The Counterfeit

eight

"I bet if you stuck a thermometer out there it'd snap in two." Jasmine glared at the boy, hugging her knees to try and warm herself up.
"Who the hell are you?" He quirked an eyebrow.
"Me? I'm Cavan, it's been a pleasure meeting you all too." If sarcasm had a face, this was it

Jasmine didn't need to look to know that the others were shooting daggers at him too. Not only was Cavan despicable, but he was also highly annoying.

"But as much as this has been fun--"
"You're not leaving." Cavan's face dropped when he heard the sincerity in Izzabeth's voice. "All you're going to do is run back to Trixie and I'm more than one hundred percent sure you'll give away our location. So as much as none of us want your presence, you have no choice."

Cavan smirked, helping himself to his feet.
"Actually, I do have a choice."
"No you don't." Izzabeth withdrew a pocket knife from her trousers and pointed it directly at Cavan.
He laughed.

"Yeah, very funny, what's that gonna do? Slice me up like your mom does to chicken when she cooks the Sunday roast?" Cavan continued to laugh.
Fed up on a whole new level, Jasmine took out the knife she'd picked up earlier, trudged over to Cavan and smacked him around the head with the butt of the knife. Cavan fell in a crumpled heap. Not another sound escaped his mouth.

"I thought he'd never stop." Hannah said, relief evident in her tone.
"Didn't we all?"

The four sat in silence for a while. A long while. To Jasmine it felt like they'd just wasted years not saying or doing anything and their corpses were already beginning to rot. If it weren't for that woman whom had practically saved them from hypothermia earlier, maybe they would've died from the silence.

She entered the teepee-like tent, snowflakes whooshing in behind her, carrying a tray of what appeared to be hot drinks. With the same, neutral expression, she placed the tray down on a mat in the centre of the group and left without a sound.

"That's kind of her." Adam said, picking up a mug and holding it with both his hands. Jasmine watched as he looked into the mug and gagged in plain disgust. "I take that back."

Curious, Jasmine, Izzabeth and Hannah both picked up mugs of their own to see what Adam was witnessing. Hannah's entire face scrunched up in revulsion.
"What the hell is that?!"

Jasmine peeked into the mug and immediately pulled a face. It wasn't the luxury cocoa that she was practically craving now. No. Instead a dull green, frothy mixture took it's place. To make the appearance worse, lumpy chunks of God knows what floated around in the repulsive brew.

Jasmine was immensly close to throwing up her insides so instinctively she looked up and directly ahead of herself to see Izzabeth gulping down the liquid. Her jaw dropped when Izzabeth smacked the mug back down on the tray and wiped the excess froth from her mouth.

She looked back and forth between Jasmine, Hannah and Adam and was completely unfazed by their bedazzled expressions.
"What? You guys gonna drink that?"

Jasmine didn't reply. Nor did Hannah or Adam. They just stared at Izzabeth; Hardly believing their eyes. "Gee, okay guys," Before Izzabeth could finish her sentence, the woman who'd bought in the drinks entered the tent again, but this time she wasn't carrying anything.

No one spoke a word as she took off her huge fur coat, flattened it out on the floor and plopped down on it. She sat crossed-legged and observed all of the kids. Her eyes hovering over Cavan for the longest.