should you choose to accept

to hide or not to hide

indi

we approach the cliff, our breath quickening. cameron had reached there first, his face now glowing with boyish exuberance. he tries to get a better view of whatever it is down there. his foot nears the edge of it and he shuffles yet closer to the edge, his face showing no wrinkle of fear whatsoever. behind me, i hear rhian mumbling incoherently. suddenly, my eyes direct themselves the ground beneath us. "uh, maybe we shouldn't have come here at all..." arthur, being the person he was, said. my reply died in my throat. the rock we were standing on started crumbling and all four of us started to edge back warily. a crack, and the next thing i knew, i was sliding down a cliff, scraping my knees and arms. shock surged through every aspect of my brain. i turned to my sides and i was bundled in tightly between cameron, rhian and arthur, all of us surrendering to whatever lay below.

warm blood danced on the right side of my face, metallic and sticky. i stood up slowly, wringing my hands in a state of shock. i was... fine?! registering my surroundings, i quickly ran to my friends' side, helping them up. we were fine, albeit laced with dirt and blood. arthur had seemingly sprained his ankle, but cameron was supporting him, a steady arm wrapped around his shaking shoulder. rhian pointed towards somewhere in the distance. "guys..." 

we turned and immediately, heat seared our already weary faces. it was the fire. we hurried towards it (not an easy task with arthur's ankle) and, strangely, there were bits and pieces of a helicopter left. we couldn't get too near without the flame warding us off, but cameron, naturally equipped with sharp eyesight, spotted a man lying in the flames, his appearance warped and distorted in the overwhelming fire.

we edged closer. his face was... melting? no, there was a mask, its edges peeling away, revealing the man's true face. a hook was nastily wedges in his forehead, severely disfiguring him. all four of us froze, our eyes stuck upon the face of the man who had been our teacher.

who was mr davis, really? he didn't really talk about himself when he was around. if he died in his sleep, why was he here, beside a tattered helicopter that had seemingly crashed? why was he wearing a mask that bore the face of another man? questions numbed my brain. 

rhian picked up the mask from mr davis' face. it was bloody and matted with sweat. he tossed it between his hands, suffusing the heat into the air. i caught a glimpse of the mask and instantly i knew. i knew that face. i knew that moustache. 

"what... why... why is mr davis wearing a mask of my dad?" i rasped, my voice barely distinguishable under the roar of the flames. my three friends looked at me with a hint of dawning comprehension. 

"your dad? you're telling me, this guy, the mask's face, is your dad?" cameron said, his face scrunched up in disbelief.

"well. was my dad. he's supposed to have died when i was eight, along with my mum. in a car crash." my statement clearly had arthur, rhian and cameron struck dumb. but no matter. the past is the past. time to move on. 

"we have to take this body somewhere, but the question is, why is mr davis disguised- or was disguised- as your dad?" arthur said. i could almost hear the gears turning in his head. 

we had no time to reply. just then, uniformed men stepped out of nowhere, wielding guns and pointing it at all of us except me. "you," one of them said, his voice gruff and demanding. "august walker's daughter," i panicked. how did they know? he didn't wait for a reply. "come with us. he wants to see you."

"let my friends go or i'll never come with you. if you're under my father's orders, you would let them go. my father is a fine and kind man. if he's still alive, even. so if you're not a bunch of frauds, let. them. go," i said, my voice commanding and firm. the guy ignored me and grabbed my arm, pulling me to wherever their vehicle was, signalling the others to kill rhian, arthur and cameron. a dragon reared inside me. wrenching my arm away from his grasp, i seized his arm and swung on it, effortlessly landing on his shoulders and flipping him to the floor. still got the training in me, dad, i thought. i took the gun which he dropped on the floor while struggling and held him at gunpoint. "you know what to do," i said, directing it at the rest. they took my words lightly. ha. i shot every one of them, although at the feet. i didn't want to be a murderer. they let the three of them go before collapsing, groaning and clenching their legs in unnecessary agony. if only they had let them go. i stood up from the leader's body and was going to shoot his leg when the sound of an empty chamber clicked. no matter. i smiled at him sweetly. then, a punch landed squarely in his jaw, enough to knock him out temporarily. dad would be proud.

i turn and see the surprised looks of my friends, free from the men's clutches.

"h-how... did you do that?" rhian breathed in respectful awe.

"i, uh, had a little training with my dad when i was younger. besides, these are pawns. of whoever sent them. i'm not always going to be able to get the better of every bad guy." i blushed. "let's get mr davis somewhere. cameron, i'm going to borrow your water bottle to put out some fire, even though it's not going to help much..." 

the revving of wheels against dirt was brought to our attention. we spun to see a black range rover pulling up. i gasped. more bad guys? "sh-should we hide?" arthur stammered, white from fear. 

"these are probably more skilled fighters. yeah, good idea," i said, and with that, we scrambled into some scrawny bushes.

author's note

HI IT'S GETTING MORE EXCITING :))) anyway if you didn't really get this part (i make no sense sometimes) basically, the four friends find the fire where ethan killed john lark, aka august walker, except it wasn't really him; it was their ex-teacher, mr davis, wearing a mask of august walker (mr davis turned out to be august walker's associate). because indi is august walker's daughter, she recognises him from the half-wrecked mask. his men step out, ordered by august walker, who still isn't dead, to collect mr davis' body, only to find the four of them. because mr davis was spying (on indi) on august walker's orders, there was direct orders from him to the men to get mr davis' body and indi. they try to kill rhian, cameron and arthur. indi, having being trained by her father in the past, attacks them and manages to free all of them. at that moment, ilsa, benji and luther arrive in their range rover, who the kids mistakenly believe to be sent by the bad guys (august walker, though they did not know it at the time) and hide. hehe, hope u enjoyed!!