Camp Driftwood

Chapter 21 - Symbiotic

Chapter 21 – Symbiotic

Neither Kaylee or Evan had said a word as they worked, though the conversation with Judie had taken the fire out of both of them. Kaylee would have preferred it if they were still angry, it would justify their inaction, but all that was left between them was stony silence. At least when they were still punching each other, she could validate her words.

She flinched as a drop of sweat dropped into the open cut on her left eyebrow, and her entire head throbbed painfully. Camp Driftwood didn't even have modern mowers. Instead, they had been brought to the shed and given a pair of machines that looked like they'd been outdated fifty years ago. Their progress had been painfully slow.

There were no motors, and only two wheels that were constantly jamming with rust. Half-dulled blades meant they had to constantly go over areas that they'd already worked, easily doubling how long this task should have taken. The machines were made out of heavy iron and what felt like lead piping, and the long grass was littered with stones that constantly stalled their progress.

Kaylee's eyes wandered as she pushed the chunky machine along, looking at the progress they had been making. About twenty square metres of space had been cleared surrounding the sweatboxes on the north-west side of the camp, with easily three times that amount left to go until they reached the orchard. This was going to be a long day's work.

She gritted her teeth as she pushed the mower forward, attempting to keep her mind preoccupied. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't keep Evan's words from running through her head. They couldn't possibly be true, and he was a jackass for entertaining it for a second that Henry could have betrayed her. Henry would never do that to her. Henry cared about her. In all of her life, Henry was one of the only people that ever treated her like an adult. He respected her opinions, was patient with her, and didn't just dismiss her because she was a teenager. Henry understood.

And who the hell was Evan to suggest that Henry was just like Hale? He didn't know the first thing about him. He didn't know anything about Kaylee either. He didn't know what it was like. Kaylee's mind travelled back to when she was fifteen, and in her first year of training with Henry and the class. Back then, when she was still a kid, she used to have a silly fantasy that Henry was her dad. She knew it was stupid, but a small part of her still held on to it. He was a good man; Kaylee knew that in her heart. Evan could never understand that.

Her progress with the mower was interrupted yet again by a half-buried stone. With a grunt she dropped the mower, hooking her fingers into the dirt and dragging it free. This one was only a little bigger than a tennis ball, and was one of the smaller ones she'd been forced to stop and remove. She held it in the ball of her hand, as if to crush it, and glowered on everything that'd been going wrong over the past few days. What did Evan know? She didn't need him anyway. She'd figure out her own way out of here, and then she'd see her mom again.

With clenched teeth, she threw the rock into a pile that had accumulated beside the sweatboxes. It was a few feet across, and almost halfway up her shin by this point. As she looked out over the area of uncut grass in front of her, she spotted another half dozen similar rocks all embedded into the ground. There were more still that she couldn't see. She'd have to stop dozens more times before she got to the orchard.

As she walked back to her mower, Evan walked by and tossed another stone onto the pile. He didn't look in her direction, or even acknowledge her existence at all. She wordlessly grabbed hold of the heavy iron bar, and began to push again. The vibrations running up the handle jarred her arms, and time every minute that she pushed felt like half an hour. When she cast a quick glance behind her, she'd barely moved more than a few metres. She'd be here all day.