Outside

Chapter 17

"It's close?" I ask. "That's great!" I run over to her to look at the digital map in her hand, still a bit frustrated at her interruption. She shows me the screen and I see a low-res aerial view of a building. A red dot flickers on the screen a somewhat large distance away from it.

"The red dot is us." Occi explains. "It's the location of the GPS device."

"Isn't that far?" I ask.

"Not too bad! We could make it there in a decent amount of time." She explains. "We'll have to abandon the stream, but according to this GPS, there's a river that flows behind the house, so we should be fine once we get there!"

"Can we wait a bit before we leave the stream?" Kyan asks. "I feel like we just found it. We should appreciate the clean water while we have it before we have to dehydrate ourselves while hiking again. Plus, I need to finish redoing my bandages, so I can't leave now."

"Don't you wanna sleep in a house as soon as you can, blondie?" Drew says. "Just wrap it up and let's go." Drew pulls his first aid kit from his backpack and tosses it to Kyan, who sloppily catches it, nearly dropping it on the grass.

"I'm not asking for a week, sheesh, I just..." he takes a moment to think, "you know what? Never mind. Yeah, let's just... go right after I'm rebandaged up." He walks back off to the stream alone, but before I can follow him Drew continues the conversation.

"Do you think that there might be anyone there? In that house?" He asks Occi.

"It depends." She replies. "Depends on their pace, their route, and whether or not someone grabbed a GPS on the way out of the Outside shelter before it blew up."

"We should get there as soon as possible." Drew adds. "Helicopter or not, it's rain season, and if we keep making dumb tree forts to sleep in eventually one of us is gonna catch a cold, or worse. It's going to take a while to get there, so we need to get moving." His eyes flicker back to where Kyan ran off. "Like... now. I'll go and let him know." He stands up.

"No. I should do it." I cut in, jumping to my feet. "I should be the one to tell him."

"When will you realize I'm not going to kill him?" He throws his hands in the air. "After all I've done for you guys, do you still not trust me? I'm not going to betray you, Nox. I know I'm not going to win your love by hurting those you care about. I'm not an idiot."

"Win my... you're still on that?" I say. He nods and I roll my eyes. "Fine. Go." He jogs off over to the stream. Drew told me he's not going to betray me. It's getting harder and harder to believe that to be true now.

~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~

I find myself stumbling over my own feet in the burning hot hills of the forest. My jacket is placed over my head to protect my face from the sunlight, and my legs ache from walking for so long with such little water. I had filled a water bottle for each of us and put them in Drew's backpack, but the small portion has been wearing me down fast.

"Are we getting any closer?" I ask Occi, who leads the four of us with the GPS in her hands.

"Closer, yes, but it will still be a while before we get there. We should stop to eat in a few hours, but until then, continuing forward is mandatory." She replies.

"We've been hiking for a while." Kyan joins in. "Can we at least stop for a minute?" He asks. His sweatshirt is tied around his shoulders, and his t-shirt underneath makes his thin frame more visible, now even more prominent due to the lack of food available. I can see sweat dripping down his face like he just dunked his head in water.