Free Ignited by Desni Dantone

top plunged the knife deeper. Then deeper still until the nightmarish noises stopped. I held my breath as the body disintegrated.
    The remaining shadow turned to me. I scurried backward, suddenly afraid that I had been wrong, and it wasn’t Nathan. It was too dark. I couldn’t see him clearly. And he wasn’t saying anything.
    Why wasn’t he saying anything?
    Whoever it was grabbed my arm and I screamed. My foot connected with something soft. There was a grunt, followed by Nathan’s strained voice, “Easy. It’s me. It’s okay.”
    I froze in relief. He inched closer and I saw his face. His eyes. 
    I lunged forward, stunning both of us when I threw my arms around his neck. This time, I didn’t care if he saw or heard me cry. I was so happy he was alive and, because of him, so was I.
    The biggest surprise of the evening—and trust me, there had already been some whoppers—was that Nathan didn’t immediately brush off my fragile emotional state. He let me cry on his shoulder until his shirt was sullied to the point of humility, and I was the one who eventually withdrew, cheeks flaming and eyes diverted from his.
    “Are you alright?” he asked softly.
    “No,” I whined with a sniffle I knew sounded every bit as pathetic as I felt. 
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him roll his head from side to side. I knew he was thinking he meant physically, not emotionally, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he helped me to my feet. And that was the end of the nurturing side of Nathan. “You have a cell phone on you?” he asked gruffly.
    I dug into my jean’s pocket, withdrew my phone, and placed it into his outstretched hand. He pulled his arm back and chucked it into the woods behind me. 
    My mouth dropped open. “What the—” I gaped at him. “What did you do that for?”
    “It can be traced.” There was that accusatory tone again. I wondered if that was how they had found us. Something about the rigidness of his jaw and the flare of his nostrils warned me not to ask.
    I wanted to know who those guys were, and why they were trying to kill us, but I bit my tongue on those questions too. I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. Not while Nathan was in his man-on-a-mission mode.
    The list of questions grew, and grew.  
     
     
     
    Four crimson pools stained the gravel. Bullets littered the ground at my feet. I kept my eyes up to avoid the signs of death around me, and watched as Nathan climbed into the back of the Jeep. He tossed out my book bag, the sleeping bags, tent, water bottles, a few boxes of ammunition, and jumped down, wearing his baseball cap again.
    He left me in the middle of the road, with the contents of the Jeep, to check out the other vehicles. I assumed for keys, but he returned with a map, a flash light, and a large camouflage sac big enough to carry all our stuff, with room to spare.
    He spread the map out on the hood of one of the trucks and studied it with the flashlight. I was about to offer to load our things, but I had one of those feelings again.
    “Are we walking?” I asked hesitantly.
    He kept his face buried in the map. “Yep.”
    I hesitated. It was almost too obvious. “You realize there are two perfectly suitable vehicles here, including the one you’re currently using?”
    The Jeep and the truck that had rammed it were beyond drivable. The other two, aside from a few bullet holes, were fine.
    “We can’t use them.”
    I hated that tone he used with me. It kicked my attitude into high gear. “Why not?”
    He glared at me. “If we use one of their trucks, they can track us. We won’t get far.”
    Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. Instead of admitting to that oversight, I folded my arms and made a face at his back when he turned away to study the map again. 
    Suddenly, he stepped back with his face tipped up to the sky and turned in a half circle. When he started looking between the map, the sky, and the woods around us, I realized he was using the stars as a guide. I’d