Chapter 5

The siren screamed and the Seven jumped into action. Beth strapped her usual gear and weapons to her body, wide awake within a matter of seconds and sprinting out the door followed by the others. Once on the bus, she sat on the first bench soon accompanied by Ander, to her surprise. Although they sat next to each other, the two didn't speak for the entire trek, even when they ran in stride to the battle grounds. Bombs exploded around them, and the sounds of battle filled the open landscape.

"Remember your partners and let's show these swine what they're up against!" Ander shouted to the other members of the Seven. Beth and Ander nodded to each other as they ran to their partners and continued on.

Beth and Chaess ran to the center of the battle ground, masked by trees and brush. Killing and fighting anyone that got in their way. They were an amazing pair, using each other as amplified weapons. Shouting in warning to the other and latching arms to sling each other from danger. The two could take on armies without loss of beat. They were an unstoppable team. They continued on through the woods. Magnificently dodging knives, and arrows as if they knew when and where they were coming from. But, perfection never seemed to last. Beth sensed the very moment the weapon went flying that no good would come from it. Her heart stopped beating. Started. Stopped. Then dropped to her stomach as the world altered to slow motion, knives flying every which direction met by shields and arrows, men dropping to the ground like flies, all such a blur. But she felt something, something inside of her that she had never felt before and it filled her veins like fire burning through a forest. She had hardly gotten the chance to explore what it was she was feeling when she heard a familiar voice falter.

Chaess screamed as the knife lodged in the space barely missing his vital organs on the front of his shoulder Beth knelt to the side of the sobbing and wincing boy, soldiers watching her every move, paused, cautious of the woman that would soon tear them to shreds. Slowly, she rose, lifting her gaze to the men surrounding her, that strange feeling still bubbling beneath her skin. She gripped the hilt of her sword, chin lowered, eyes fixed on her targets. Without a word she launched, plunging her sword into a man's gut, pulling it out and slicing another's neck, and continuing from soldier to soldier as they tried and failed to fight back. She was moving more swiftly than she ever had, the feeling beneath her skin exploding, until every cad was dead. Shaking, she sheathed her sword and turned to her friend was now bleeding more than she had ever seen a person bleed.

"Chaess, Chaess it's okay, it's going to be okay."

"Help me." He cried.

"I'm going to help you, Chaess, but you need to help me too." Beth grabbed him and lifted him off the ground as if he was a paperweight and slipped her arm under his good shoulder.

"Come on, Chaess, you have to walk with me." His pain was unbearable but, he listened to Beth, knowing she could help him. The two walked back to the location where the bus had left them, Beth killing anyone who tried to stop them. Once back to the stop, she left Chaess outside the small shack to find medicinal tools, to no avail. She pressed the emergency medical assistance button, broken. Frustrated, she sifted through the shack looking for anything she could use. Grabbing a bottle of alcohol, a sewing needle, and three pillow cases, one with a pillow still inside, she dashed back to Chaess.

"You are not going to like what I am about to do, and it is more than likely going to cause you to lose consciousness. Just so you know what I am doing, I am saving your life." She put a foot against his functioning arm and applied her weight to it. With her other leg she pinned his injured arm to the ground, straddling his body. Alcohol and pillow in hand, she yanked the knife out of his shoulder, and quickly poured the liquid into the open wound. Chaess's scream ripped through her body and the entire country, she shoved the pillow against his wound hoping to assist in the clotting of the blood pouring out of the wound. Just like she had predicted, the poor bleeding teenager fainted. Beth waited until the blood was no longer flowing and used the alcohol soaked thread from the pillow cases to stitch his wounds together with a trick she had learned from Emylee, who was in training to be a healer.

"What happened?" Ander shouted as he came upon the scene.

"He was stabbed, and I did what I knew how to save him."

Ander stared at her for a long second before he said, "We need to get him on the bus. Thank you, Beth." He meant it.

*~*

Beth had made sure to explain the details of what had happened the hours prior to Stievan so that he could relay the story to the healer. She did not want to further indulge herself in the possible death of her partner and friend. She instead ran to the stables. As children, Beth and Emylee would ride the ponies at the nearby stables every week. It was the way for them to escape the stress that was present even for young ones in Delahonte. Any children that weren't sent to camp were forced to partake in some sort of labor for the country. This was the Quill's effort of making every citizen a functioning member of the society.

The stables were lonely, empty, and too quiet. But Beth loved it, she shoved the large white sliding doors aside with the weight of her body not bothering to shut them knowing there were no animals inside to escape. She took in the details of the large, beautiful stables. The wooden pillars that lined the stalls were dark and aged, the silver floors filled with tiny indents and a coarse look. The air in the stable smelled of straw and wood, one of Beth's favorite and most relaxing scents. She traced a finger along each of the stalls hoping to find one that, if she had to choose, would be her place of comfort in this scary place. She wondered through the barn until finally finding the one. In the far corner of the barn, next to the stall she had spoken with Ander, was a stall slightly larger than the rest, with the right amount of light rushing in for Beth. She slowly unlatched the lock and pulled the heavy door sideways, stepping into a new place for her to find herself again. Beth retreated into the farthest corner of the stall and sat on the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest, tears forming in her eyes as the sound of Chaess's bloodcurdling scream echoed in her mind. Beth rested her head in her arms, sobbing in a way that she would only sob if she knew no one else would see. Blood. Knife. Blood. Chaess. So. Much. Blood. The images flashed in her mind, making her unable to breathe.

"Beth?" She heard Ander calling from outside the stables. "Donoway?"

"I'm here." She managed to breathe through her tears, Ander ran to the door putting a hand on the pillar to stop his motion.

"Beth," He said with a sigh and wiped a hand across his brows. "Beth, what happened?

"I couldn't save him, I didn't see it coming."

"Hey, stop, this isn't your fault." He whispered softly stepping closer and kneeling down in front of her. "Look at me. Look at me." She lifted her eyes to his, their faces just inches apart. He moved a lock of hair from her eyes, and placed a hand on the side of her face wiping a tear from her cheek. "That was not your fault, none of this is your fault."

"But, Ander, I could've helped him."

"You did help him, you stopped his bleeding, and you stitched him up so well that the healer asked who was on staff at the hut. He thought you were a healer, Beth. You did well."

"That's not what I mean, I could've seen the soldier. I could've killed him before he could hurt Chaess. We were unstoppable out there, no one even got close to taking us down. But, I don't know if we got too cocky or if I was stupid-"

"Beth."

"What I'm saying is, we let our guard down and now Chaess- he's injured and there's no saying whether he will make it." She croaked through her tears.

"We will deal with that subject if it comes, but Beth there was nothing more you could've done."

"That's not true! I could've killed the clod! I could've- I could've-"

"Died." Ander cut in. "He could've killed you, Beth." Silence filled the barn, Beth looked Ander in the eye to find him returning her gaze. "If he would've killed you," he paused, "I would never forgive myself for letting you out of my sight." Ander stood and walked to the door of the stall. "We need you, Ellyzibeth Donaway, don't let us-" he turned his eyes back to her. "Don't let me down."

~*~

Beth could hardly sleep that night, between Chase's health and Ander's way of admitting he needed her. Her mind was spinning, she had thought about going to the lake but feared she would find Ander, she also thought about the stables, but there too was the possibility of seeing Ander. For once in her life, Beth wanted nothing more than to be separated from him. So instead, she simply stared at the ceiling from her bunk. She wasn't sure how long it would take her to sleep. Or if she would ever sleep again, but part of her didn't care. She was getting tired of all the stress, and all of the fear that had come about lately.

Beth sat there for hours before she finally climbed out of her bunk. She figured that seeing Ander was something she could handle if it meant clearing her head. Though morning light was just hours away, she decided to trek to the lake. Before setting out on her adventure, Beth decided to find a rope, which was conveniently hanging on the wall of the shed next to the commons building. She slung the rope over her shoulder and a belt of knives around her waist, and took off into the night.

Once Beth had neared the lake, she searched the darkness for a tree branch close enough to the water, and strong enough to maintain body weight for a rope swing. She searched the perimeter of the lake, gradually inclining until the shoreline was a cliff, finally finding the perfect branch just a few feet from the cliff's edge. The tree's trunk was too big for her arms to wrap around, and slightly hung out over the lake. She gathered her body, and used her knives as grips for her hands to climb the tree, relying on the grooves in the bark to hold her feet. Once she climbed high enough to the branch she swung her body toward the branch hoisting herself to sit on its surface. She tied a loop in the rope and used it as a weapon against the knives still lodged in the tree, once she had managed to dislodge the knives and memorize the spots they had landed in the dirt, she tied the rope around the branch and, like the trunk of the ginormous tree, her arms couldn't wrap around the branch completely. She struggled for a few minutes, but finally managed to tie the rope well enough to be used. She looked below her, and dropped the rope to see how far off the ground it would fall, luckily the rope fell just short of two feet off the ground, perfect for her to launch herself into the water. She smiled at her creation and leaned her body enough to reach the rope, and observed the drop between the ground and the water. She estimated that the drop would be about twenty feet, but she wasn't sure. She was never good at judging distances. All she was sure of was that the drop wouldn't kill her. She stood on the surface of the branch, looking to the ground that was far beneath her, and jumped.

When the rope yanked her body back skyward, she let out a small yelp. Although the rope had saved her from hitting the ground at full force, she still had the wind knocked out of her from the impact. The pressure in her chest made her almost want to give up on the rope for the night, but being a soldier, she had decided to power through. Her determination was both an advantage and a hindrance at times. Looking out over the water, Beth decided that she had made the right choice, and collected her breath to jump.

~*~

He swallowed a laugh as Beth sat up from her landing spot on the ground and fished for air as if she hadn't had a single breath in years. She rubbed on her forehead and mumbled loud enough for him to hear her helpless and sulking murmurs. His opinion of her had always been that she was a little too adventurous for her own good, she had frequently gotten herself into similar situations as a child, but that was partially why he loved her.

He observed from a distance as she managed to stumble to her feet, a bit of clumsiness to her movement. He thought it was as if she didn't care, or maybe as if she didn't know to care. He watched as Beth surveyed the lake, trying to figure out what she was thinking of. The one thing the two of them had, the one thing that could set them free was the gaping body of water in front of that beautiful blonde girl. Ander could only think of a single flaw that girl possessed. Her. After what she had done to him, it would take an army to rekindle the trust between the two. But yet, there he was. Captivated by the natural beauty of that girl he once loved, watching her from afar, and making like the strangers they had now become.

He noticed that she had wrapped her hands once again around the dangling rope as she ventured further away from the cliff's edge. There had to be at least thirty feet of drop from the edge of the cliff. He recalled how on the log, the shoreline was right before his feet, no more than five feet away, and how he had discovered her there just weeks before. He had no idea she would ever come to the cliff. He watched intently as Beth scaled yet another tree, wondering if she hadn't already learned her lesson the first time, and walked out on a branch until the rope was tight. She tied the end of the rope in a knot, placing it under her foot and gripping the rope above it.

She jumped, and Ander could hardly control himself from yelling and running after the girl who apparently had a death wish.

*~*

Beth resurfaced in the water, her smile wide, and laugh as joyful as it had ever been. She had felt so free flying over the cliff and into the deep waters of the lake. It had been as though she were a weightless bird traveling over seas to find a new place to call home. But, her flight had been cut short by a loud splash and a rush of warm water engulfing her body.

"Are you out of your mind or do you just figure you might die soon anyway?" She heard him call from over the cliff, her face immediately burning, her body going numb with adrenaline and nerves, but also that feeling from the battle, that strange unidentifiable rush inside of her.

"As if! I'm no coward." She called back over, hoping he wouldn't hear her timid and nerve-stricken voice. "At least I have a sense of adventure! Where's yours, Captain?"

"Don't push it, Donoway, I've got adventure running in my veins!"

"Well, are you waiting for an invitation or what? I'm not getting any younger!"

"You know an invitation never hurt a soul," he shouted, his tone calmed her, making her feel like a friend again.

"Oh for Quill's sake, Ander! Get down here!" She replied, hoping the conversation wouldn't end.

Out over the cliff's edge came Ander's body soaring through the air until finally submerging into a huge splash of water just short of hitting Beth. As his body emerged into the beautiful moonlit pool, Beth couldn't help but smile.

"Hello." She chuckled as he wiped the excess water from his eyes.

"What exactly is it that possesses you to get up in the middle of the night for this?" He said with a laugh.

"I told you, adventure, which someone claims they have in place of blood." She smiled with a grand gesture to show her enthusiasm, splashing water in his face in the process.

"Well you, miss, have not changed in the slightest." He splashed her with a laugh.

"I have been informed."

"Do you know how long you've been out here?"

"An hour maybe."

"Try three."

"What?" She nearly screamed, her eyes widening.

"You've been out here for a long time, Beth. Sunrise is in two hours and we might want to get sleep tonight, or today now." He called as he swam towards the shore and the log at which they first spoke. "Goodnight, Beth."

"Ander, wait." She said, sadness now making its twisted appearance. "Do you think Chaess will be okay?"

"I don't know, but I do know this-" he paused swimming closer to her. "No matter who lives, no matter who dies. You will be okay." He offered a smile.

"What about you or me? What if we die?" Her question stopped him, he wasn't sure how to reply.

"It will be okay." Was all he said, seeming as though he didn't believe it for himself.

He turned back and swam to shore. Beth wiped her face and watched Ander as he walked through the forest back towards camp, she too had to leave, so she forced herself from the water and gathered her knives that she had left by the rope, and made the return to her cabin.