Star-Crossed Enemies ✔️

Chapter 12

*Just a quick warning: there is a violent scene in this chapter.

Hayley's POV

Julius sets up the fake tracks while I wait for him in our hide out. I wanted to go with him and help, but he managed to persuade me otherwise by reminding me there would be lesser chances of being seen if he was alone and that he was the fastest of the two of us.

"I'll be in and out." he promises "I won't be but a minute. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

As if. In the mean time I take a look at what Julius had brought with him. I see a flashlight, which might come in handy right now, another bottle of water, a change of flannel, bandages and... a cloth. I take it out and notice it was wrapped around something, when I unwrapped it I am surprised to see a knife, a kitchen knife by the looks of it, but sharp enough to hurt someone with the right motivation.

"I'm keeping this..." I say placing the knife on my boots. It was small enough to fit there perfectly without getting in the way, or risk falling. Feeling better now, all was left was counting down the minutes as I wait for Julius to reappear.

He keeps to his word and appears faster than I was expecting him to, with a grin in his lips and a mischievous spark in his eyes. I can already imagine the troublesome kid he used to be when he was a child.

"All done. They should find the fake tracks soon enough, are you ready?" he asks helping me out of the hole when I went to pick up the backpack he tells me to leave it there.

"We'll come back for it if we can, but it's better if we bring as little with us as we can." he says surprisingly making sense. I still take a second to remove the flashlight I had spotted earlier. No need to leave this behind.

He holds my hand and leads me through the woods. We try to be as silent as we can, but the sun was already out and we were easy spotted in the woods, so we had to be more careful now that we didn't have the cover of night. He pauses a couple of times, keeping track of the scent and then suddenly he pulls me quickly into a tree, a finger on my lips indicating me to be silent.

I hear them, more than see them. A group of hunters was coming out of somewhere in a hurry, guns ready in their hands ready to be fired. They had found our fake tracks. It appears the plan was working.

"Do you think that's all of them?" I ask him when nobody else came out.

"There might still be some inside the bunker, but I think it's safe to say that most of them are out." he speculates serious. "Ready?"

I nod determined "Ready."

He takes me to where the hunters had come out, it was covered up by vegetation, unnoticed by a passing stranger but when you pay close enough attention you can see the unnatural disturbance. Julius shows me a code panel. I quickly insert a group of numbers, and I am not surprise when I hear the door unlocking. All hunters were given the same general code numbers to enter safe houses, only variating depending on the area. I guess they never considered that one of their own might use it against them sometime.

"Come on in." I invite Julius.

We both enter the bunker, both with our eyes and ears open to any enemy left behind. I lead us through a set of dimly lighted corridors, never once coming across anyone.

"It should be right up ahead." I inform Julius. He nods understanding. We make the final corridor undisturbed but just as we were reaching the door, said door opens taking us by surprise. I act before the other guy could even think of reacting. I punch him, making him stumble back in shock and then I proceed to use the door casing to lift myself up and lock my legs around his neck and hold his head still as I do my best to try and suffocate him. We both fall on the ground in a louder thump than I wanted too, and the guy is hitting my legs trying to break free, but I keep applying pressure and soon enough he stops struggling.