Page 102 of Storms & Sacrifice
I turn to face my final goodbye. The person responsible for knocking me out, capturing, and enslaving me. The person who I wanted nothing more than to hate at the start of all this. The person who for the past two months has been one of the most patient and kind men I haveever met.
How am I supposed to say goodbye?
“I guess this is it.” I stand in front of him, ignoring the fact that all eyes are on the two of usright now.
“I suppose so.” A sad smile. “Only one thing left to do.”
Reaching into his pocket, Khazak pulls out a small key. Then, reaching forward into my shirt, he pulls out my collar. I’ve gotten so used to wearing it that I almost forgot about it. Holding the padlock in his hand, he slides the key in and turns, the lock opening with aclick. Sliding the chain off my neck, he gathers it in his hand, meeting the two ends of the chain again and closing the lockonce more.
“I want you to keep this.” He places the chain collar in my hand. “To remember me by.”
“I couldn’t forget you if I wanted to.” I lean forward to wrap my arms around him in a hug. “Thank you. For everything. You’ve done so much for me, and I...”Say it, dammit. TELL HIM!“...I’m just really going to miss this place and you.”Coward.
“I am going to miss you too.” His voice rumbles in my ear, and I can only squeeze him tighter.
We stand there holding each other for a while, probably way too long, but I just can’t bring myself to end it. Ending it means leaving, and I just want to stay. I keep hoping for something to happen, for Khazak to ask me, hell,orderme to. Anything to keep me here. But of course he doesn’t.He can’t.
“What about the uh,” I point back and forth between us after we finally release each other, “rest of the avakesh thing. The paperwork?”Sad wood.
“I will take care of signing the papers to release you myself,” he assures me. “No needto worry.”
“Great,” I lie.
The two of us finished, Khazak signals to the guards to open the gates. With a final wave to everyone, the five of us gather together, ready to leave. I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with anyone, my vision already starting to blur as the waterbuilds up.
“What, you gonna miss your—OWW!” Nate doubles over after taking my fist to his stomach.
“That’s for getting us in this fucking mess in the first place.”
I move in front, leading my team out of the city gates. If anyone else notices me crying, they don’t sayanything.
We make pretty good time that first day. It’s hard at first to not constantly look back at the city as it fades from sight, but the farther away we are, the easier it gets. It takes us a few hours, but once we’re far enough northeast of the city, we find the trail we’re looking for and make a brief stop to eat the sandwiches Rurig packed for us for lunch. Then it is right back to walking.
We stop to set up camp a couple of hours before sunset, just on the outskirts of a forest. Normally, we would push a little farther, but seeing as this is more walking than most of us have done in months, we could use the break. There’s a river nearby, so after we get the tents up and start a fire, Adam and I grab the fishing poles and try to catch some dinner.
We don’t really need it, we have more than enough rations, plus more food from Rurig, but I haven’t been able to see my best friend one-on-one in months. We find a good spot, throw our lines in the water, and just talk. There’s a little bit of awkwardness, only for a second, and then it’s gone and we’re like two friends who just got back from separate long trips. Adam tells me stories about his time in the work camp and the people he met there, and I tell him about some of the work I did with the rangers. It must be at least an hour before we start hitting on anything serious.
“So, what was it like?” Adam asks after a lull in the conversation. “Dying.”
“Scary,” I answer after thinking about it for a moment. “Because you know it’s happening, and you know you can’t stop it. I remember feeling sad too. Sad about the things I wouldn’t get to do.”That you still didn’t do when youcame back.
“When they first told us what happened to you, we didn’t really believe them.” Adam looks over to me. “Not until we saw the scar, and even then... Dying and being brought back to life? I needed to hear it from you before it reallysunk in.”
“I don’t blame you. I still don’t really believe it myself.” I’m not sure I know who or what I really am right now. “What if there’s something wrongwith me?”
“We’ll figure it out because we’re a team.” He nudges me in the shoulder. “You know, not to ignore how dark and fucked up everything has been for the two months, but...we have a real goal now. Anactualmission.”
“A mission that doesn’t pay.”Aren’t I so helpful?
“We’ll figure it out,” he repeats himself. “Remember what we said at the start of the year? We came out here because we wanted to explore the world and discover something amazing. And now we’re doing it man. That’s pretty fucking cool.”
“I guess you’re right.” Adam has a way of turning anything into a positive. “Just would have been nice if it didn’t requireme dying.”
“Yeah, you pulled the short straw there, I guess.” Adam chuckles. “So... You wanna talk about Captain Ironstorm and why you keep touching that necklace in your pocket?”
I freeze at Adam’s question, though when I glance over at him, he’s giving no indication that he’s asked me anything remotely interesting. He looks downright bored. Still, I release the collar and pull my hand out of my pocket. I didn’t even realize I was doing that.
“I, uh...”Fuck, stop stammering.“Why don’t you tell me what you guys heard, and I can fill in the blanks?”
