Free Dom Wars: Round 6 by Aden Lowe, Lucian Bane Page A

how…”
    “Your buddy Jase must’ve had funds to go along with his job. And there it goes. Wake the ladies.” Preacher hurried and doused the fire.
    I looked back to the tree and the animal was gone. Shit. I shook Tara awake then Becca as Preacher gathered supplies. “Don’t forget the flag,” I hissed.
    “Why are we whispering?” Tara mumbled as she looked around half asleep.
    “There’s some kind of animal nearby. We don’t know for sure what it is. Let’s go.”
    Ten minutes later, with our melted flag fished from the shit pit, we were on the trail, me in the lead, and Preacher at the rear. We moved, no, more like ran, through the forest as fast as we could, fighting not to get dizzy from finding the best path while staying in the right direction. Each time I stopped to get my bearings, Tara ran into me regardless of my warning.
    “More than two second warning please,” she huffed, out of breath. “Are we almost there? Feels like we’ve been running for three hours.”
    I took off again. “Soon,” I lied.
    “Soon? What is that in island from hell language? Like before I die?”
    “Like maybe two more hours.”
    “Two more hours!” she shrilled. “Oh my God you call that soon? And is that two more hours at this break neck speed? Can you please slow down?”
    I stopped again and Tara ran into me.
    “Oh geeze, really?”
    “Well it’s hard to think with you bitching at my heels, did you forget that there is a strange animal possibly hunting us?” Shame bit at me, but I reasoned maybe if she were more scared she’d cooperate. I sure didn’t want to run into that thing. The more I thought of it, the more sure I became of the damn thing’s identity. And the thought of wondering around a small island unarmed while a fucking hyena also wondered around that same small island… Well, that thought just shouldn’t exist. Too bad it did.
    “I’m sure it would have eaten us by now, we’ve gone at least ten miles from it.” She gasped the words as she hung onto my shoulders, letting me have all her weight.
    I looked behind me and found Preacher watching our rear.
    “We ready?”
    “Very,” Preacher said above Tara’s shocked What? Wait! We run ten miles and rest for ten seconds?
    Again we pushed through the forest. Finding the best place to take my team was suddenly my favorite puzzle in the fucking world and my mind became a metal trap of sick obsessive calculating disorder.
    “Bane!” I stopped and turned, seeing the team was like twenty feet behind me and Preacher holding his arms out at his side like he’d had quite enough of that bullshit. I headed back toward the exhausted women, noting Preacher was more annoyed than tired. No doubt he could have left me in the dust. Being forced to go slow may have been a blessing for that leg of his, but not for that Goliath ego.
    “I think we should break now.”
    “Oh?” Tara nodded at me, gasping for air. “You think ? You can still do that psycho man plowing through the woods?”
    I quickly found places for relaxing and soon we were all catching our wind. My buddy was in a second wind, or maybe third and I didn’t feel tired. I stood and looked all around then took out the map.
    “Where are you getting this energy? Are you eating Becca’s magical berries behind our back? If so, you had better hand them over because I am not keeping that pace of yours for one more step.”
    I wished we could find more of the berries Becca had found that first day. Those miraculous things would have given the extra kick we needed. “Well we would like to reach the next flag before dark for once. And according to the map, there should be a water source at this one? Remember?” The map showed a freshwater spring that I was particularly looking forward to.
    “Oh, is it this one? Thank God. ” Tara sighed as if she were already there.
    “I also want to get there before dark and see if we can find out anything about the supplies they mentioned in that