Were in a gang. The same gang I was in. The one Harris is in."
"Was?" he asked.
"I'm out. Or trying to get out." she huffed out a breath. "You can never really leave."
"Then why even join in the first place?"
"I didn't have a choice. I was born into it."
"But you left?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes I left," she snapped. "Believe it or not, but I didn't always agree with what they did."
"The torture?" Lucas had heard horror stories of people being tortured by gangs. Gia nodded.
"I decided to leave a year ago. I wanted Harris to come with me. We both grew up in the gang. Trained together. Fought together. He was the most loyal friend I had." Gia bit her lip. "But he was loyal to the gang first. And when I told him I was leaving, he sold me out."
Lucas swallowed. "So how'd you get out?"
Her voice was hollow as she asked, "Do you really want to know?" Lucas didn't say anything, but his face must of told her enough. She chuckled a bit. "I didn't think so. C'mon." she pulled herself up. "We need to keep moving."
Lucas didn't object as he followed her, not towards the road, but deeper into the woods.
