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“Get up slave!”

I jerked awake when I felt a rough kick in my side. Light streamed through the hut and I squinted.

“GET UP!”

I whipped my head over to see another native kicking at Nick. “Hey! Don’t do that!” I protested.

I struggled to my feet, my body stiff from sleeping on the dirt-packed ground. Nick opened his eyes, looking totally disoriented. Brian was also waking up.

“Wha--” Nick looked around. When it clicked where he was, he narrowed his eyes.

“The medicine woman has a job for you.” A burly native stated in a monotone voice.

He held out a leather bag, the size of a standard purse. I took it hesitantly. He stepped back and held open the flap that served as the door to the hut. Lelani stepped in, smiling coldly.

“Pay attention, both of you.” She commanded, holding a large leaf out for us to see. She nodded to the bag I held. “Open that.”

I held open the top, wondering where this was going. She held the leaf over it and snapped the thick stem. Then she took her fingers and pushed it down the stem, squeezing a milky liquid out of it. “You are to fill this bag. It is used to make one of my salves and I am nearly out.” She said simply.

I groaned. “You know how long that will take?!” I peered into the bottom of the bag and that leaf had barely left anything at all.

Lelani glared at me. “You will stay in the forest until it is filled. Do not worry, you won’t be alone.” She sneered at Nick. “He will join you along with the dark one.”

“Lelani, please! That could take forever. Nick isn’t in the condition to be on his feet in a forest all day!” Brian protested, sitting up.

Lelani’s pretty face twisted, almost as if in pain. “It is not your concern. You only need to worry about yourself and getting well.”

“It is my concern. This isn’t something that either one of them should be doing. And Kevin? I know he was punished. I can’t lay in here all day and get better when I will worry about them the whole time.” He argued.

Lelani bit her lip. “You will join them.”

“NO!” Nick and I both cried out at the same time.

“No, I have decided. Brian, you need to learn to appreciate how I have been taking care of you. I have nursed you back to health. Maybe if you are treated as a slave for a day, you will learn to appreciate me. You will join them for this day.” Lelani said. She turned away, visibly upset. “Do not return until it is full.” She said in an angry, choked voice.

“Lelani...” I said hesitantly. “Our meds. We need those before we can leave.”

She ignored me and left the hut. I glanced at a native and he just jerked his head at me. I grabbed the green backpack and started pulling out bottles as fast as I could. By now I was used to who took what so I put several doses of each med into a bottle and shoved it in my pocket. Then I passed the backpack to Nick so he could take his and then he passed it to Brian. The native stared at us impatiently, shaking his head.

“So we’re druggies, big deal.” I muttered.

“Lizz...” Brian only shook his head. We shuffled out of the hut, Nick steadying Brian at first. Even though the previous day had let both of them gain their strength, I could tell they were both going to have a tough time with this. I slung the leather bag over my shoulder and we all followed the natives out of the hut. I kept glancing behind me, knowing this was the first time in a few days that Brian had even been out of the hut. Nick looked exhausted, but was hiding it well, as he always did.

We stopped in front of the cave entrance that I had stayed in for awhile before. Kevin was laying on the floor of the cave, on his stomach. It was hard to see because of the shadows but it looked like something was wrong with his back. I glanced at Nick and he returned my concerned gaze. Brian went up to the bars.

“Kevin?” He called, distressed.

“Move!” The burly native barked, shoving Brian out of the way. Brian stumbled and nearly fell before Nick caught him.

“Ass.” He growled.

“What did they do to him?!” Brian cried.

The native rolled the rock away that stood in front of the bars. “Get out here slave.” He ordered.

Kevin grimaced and stood up slowly. AJ and Howie also stood up. Before they could even protest, they were interrupted.

“Both of you, back up. You don’t want to cause your friend any more harm do you?” The other shorter native directed to AJ and Howie.

Kevin turned and said something to them quietly. They both nodded and backed up like they had been told. As he turned I saw his back, the sun falling on it and giving me a perfect view. I gasped.

“Sonofabitch.” Nick swore.

I could immediately feel my heart start to pound as I knew Nick’s was. “No, Nick. It’ll only make it worse.”

Kevin joined us, glancing at each of us in turn, his gaze resting worriedly on his younger cousin. “Brian?”

“What happened?” Brian whispered, staring at Kevin’s blistered back.

“It looks worse than it is. What the hell is going on? Why are you up?” Kevin brushed off the concern, more worried about how pale Brian was. He turned to Nick. “You really don’t look much better.”

“Thanks.” Nick rolled his eyes. “I’m fine though.”

“’I’m fine though.’” I mimicked, smiling lightly at Nick.

“Shuddup.” He returned.

“Enough!” The native butted in. “You are to go through those trees. I caution you to not pick the wrong leaves. That will result in severe punishments.”

We nodded and filed off into the trees. As grim of a situation we were in, I still couldn’t help but notice the beauty of the forest. The sun was bright, but only shone through in patches through the tops of the trees. The ground was uneven and covered with more smaller plants and brightly colored flowers. It nearly too my breath away. Even in books I have never seen anything like it. My gaze fell onto Kevin’s back, who walked in front of the rest of us. The blisters were raw and looked really painful. Then realization hit me with a gasp.

“Lizz, what is it?” Brian looked at me worriedly.

“Th-that was the punishment I was supposed to get. Oh god, Brian, you stopped it. If you hadn’t said anything, they would have done that to me too.” I said, my voice shaky.

Nick stopped dead in his tracks. “Punishment? What the hell did I miss? You were supposed to get that too? What did you guys do?”

I sighed. “After your seizure, the bridge started to collapse.” I left out the part about him nearly falling off, knowing it would shake him up even more. “Kevin came to try to help and he ended up getting punished for not having permission to leave his work. They were going to punish me because they said the bridge breaking was my fault. Cause I’m a woman. And then it did collapse and Kevin almost...anyway they told me to go back to their side, but I said I was staying with you. So I was supposed to get an even worse punishment.”

Nick narrowed his eyes. I knew he knew that I was leaving things out, but fortunately chose to not press me about it. “And Brian got you out of it?”

“He begged Lelani to not do it.” I shuddered, thinking of how close I got to going through the same agony that Kevin was forced to endure. Then I shuddered again, hating that Kevin had to go through it. He was putting up a brave front, but I could tell he was in pain.

We walked for what seemed like forever before we found several huge tress that bore the leaves we needed. They looked relatively easy to climb with all the branches and limbs.

“This is insane. How the hell many leaves are we going to have to milk to get that white shit to fill up the bag?” Nick groaned, looking up.

“A lot. I’m going up.” Kevin stated flatly.

“No, Kevin!” Brian stepped in front of him. “You’re in enough pain as it is. I don’t think it’s a good idea that you do it.”

“Well are you going to?” Kevin returned, gesturing up.

Brian followed his gaze and visibly winced. “Uh...”

Kevin laughed softly. “Didn’t think so.”

“I’ll go.” Nick announced, pushing past both of them.

“NO.” Kevin, Brian and I all said at once, quite emphatically. He turned and looked at us all with a wide-eyed expression.

“Nick, you could have a seizure. Then what, fall out of the tree?” I reasoned.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I guess that leaves me. It’s no problem, really. I used to climb trees all the time.” I decided.

“No, Lizz. I have to be the responsible one here and I’m not about to let you go climbing up and falling out.” Kevin argued.

“Besides, you’re a klutz.” Nick added.

“Hey!” I protested. “Seriously, it makes the best sense for me to go.”

“I’m going and that’s it.” Kevin said sternly. With that he held out his hand for the bag. I reluctantly shrugged it off and handed it to him. He gave me a grim smile and started to climb.

“Careful.” Brian called nervously.

I held my breath as he climbed, knowing he was in considerable pain and frustrated with myself for not pressing it. It would have been better if I had gone up. A few minutes later he was perched on a thick branch about ten feet away from the trunk. He began pulling off leaves.

“Maybe it would be easier to drop the leaves and the bag and while you pull them off, we can start milking them.” Nick called up.

“Good idea.” Kevin called back. “Hold on, let me get to a better place. The leaves look a little thicker over there.” He inched his way out further across the branch. He was almost where he could reach some really good handfuls when his foot slid.

“Kevin!” I yelled at the same time Nick yelled out, “oh shit!” Brian only gasped. Kevin regained his balance, but the leather bag slipped off his shoulder and fell onto a branch just below him.

“Sonofabitch!” He yelled.

“Are you okay?” Brian yelled back.

“I’m fine, but the damn bag is out of reach and the branch it’s on won’t support my weight.” The frustration shone through Kevin’s voice.

“I’ll get it.” I said, moving towards the tree.

“No, dammit Lizz. I don’t want you to go up there.” Nick locked eyes with me.

“We don’t have a lot of choice. You might have a seizure and there’s no way Brian can go up there. That leaves me. Besides I’m small enough that the branch should hold me. We have no choice, we need the bag.” I reasoned. I squeezed his shoulder and started to climb. My tank top and shorts weren’t really the best for tree climbing, but I was fortunate enough to have on tennis shoes. Usually in hot weather I could only be seen in flip flops or barefoot. The tree was pretty easy to climb and I reached the branch that the bag was stuck on. My heart was going pretty good, but I made myself concentrate on the task at hand.

“Go slow Lizz.” Kevin coached from just above me.

I nodded, inching my way towards the bag. When I reached it, I slung it over my shoulder very carefully.

“Can you toss it up to me?” Kevin asked.

“Ha. And lose my balance? No thanks, I’ll bring it up.”

“Alright, be careful then.”

“You guys okay up there?” Nick called anxiously.

“Yup. Here, have some leaves.” I called, yanking a handful and letting them flutter to the ground.

I heard them both laugh and I grinned too. Slowly, but surely I made my way up the short distance to Kevin. I was more nervous than I let on, but I was okay as long as I kept a death grip on the thicker branches. “As long as I am up here, why don’t I help you?” I suggested.

“Lizz you never give up.” Kevin rolled his eyes at me.

“I learned it from Nick. Seriously, Kev, you are in a hella lot of pain and the faster we pull off those leaves, the sooner we can go back down.” I pointed out.

“Okay, but be careful.” He pointed a finger at me.

“Yessir.” I smiled. I busied myself yanking off leaves and dropping them.

Who knew how many it was going to take? There was only a few hours left before the sun started setting and we couldn’t go back until it was full. We’d probably get punished for taking too long anyway. After ten minutes of dropping leaves, I had tossed the bag down to Brian and Nick so they could start milking. Looking down made me dizzy, but I had to laugh at the pile of leaves that surrounded them as they sat, milking them.

A rustling sound caught my attention and I slowly turned.

“Oh god.” I whispered, panic filling my chest. A snake had lowered itself between Kevin and I. I had moved past him a bit ago so I was on the outside of the branch. It was thinner so it made sense that I went out further since I weighed less. The snake was huge. It had to have been almost six inches in diameter and who knew how long. I felt myself start to shake. There was nothing behind me and only a snake in front of me. It was almost equal distance between Kevin and I.

“Kevin. Don’t move.” I hissed.

“Wha-”

“Don’t move!“ I said again, afraid to agitate the snake. It was dangling between us, barely moving. “Oh god...”