Children's Draft

Chapter 20 (Part One)

(Holly's PoV)

I shook Landon awake. "It's time."

He grimaced, but nodded.

We proceeded to wake the other guys. There was an eerie sort of silence among them, which honestly felt worse than their non-stop talking.

"Eat the last of your MREs if you've got any," I told them. "Who knows when or if we'll eat again."

Despite my advice for them, I merely picked apart at my chicken pot pie, hardly any of it actually making in my mouth.

Landon looked at me and tried to give a small smile, but it seemed difficult for him to do that.

I couldn't be scared, I reminded myself. There was no room for fear, only focus.

"All right," I began. "We'll need to split up into groups so we stand a better chance. Two will have to do. More would of course be ideal," I muttered bitterly, "but since Justin is apparently the only one of you with knowledge of the area or like...maps in general."

"Holly," Landon reminded me to stay on track, and probably to be nicer too, but I didn't care about that part as much.

"I digress. I'm just saying it would be a bad idea to send off a group completely helpless, so we're gonna have two groups."

"Plus it can give us strength in numbers if needed," Landon added, trying to be helpful.

"I've tried to split us up based on our strengths," I continued. "Daniel, Trevor, Connor, Felix, Jean-Paul, Michael, Tristan, Matteo, Alan, Ned. You'll be with me. The others will go with Landon."

Earlier when forming the groups, Landon had asked me if I was sure I wanted Connor and Matteo to both be in my group.

"Do you think I want Ned in my group? Do you think I want Felix in my group," I had retorted. "I don't care who likes each other."

"It's just they might fight the entire time," he had told me.

"They'll deal," I insisted. "Plus the circumstances are different here. They ultimately have the same goal here, albeit very different motivations of revenge and reuniting with his girlfriend, respectively, but still, they can deal."

    I had expected the guys to complain since I split up a lot of friends (intentionally, I might add), but no one said a word in protest.

"If that's what you think is best," Logan said firmly. The other guys nodded in agreement.

So far, they were dealing better than expected.

"The emperor's palace is only a couple of miles into the city," I went on. "My group will approach it from the South-West, while Landon's group will approach it from the North. I wish I knew how to get in, but none of us had any way of seeing the palace before now, so unfortunately, we'll just have to figure out something when we get there."

I hated the idea of improvising. Even the guys who had much more practice at "winging things" looked at each other anxiously. Although it was anxious in both senses of the word. They knew the danger, but were too filled with hope to turn back.

"Let's split up," I said.

We all began to stand up and walk our separate ways. I snuck one last glance at Landon, wondering if that would be the last time I ever got to do so.

(Clayton's PoV)

    It was still rather dark when our groups split up. The city of Hong-Kong was quiet at this time of night–or I guess, morning. We tried to keep close to factories and empty work buildings out of fear of running into people who probably wouldn't be as nice or understanding as Jai-ying.