The others in his group didn't meet Layne's idea very positively. All he could hear of was it's too dangerous and those people would kill us on the spot. His voice was outmatched – but it wasn't the first time.
Being met with such resistance, Layne had no other choice than to look for a plan B. Or a plan C – or whichever it was at that point. Without the help of the others, even looking for their persecutors would have been an empty chore – one he had no energy for.
His immediate thought was getting rid of Victor. That, of course, had to be pushed away. Even if he managed to do that somehow, all alone, there was no way he'd be met as a hero and not a murderer.
Was he a murderer already, though? Through everything that has been going on, he didn't have the time to think about it anymore. And he was glad of that – remembering that scene in the kitchen would only give him nightmares. Then, of course, he had plenty of time to think about anything, and so he did.
And so he came up with a conclusion – he was, in fact, a murderer.
Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, considering where he was, who surrounded him and what he had to do. He thought he had to protect the few decent people in the Land, but the more he thought about it, the more he proved the theory wrong. He didn't care about them – the ones he did care about were dead already, anyway. It was all about revenge, at that point. Perhaps a bit about survival – and he couldn't survive without others, unfortunately.
The more he thought about it, the clearer it became that it may not have been worth it. Maybe a bunch of criminals, himself included, weren't worth the effort.
He glanced at Coden and Iker playing with the children. Iker has always been timid and didn't show his emotions in front of others all that often. It's gotten worse since Zander was left behind, too. Yet he appeared to be delighted in that company, even with everything they've been going through. From time to time, Coden chuckled and gave high-fives to the kids.
Rose and the man, whose named Layne had finally learned to be Robin – who was a poacher back in Eumain, had set a tiny campfire – too small to even provide any real heat, yet they couldn't risk a bigger one cause of the smoke. They did need a fire, though, as the children refused to eat the insects raw. At the time, they had a few sticks of larvae, crickets and beetles impaled on them, getting roasted on an open flame. That would be quite a feast, considering they weren't that easy to find so close to winter.
Alana appeared from behind his back as if out of nowhere and made him jump. "Thinking about something?"
"Trying to come up with a better plan." At least that was true before he got distracted.
"So, anything?"
He shook his head. "Nothing you'd approve of."
"If that won't distract you too much, I just wanted to point out that helicopter over there." Alana directed her finger into the sky, where, indeed, a small shape of an aircraft was getting closer to them bit by bit. "Think it could mean something for us?"
Layne couldn't take his eyes away from that dot, which would have been nothing special in Eumain – but could have made a huge difference out there. "New Rejects, maybe?"
"That's what I thought."
"We could use that."
Alana didn't reply immediately. She hugged her chest and looked around as if the conversation would have been uncomfortable for her – and Layne couldn't understand why. This was a good thing, at least as far as he could tell.
"How?" she whispered, eventually.
He thought for a second. "If we could get to the site they're dropped off at, we could explain to them what's going on. Maybe they're reasonable people."
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
In Saving the Imperfect
कल्पित विज्ञानA bastard, an alcoholic and a murderer - all have committed an equivalent crime. *** Layne Marks has always been a failure in the eyes of his family. The black sheep in the shadow of his more successful brother. At twenty-six, he still can't keep a...
