We all scramble to get up as we hear Jacob counting to thirty. When he gets to thirty, him and his gang of Snake Clan members will come after us and hunt us down. We must have accidentally walked into Snake Clan territory and Jacob just happened to be the ones who came across us.
The Wolf, Snake and Lion Clans are territorial over each other, but if someone not from any of those Clans walks into their territory then they get let off with a warning, unless they wish to join the Clan. But today was not our lucky day.
Branches were trying to snag at my clothing trying to slow me down and make it easier for Jacob reach me. I could hear four other pairs of footsteps running along side me. We were all jumping over tree roots, trying to dodge the branches scratching our faces. My heart was already pounding and we had only been running for a few seconds.
Jacob's voice was slowly getting quiter, but even I knew that he wouldn't reach thirty before coming after us. We could hear loud whoops and hollers coming from the group as they start to give chase. The sound gave me a new burst of energy. I did not want to die this way.
My breath was getting heavier and heavier. My legs were burning and I could see that Amelia and Zoe were slowly slowing down.
"Come on! Guys we have to keep running." I shout, my voice very out of breath and not very loud, but I did the best I could.
Nobody saw it coming, one second we were flat out sprinting for our lives, the next second we were tumbling down a hill. It felt like I had missed a step and we all went crashing down. Our bodies were rolling down the hill at a fast speed, somehow managing to miss all of the trees and rocks that may have blocked our way down. We were all too tired to try and stop ourselves.
Leaves were kicking up into my face and my stones bruising my body as we made it to the bottom of the hill groaning. My back felt horrible since I had my pack on. I rolled onto my stomach and started to crawl away from the hill.
"We have to get out of here and hide. We can't let them catch us." My voice strained from all of the tumbling. I heard groans in response.
I tried to get onto my feet, but the ground rushed up to meet me. We all just lay there, not moving. Hoping and praying that they won't find us down here defenseless. I closed my eyes and just listened to the sound of the wind rushing through the leaves. That's when I heard a snap of a branch.
I somehow managed to whip one of my guns out, sat up and searched my surroundings. That's when a boy, older than me, with shaggy brown hair comes out from behind a tree with his hands up.
"Woah, don't shoot. I want to help." I heard the others move to look at where the voice came from.
He looked like he had been on the ground for a while. He may have been in the group that we got sent down in, but I have no clue. We probably look just as bad as he does. I kept my gun trained on him anyway.
"What do you want?" I ask, panting, trying to get my breath back. I tried to look as stern as possible and not show how vulnerable we seem.
"Are you guys the ones being chased by that group of Snakes?" He asks, still keeping his hands above his head. Nobody answers him, so I guess he took it as a yes. "If you want to live. You have to follow me. Now." He says before turning around and walking off.
I take a look at the others and shrug. What's the worst that could happen? He hand us over to Jacob and we die anyway. Or maybe he's a psychopath. Who knows? Certainly not us. I get up as fast as I can when I hear a happy shout from one of the people with Jacob. That fuels us all to get up and quickly follow the boy.
We quickly catch up to him, all of our legs sore, but we just kept pushing through the pain. I kept on looking around, expecting a "Snake" ,as this boy calls them, to pop out from the trees and kill us, but nothing happened.
"What are your names?" I hear him ask us and he calmly walks infront of us.
"Can we just get to wherever you are taking us. I don't feel safe out here with them coming after us." We have to get out of sight, or atleast somewhere where we can be protected and shoot back at Jacob.
"Well, my name is Tyler, and we will be there soon. Don't worry." He seems very calm for the situation we are in at the moment. We are being hunted and here he is, just casually strolling around.
I roll my eyes and keep on scanning around, looking for the slightest hint to see if someone or something was there. It seemed like we had been walking for hours, when we were probably only walking for ten minutes, and we came up to a shack. And I stared in disbelief. He couldn't have built this by himself. Let alone if he had been here in our group.
"Did you build this or find it?" I hear Jess asks him with as much curiosity as I have.
"I actually found it. It looks like it had been there for ages, but we came across it a while ago and it was empty." Tyler says as he walks up to the shack.
"Did you say we?" I ask, starting to get a bit cautious. Was there more of his group? How many were there? Can we trust them all?
"Yeah, I used to have a group back when I was apart of the Lion Clan, but we decided to leave once we realised they were in a war with the Wolves and Snakes. We happened to wander into the Snakes territory without realizing it and a group of them came up to us asking us what we were doing here. So we told them we were just wandering around. They asked us if we wanted to join their Clan, but we said no. So they said as..." he paused trying to find the right word.
"Punishment, they would take one of us. They instantly went for the only girl in the group. Her name was Hayley. the other three tried to fight back, but it only resulted in them dying. I was too afraid to move after they shot the others. They still took Hayley though. No idea whats happened to her since then. I was left standing there as Hayley pleaded for me to kill her, but I couldn't do anything." His voice got quieter the closer to the end and he was looking at the ground. I saw a tear fall from his eyes, but he quickly wiped it away hoping that no one saw it.
"I'm so sorry." I heard Jess whisper.
"It's alright. It happened a few months ago I think. How much time passes doesn't usually bother me anymore, I have been down here for that long." He give a small chuckle and looks down at his hands to start playing with his fingers.
We decided to leave the conversation at that, and walked into the shack. It was one room and it looked like all of the wood was rotting at could fall at any minute, but I guess I trusted Tyler's judgement and claim it as being safe. We could see all of Tyler's stuff in one corner and what looks like a makeshift blanket made out of fur in another.
"So what have you been eating? I can't see any cans and we are almost out." I ask, knowing that the amount of cans we have wont last us for another week. At best, 4 days of food left.
"Well, some others at the Lion Clan taught us how to set snares and traps to catch some of the smaller animals like the rabbits. They breed like crazy around here, so usually most traps have on in them. We would be lucky if we caught one of the bigger animals, but that's unlikely."
We all put our packs with his in the corner and find somewhere to sit. I sit down on the floor and lean my back against the wall with Jess on my right and Amelia on my left. Jett sits down next to Amelia and Zoe sits infront of the wall closest to Jess. Tyler was leaning on the wall opposite the wall we were sitting infront of.
"So when do you think it will be safe for us to leave?" I ask, filling the silence and Tyler shrugs.
"Maybe a few days, maybe a few hours. You can never be too sure with them."
"What if they find us here?" Jess voices our main concern.
"We will have to fight back I guess."
"Are you serious? So you just led us here in hopes that they dont find a shack in the middle of a forest in their territory?" Jess said getting angrier with every word.
"We aren't in their territory anymore. We are just outside of it. Did you not see all of the green cloth on the trees?" We all shake our heads. Maybe we were safe from Jacob and his gang. "Well the cloth signifies that you are entering or leaving Snake territory and right now, we are outside of it."
Everyone goes silent when we hear a shout from outside the shack and we all go towards the closest hole that was in the wall to try and peek out to see what it was. There standing in the little clearing before the shack were a guy and a girl.
"Jacob!" We hear the male yell, "I bet I found where they are hiding!"
"Shoot shoot shoot." I whisper. "We have to get out of here." I look to Tyler who looks panicked, there was no way out of the shack except for the door we came in and the two Snakes were outside that door.
'We have to get our guns ready." I hear Jess whisper and I take Asher's rifle from off my shoulders and give it to Tyler.
"You know how to use this right?" I hear Tyler scoff so I just shove it into his hands.
I whips my two guns out and check to see how much ammunition I have left in them. One is ful, but the other has two bullets left. I quickly rush to my pack and take out two cases of ammo so that I have something ready to switch once they are empty. I turn around to see Zoe climb up onto the roof with her sniper rifle at the ready.
Everyone else is positioned around the holes in the walls where windows should be, but not showing ourselves to anyone outside. More people are filling into the small clearing outside the shack, all of them wearing something green.
"Come out, come out where ever you are!" I hear Jacob yell towards us.
Nobody is wanting to move or make a sound. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart, scared that they will be able to hear it.
"Maybe they aren't here." I hear a girl say quietly to Jacob.
"They must be, where else could they have gone?" He snaps back at her.
"I don't know, maybe they went futher away. We haven't seen them for a while." She says rubbing his arm affectionately. He just grunts in responce and start to walk away, but stops in his tracks.
"Search the building, they could be hiding in there." I quickly look at the others to see if they could give me any hints as to what we should do, all I got in responce was Jess aiming her bow at the door, around the height of the person who was about to walk in.
The door opened slowly, but the door was facing us so they couldn't see us, and we couldn't see them. The second that the guys head poked around the corner, Jess shot the arrow hitting him in the forehead and he instantly drops to the ground. We could hear yells and pounding of people feet as they ran away, coming from outside and people rushing around as Zoe started to pick them off one by one with her sniper rifle.
The rest of us quickly joined in the fight by shooting out the windows. I managed to hit one of them in the leg, but one of their friends helped them get away, I also hit one of them in the back, them dropping to the ground. They were all running away, none of them were prepared for the onslaught that we had begun.
One of my pistols started clicking signalling that I was out of ammo so I quickly changed the empty clip with a full one and began shooting at them again. Most of my bullets were pointless because I was a horrible shot, but I hit another two people, one in the head and one in the shoulder. By the time we had stopped shooting and there was no movement infront of us or in the trees that surrounded us.
We head a thud as someone entered the room and all guns aimed at them.
"Woah. Don't shoot, it's just me." Zoe said instantly putting her hands up. "I can't see any of them in the forest, so we have to leave now before they come back with more people."
We all quickly get up from our positions and grabbed our packs and ran out the door. I went out first, making sure that it was clear and nobody was going to shoot at us. We were all out of the shack when someone entered the small clearing covered in blood and clutching his shoulder.
It was Jacob.
"Well well well. It seems you have managed to get away this time, but trust me, you wont be able to next ti-" I loud shot cuts him off.
His body drops to the ground as I look down the end of my gun, the tip slightly smoking. The others were looking at me in disbelief. I couldn't even process what I had done. I just shot him with no mercy. I didn't even feel sorry that I had done it. I could have sworn that I hear a quiet giggle come from behind me.
Everyone was staring at the bodies on the ground that were slowly turning the ground a dark red, some patches larger than others.
"Let's go." I say as I turn my back on the seven bodies that littered the ground in front of the shack. The others following behind.
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A/N: I have no idea what was going to happen in this chapter, but I guess Jacob is dead. Do you think that Bastien will become merciless? Or maybe he was just happy that Jacob is no longer going to be a heavy weight hanging above their heads? What do you think of Tyler? Do you think he can be trusted?
Anyway, I hope that you liked this chapter, I still don't fully have a plot yet, so I will gladly take some ideas. I know what will happen in the end of this book, just have no clue what is going to happen in the middle seeing as I am already on Chapter 12 and I should probably get on with the plot.
Oh and I will be posting every Saturday 12pm NZST instead of every Friday 12pm NZST.
Remember to vote if you like my story, and comment things that I could improve on or things that you liked! Follow me and add this story to your library if you want to get updates for the story whenever I post a new chapter!
-FlatMatesForLife