Lelani looked at Brian apprehensively as he continued on another one of his coughing fits. The poison was out of his system but now this other problem that she couldn’t handle was being just as effective in extinguishing his life as surely as the poison would have. His hands and face looked like they were starting to look a little fuller from the edema and Lelani was concerned that his throat could possibly swell shut. She dipped the cloth in fresh cool water and replaced the one that was laying across his forehead.
Brian’s eyes slowly opened. “Momma?”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Lelani soothed. The fever wasn’t coming down quickly for her satisfaction and he was growing more disoriented from it.
Brian’s unfocused eyes shot wildly around the room. “Wha... where’s...” He started coughing again and his eyes fluttered shut as he drifted off into unconsciousness.
AJ stumbled along the moonlit path, holding his hurt arm. Every jolt from a miscalculated step caused pain to shoot through his arm and radiate through his body. After what seemed to take forever, they emerged from the forest onto a wide open beach area.
“Find the green bag,” Triaz ordered.
Trying to remember what they did with the bag when they landed the raft on shore, AJ’s eyes scanned the area. He went over the events recalling Brian taking a waterpill and then making one of his dumb jokes about water. “Shit! I’m not sure where to start looking,” AJ moaned, panic starting to set in. He glanced over his shoulder at the two men that accompanied him to the beach.
“I could use a little help in finding it guys.”
“We don’t know what it looks like.” Came the reply.
AJ stopped where he was and narrowed his eyes at the men. “Well, ah, let’s see.....it’s a bag..... and it’s FUCKIN GREEN!”
The angry glare that he threw at the men did it’s job. They immediately started to walk the beach looking for the bag. After a few minutes, one of them started yelling triumphantly.
“I FOUND IT!”
Looking over in the direction of the shouting, AJ was relieved to see the green backpack being hoisted into the air.
Howie laughed. “I’m blaming it on you. You’re the woman and you are the one that got them all mad at you.”
I swear, if I were a cat, my hair would have stood up. “Yeah, what’s that shit all about? ‘Women are weak, blah blah blah...’ He can kiss my weak ass.” I wandered restlessly around the entrance of the cave. The native that was guarding the entrance of the cave turned around and glared at me. Instinctively I backed away.
Howie gave me a stern look. “Why don’t you come back here? I think you have about pushed them to their limit.”
I didn’t argue as I moved back further into the cave where he was sitting against the wall. “Howie, I think I am in for some serious shit when they come back. The medicine girl, she was looking at me like she wanted to kill me. And when I mentioned Nick’s name, she really looked like she could have. I said something to her that she didn’t like and she told me I was going to learn my place. That I was going to learn how to talk and what my place was. Then she said afterwards that that one big guy is supposed to take me to wherever they took Nick and Kevin so they can learn too. What does that mean?” I looked at Howie with uneasiness.
Howie’s face twisted into concern. “When did this happen? When you were in with Brian?”
I nodded
. “How is he?” Howie asked softly.
I took a deep breath. “He’s not doing so good. When I went in there he...he...” I stopped, choking up.
Howie didn’t say anything, just put his arm around me. I took another deep breath. “If he doesn’t get his meds soon, he...” Dammit! I felt like I had a golf ball in my throat and I couldn’t keep talking. A few tears slipped out. “Pray they find the backpack.” I whispered.
AJ immediately started running towards the native holding the backpack. Almost immediately he regretted it as it jarred his arm. “Nick and Lizz also have meds they need to take that are in that bag.” He said to Triaz.
Triaz shrugged. “What is your point?”
AJ threw his head back in disgust. “What are you people?! STUPID?! All three of them need the meds that are in there or they could die. Shit, first you pick Kevin over me. Kevin! Then you don’t get my point when I tell you that they need those meds!”
Triaz stopped in his tracks, causing AJ to stop behind him. The other native glanced at Triaz, waiting his approval to discipline the marked one. Triaz raised his hand to hit AJ, but stopped before he made contact. AJ stood frozen.
“You were told not to do anything stupid. Your insolence will not be tolerated. We warned you and now there will be consequences.” With that, Triaz turned on his heel and strode down the beach, towards the forest. AJ was relieved at first that Triaz didn’t attack him, but instantly realized that Triaz never said that any harm would come to him if he messed up.
“Oh shit.” He groaned, running after the native. “Wait, please, I’m the one that fucked up. Don’t hurt-” AJ pleaded, only to be cut off by Triaz.
“You were warned.” He said simply before turning back around.
The other native stepped up beside AJ, narrowing his eyes in a warning to AJ to not do anything else. AJ’s heart thudded in his chest when he realized that his smart mouth just caused harm to his friends. And now there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nick’s heart was racing as he watched Kevin’s form disappear along with the three natives. He had been ready to attack them, but Kevin squashed his plan before he could act. He paced back and forth, worried sick about his friends.
He pictured the look in Brian’s eyes when he had been allowed to see him. He was scared and there wasn’t a damn thing that Nick could do about it. He had managed to sacrifice himself for Brian, but what the hell good would it do if he didn’t get better. He wanted more than anything to know if Brian was okay. What was going on. It was tearing him up that his brother needed him and he was locked away in a damned cave
. Next he thought of Lizz. He wasn’t sure what Kevin meant by the chief owning her, but it didn’t sound good. He could almost picture Lizz losing it when she must have thought the worst about what was going on with him. When she got upset enough, she sort of lost all rational thought. He wanted to know where she was and what was happening. He set his jaw when he thought that they might try to hurt her.
Nick finally sank down to the floor, putting his head in his hands. How did everything go so wrong? He tried to save his friends, but it didn’t do any good. He was still a slave and evidently so was Kevin and Lizz too. If that was what was meant by the chief owning her. Nick sat very still, wishing he were anywhere but where he was at that moment.
The distant dripping of water caught his attention again. It nagged at him like it did before. “There has got to be another way outta this cave. Why else would there be water running in here?” He mumbled. It was dark outside so he started to slowly make his way deeper into the cave, feeling his way along the damp cave walls. After rounding a corner, the light from the torches outside and the moon faded and Nick started to wonder if it was such a good idea to have gotten himself into this. The pitch-blackness wasn’t helping either.
“How deep do you think this cave goes?” I asked Howie. We were sitting up against the damp wall. I found myself looking deeper into the cave several times. Something almost compelled me to go deeper into it.
He shrugged, then looked at me warily. “Lizz, what are you thinking?”
“I don’t know, I can’t just sit here! Brian is in trouble and we don’t even know what is going on with Nick and Kevin. Maybe we should just check it out.” I pressed.
Howie sighed. “Will you eventually give up if I say no?”
I grinned. “Nope.”
He laughed . “I think it would be better if we just stayed here.”
I shook my head. “Come on, they have to know that if they are just going to leave us in a cave we will want to explore it.” I rationalized.
“Alright let’s go.” Howie relented.
Ten minutes later we were deeper into the cave and in pitch-blackness. My freakish fear of walking where I can’t see had taken a firm hold of me and I had a death grip on Howie. The cave sort of went uphill in some places and then back down. That didn’t help me to be any more comfortable in the darkness.
“Lizz, I can’t really feel my arm anymore...” Howie whispered.
I smiled in the darkness. “Sorry.” I said sheepishly, easing up. We rounded yet another corner and I saw light ahead. It was really dim, but light nonetheless. I broke away from Howie and moved as fast as I dared towards the light. When I got closer I saw that up really high was sort of an opening. The moon and the stars were right above. The beauty of it took my breath away. The stars were so bright and the moon was a sharp crescent. “Howie.” I breathed.
He followed my gaze up too. “Wow.” He looked over to the left and I followed his gaze. When I looked closer to the wall of the cave I saw that it wasn’t really a wall, but a bunch of huge rocks that had fallen to make sort of a barrier. I stopped cold suddenly, grabbing Howie.
“Did you hear that?!” I hissed.
“Yeah, shhh.” He whispered back, gripping my arm.
On the other side of the barrier there was noise. Someone moving. I held my breath. Then I heard the sound of crumbling rock and a curse of “dammit!”
“Nick?!?!?” I cried.
“Lizz?! Oh god, Lizz! Are you okay?” Nick called back.
“Yeah, are you?!” I couldn’t keep the emotion out of my voice. I turned to Howie. “We gotta get over there!”
“Who’s with you?” Nick asked.
“It’s me. They sent AJ out to look for the backpack. What‘s going on with you?” Howie replied.
“They took off with Kevin. What about Brian?” I heard the anxiousness in Nick’s voice clear as the ocean water out here and I didn’t know how to tell him that things didn’t look very good.
“He’s hangin in there hun.” My voice wasn’t as convincing as I would have liked. In fact it was sort on the shaky side. I turned to Howie. “I can see a break in these boulders. I want to try to get to him.”
“I don’t know how safe that would be.” Howie looked a little worried.
“Lizz, you don’t need to be climbing these boulders. They might slip. Hell you might slip.” Nick warned.
“I need to get to you.” I said almost inaudibly. I needed to see for myself that he was okay and then make sure it would stay that way.
“Lizz...” Nick said with a worried sigh, knowing it was a losing battle. “Be careful okay?”
“Always.” I got the best grip I could, Howie helping me up. The top of the pile was about 15 to 20 feet high. When I got to the top I could see Nick. He looked fine, just worried as hell. I turned back around and looked down at Howie. “How are you going to get up now?”
“Shit.” Came the soft reply.
I chuckled. “I’ll come back in a few minutes. If they find us different than how they left us, we might get in trouble.”
“Okay.”
I started to carefully climb down Nick’s side. I decided to jump the last ten feet, Nick half catching me so I didn’t land as hard. As soon as my feet were on the ground, I threw my arms around him, hugging him fiercely.
“Ooof.” He said softly.
I had to laugh. Another online joke from way back when. We were talking about meeting for the first time and I said I would give him the hugest hug. To tease me he replied with “ooof” and it cracked me up. I really appreciated how he did that. Made me laugh no matter how bad I felt.
I had my eyes shut, but when I opened them I nearly panicked. Torchlights, I could see the shadows of them flicker against the walls around the corner. I didn’t let go of Nick, but nodded my head towards the moving lights. He stiffened and looked back at me, eyes wide.
“Oh shit.” He murmured.
Not but two seconds later six natives were staring at us. Six very angry natives.
Kevin stumbled along the path that the three men led him down. He wasn’t too sure what they had in store for him and his mind was running in fifty different places trying to come up with a plan to save all of them from their fates.
They finally came to a stop at an area that contained a huge pit. Inside the pit were rocks of different sizes. Kevin narrowed his eyes as he looked into the torchlit pit, the flickering made the pit look more eerie and deeper.
“Into the hole,” one of the men growled at Kevin as he gestured with his torch.
A million thoughts popped into Kevin’s head as he looked at the natives and then at the pit. Was this place intended for him to be killed at? One of the men grew impatient at his unwillingness to immediately cooperate with the order he had been given.
“Get into the hole now!” He jabbed Kevin in the side causing him to half-slide down the side of the pit towards the bottom.
Holding protectively to his left side, Kevin stared back up at the natives once he reached the bottom.
“You are to take the rocks out of the pit and pile them here,” the native stated with authority as he gestured towards a new pile approximately 40 feet from the hole.
Kevin looked warily at the rock pile and then at the crude wooden steps that led out of the hole - steps that looked like they were about ready to collapse or fold up at any given time.
“But why? And why during the night?” Kevin demanded.
“We need a ceremonial temple for the Princess and night is much better on workers because day is very hot,” the man explained. “If you decide to make this difficult, you will be punished by going into the pit during the daylight hours.”
With that answer, Kevin shrugged his shoulders and looked for the smallest boulder he could find - one that would be at least under one hundred pounds.
