Danger is Near

Chapter 15

He came back about fifteen minutes after he left.

It was silent. None of us talked. He checked the guns making sure I had re shelled them correctly.

For some reason I felt really bad. What I said wasn't even that mean but I still felt terrible.

"Ok" he started. "To clean them, you have to..." he kept talking. I kind of zoned out though, thinking of what I was going to say to him about Jem.

"Do you understand?" I heard him say as I snapped out of my thoughts.

I looked at him, oblivious to what he had just told me.

"Eliza. Do you understand?" he questioned again.

"Umm..." I didn't know how to finish. So I stared blankly at him.

"You weren't listening were you?" he questioned, looking a little annoyed.

"No sorry" I said as I looked down at the ground, knowing I had upset him.

"Here, just watch me do it a few times then you can continue on the rest" he said as he got a cloth and put some sort of lotion on it. He then took a gun and began cleaning it.

After I watched him do a few, I joined in. Strangely though, he kept cleaning them. With me...

It was silent for what felt like hours. So I decided to speak up about Jem.

"What did you do to Jem?" I question criticizingly.

He looked at me. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What the hell are you on about?" he said.

"When Jem came back from seeing you and Max today she looked really shaken up. So what the hell did you do to her!?" I was starting to get pissed. I hated seeing my friends hurt.

He looked very pissed off. "You think I did something to her!?".

"Well, yeah..." I started to wander whether he actually did do something.

"Well, I did nothing to her! So the next time you have the nerve to fucking criticize me for doing something I didn't do.. You're out" he said sternly. And I knew he wasn't lying.

"Sorry" I said really quietly. I would've been surprised if he had heard me.

"You gotta clean up your act Eliza, unless you actually want to get thrown out" he told me. "And then how will you become a leader?" he confronted.

I quickly flicked my face up to his. "What?" I questioned.

"I over heard you speaking to Peter at lunch" he answered.

"You reckon I could do it?" I questioned smartly.

He looked at me pathetically. Again.

"No. Not by the way you've been acting lately" he blankly stated, as if he already knew the answer before I asked him.

"You don't know me" I said. "Therefore, you don't know what I am capable of".

"And you don't know me..." he spoke up. He paused for a bit, grabbing his chin while he chuckled wickedly.

"Therefore, you don't know what I am capable of" he finished.

I was so fed up, so I just turned around and continued to clean the guns.

I expected him to walk away and go check on the others but he just stood there behind me. Watching.

I didn't want to make a big deal about it so I just kept cleaning the guns, making sure I did it properly.

After a while, maybe five minutes or so. I turned around to see if he was still there. It had become really quiet in the past few minutes so I thought he had left.

Nope. I said to myself as I saw him standing in the exact same spot, sharpening a knife. I quickly turned back to the table of guns, hoping he didn't catch me looking.

It had been a while and he was still there. So I decided to speak up. This is probably going to be a big mistake.

"May I ask, what you are still doing here?" I said as I turned to face him.

He slowly looked up from his knife, looked me in the eyes and said, "May I ask why you are questioning me?" he said back sassily.

I took that as a signal to not bother him, so I turned back to cleaning.

I had about twenty guns left. I looked back at him one final time. I was starting to get extremely freaked out. One, he was holding a knife and Two, he was staring straight at me.

I continued cleaning, going as fast as I could. I wanted to get away from this weirdo ASAP.

As I cleaned and cleaned, I eventually got lost in my thoughts. Forgetting Eric was even there, right behind me.

After a while his voice jolted me back to reality. "You missed a spot".

I turned around, holding the gun in my left hand and the cloth in my right hand.

"Well maybe you want to take over?" I said sarcastically cheerfully.

"Did you not understand what I said before?" he questioned, while giving me a mighty death stare. He was obviously referring to our little chat about me needing to 'clean up my act'.

I sighed as I looked down. "Sorry, I can't help it. I just don't like being bossed around" I explained quietly.

Woah! I had just told Eric something kinda personal. What the hell is this!?

It went silent. I thought that maybe he would open up to me a little or give a genuine response. But...

That didn't happen. Instead, he said, "Well you better get used to it".

He began to walk away. "If you finish up before I get back, do not leave. I'll need to check your work".

I only had like five guns left to go. And I had a strong feeling he would purposely take a long time checking up on the others. Just to annoy me.

I continued cleaning and rubbing lotion over each gun, but something didn't feel right.

I turned around to check if he was really gone and he wasn't. He was just waiting there, looking at me as if I forgot to answer him. Well I kinda did but I didn't really think his last comment needed to be answered.

He raised his eyebrows, waiting. I took a deep breath in and let it out. "Got it" I said with my eyes widened, showing him that I wasn't stupid and that I understood him.

With that he walked away.

Finally. I thought.