***
It was three hours until nightfall. Thus, it was three hours until the natives returned for their dinner. We had three hours to escape the campsite. Suddenly, the two-day rush to the launch site didn't seem as time-sensitive as it had in the moment.
Alice led the way over to Elijah Olivier's tent. The woman with the dark red hair who had accompanied them was sitting behind it, her face in her hands, sobbing. Somehow, I knew not to sympathize with her.
I gripped the zipper of the tent in a shaking hand and began to pull it delicately. Inside, there was only silence. For all we knew, he wasn't even there. Perhaps that was for the best; we would sneak in, close the tent, and signal for him to be quiet when he returned. Then, we would explain to him what we were trying to do as quietly as possible.
When the tent was opened enough that I could see in, I saw that Elijah was inside and looking right at us. Like idiots, we ducked from his view, but by then it was too late. He ripped the zipper down and pulled us both inside with a strength and rage that stunned us both into terrified silence.
“What do you want?” He hissed at us with a fistful of our shirts clenched tightly in his fists.
“Calm down, man,” I whispered as I held up my hands in surrender, “We want to help your sister!”
He released us and turned back to whatever it was that he had been silently working on. Alice and I looked at each other in horror when he pulled out a gun and began loading it with bullets. We were not worried that he would shoot us. We were worried that he would shoot his way through anyone that stood in the way of the path to his sister. A massacre of his father's people would not spell peace for the rest of us. We would all suffer for it.
“Listen to me,” Alice reached out to grasp his wrist, but he shook her off, “Elijah? That's your name, isn't it?”
“That's me. Elijah Olivier. That name is becoming quite the stigma around here, isn't it?”
“It is,” I replied honestly, and Alice cast me a scathing look, “Sorry.”
“Don't apologize. I'm not deaf. I hear what people are saying. They're right, though. That's the sad thing.”
“You can't do anything completely insane, okay?” Alice reasoned quietly, “Going in there all guns blazing is completely insane!”
“Well, he wants to sell my sister off to those freaks that came in here and killed ten of us. I'll kill every last one of them before that happens. I'll kill my own dad before I let him hand her over to that guy, whoever the hell he is.”
Alice looked like she wanted to argue his point, but instead, she forged ahead with detailing our plan.
“You're going to need help. We're going to help you break in. I had another dream last night. She's at the bottom of the ship. I saw the number three. Does that mean anything to you?”
“There are storage compartments down there that are numbered. I don't need you two to go with me. You've just helped me more than I could ever thank you enough for.”
He loaded the clip into the gun quietly.
“Have you ever even shot a gun?” Alice demanded crossly.
“Nope. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Point and pull the trigger, right?”
I jumped in to aid Alice’s quest of calming him down.
“You're angry. You have every right to be. But if you get yourself killed, you're doing her no good. Do you think he'll tell them not to kill you? If you go in there, shooting the place up, do you think he'll tell them to bring you in alive?”
“I don't care what he does to me.”
“If you get yourself killed, you won't be able to save her!” Alice whispered in frantic irritation. “We'll go with you. We'll help you fight them off.”
“Are you telling me that you two can fight the same way she did the other day?”
“We can.” Alice answered, “There was this thing on earth. It was sitting outside of our window at night. And when I let it into the house, it tried to kill us. We fought it off. I shot it and killed it. It was my...” She stopped, closing her eyes for a minute to steady herself, “Let's just say that we both know what it is to lose someone. We also know that there's nothing wrong with Brynna. She doesn't deserve to be handed over to them. Whatever it is that’s happening isn’t just happening to her.”
“I know that, because it's happening to me.” Elijah looked up at us, his eyes burning, “My first plan was to show him how my eyes turn red every time I look at his face. Then, I can only hope that I would have grown fangs and been able to take him out the way Brynna took down the native that was after me.”
“What he's done to her and to everyone else is awful. But he's still your dad, Elijah.” Alice tried to reason with him, “If he is meant to die, it shouldn't be you killing him.”
His expression darkened as he looked up at her.
“If he's looking to hurt my sister, then it's my job to kill him.”
“We aren't going to kill anybody,” I chimed in again, “We're going to go fight some people, and we'll win, because they're not changing over the way we are. We're going to get her out of there before the natives come back tonight. We're going to leave camp. It's not safe here anymore.”
“Is there anywhere that's safe?” Elijah stared into the lantern that was burning away in the corner of his tent. “It doesn't matter. Anywhere is better than here. Brynna and I won't leave my sisters. My sisters won't let us leave Maura behind.”
“Is Maura that woman outside?” I asked. My tone displayed my distaste for her. I had never spoken a word to her but still, I didn't like her. More importantly, I didn't want to be responsible for her.
“Yeah. I don't trust her anymore.” He put the gun in his back pocket, “I was considering joining the Marines for a while. Doesn't every kid dream about that?”
“I know I did.”
I smiled slightly despite the situation. I didn't quite see how his aspirations to join the military had anything to do with the situation. But the memory of being a little boy and pretending trees were helicopters that I was jumping out of and play-fighting with my dad like we were in combat brought a flicker of joy to me that I hadn't been expecting.
They were memories I had long since forgotten.
“This is kind of like that. Like a bad-ass mission, you know? Breaking in, fighting through people, rescuing someone. God, if she heard me say, 'rescue…' Brynna doesn't need to be rescued. She's never needed me to protect her, but she has always let me think that she does.” I watched as tears rushed into his eyes. He assumed we weren't paying enough attention to see him swipe them away. “I'm not rescuing her now, either. I'm helping her save herself. She wouldn't have it any other way.” He cleared his throat and looked at us. “Before we do this, what are you names?”
We told him.
“Alright, Quinn and Alice. I don't know why you're so ready to do this with me. But you said you know that it's what you're supposed to do. I understand that, and I'm not going to question it.”
“Good, because we're running out of time.” Alice told him as we crawled out of his tent. “There's no time for questioning anything. Let's do this.”
They walked ahead of me, and I stood staring after her with my mouth agape. If any of the three of us was like a Marine, it was Alice. She was charging ahead, mission in mind, with courage swelling in her chest. Elijah was connected emotionally to the task, but Alice saw it through the clear eye of a soldier.
I followed after them, grinning despite my nerves beginning to respond to the situation. Her bravery inspired a great admiration in me. Our love was maturing from that of an adolescent romance to something real, something much deeper. Ever since we had landed on Pangaea, our bond had been stronger, feeling at times to be completely unbreakable.
I hoped someday she could see me with that same admiration. Once both of us reached that level, then I would know what I had always suspected: we were supposed to be together forever.
She hung back to grasp my hand. We walked along, smiling at eac
h other as though we were simply taking an early evening stroll. Then she stood on her tiptoes, kissed my cheek, and whispered:
“You're the bravest guy I know. Don't forget it.”
Faith. It was a different kind than what we had discussed earlier, but it felt no less divine.