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“Let’s go,” I say to Chesrie, pulling her up with me and down the pier toward shore.
The people we pass don’t really pay attention to us, but I can understand why. They are no longer our enemies. Just people condemned by some terrible curse brought upon them by their forefathers. But that curse does not apply to us. We need to get out of here as fast as we can, though not before making sure that Kindra is safe.
We follow the
path behind the building where Anwir is. I think of him inside, likely still limp in that chair. A part of me feels for him. Despite my anger at the lie that brought us together, I still pity him. I pity all of the people on this island and how desperate they must be for an escape from the chains binding them to that dark, depraved spirit.
“Are we going to take Kindra with us?” Chesrie pants as we continue our run through the forest, which cuts through hills and more heavily-wooded areas.
“Yes,” I answer through my exhausted breaths.
“What about her mother?”
“I don’t know, but she’d want us to. We can’t wait for everyone to get back to their senses. They might become angry at her and us, especially with what happened to Anwir.”
Chesrie doesn’t say anymore after that. Maybe she’s already trying to forget about him. About the feelings she’d started having for him. I can’t really relate. I’ve never felt romantic for anyone, so I wouldn’t know what that kind of love even feels like. After Mother’s death, it’s hard for me to look at any man with that kind of affection.
“There it is,” I gasp moments later, seeing the tall roof of the inn in the distance.
We move even faster until we arrive, charging through the front door. Fresh logs burn in the fireplace. I feel the heat they produce as I dart across the room and up the stairs, Chesrie right behind me. We run down three hallways but then stop in our tracks when we turn a corner see the man with the axe.
“What are you doing here?” he barks as he stands up from his chair next to a closed door at the end of the hall.
“Maltehom didn’t accept us as tribute,” I huff out, breaking to catch my breath. “He was angry and took your leader instead. He said he’ll return again in five years.”
Sadness comes across the man’s face, but it is quickly replaced by anger, the same anger I fear everyone here will soon have for us even though we’ve done nothing wrong.
“And you think that means you can take the little girl away with you,” he yells as he grips the axe in his hands and moves aggressively toward us. “No one escapes this island. That is how it will always be.”
“Hide in a room around the next corner,” I instruct Chesrie as we flee from the man the way we came. “I’ll distract him while you sneak around and get Kindra.”
She nods and tucks into a room at the start of the next hallway, closing the door quietly behind her. I stop halfway down and turn to make sure that the man will follow me. He does, and so I dash as quickly as I can toward the stairs. By the time I reach them, however, he is already on me. I turn my head and watch helplessly as the axe swings down.
Just when I think that my fate is sealed, someone appears and tackles him against the wall, pushing the axe head barely far enough to the side that it misses me. I duck to the right down the stairs and spin myself around to see who saved me. Kindra’s mother.
The man’s momentum has caused him to crash into the railing. Kindra’s mother pins his body even harder against it. She then presses against his chest, pushing him completely over the edge. I hurry to her side and look over the rail to watch him crash onto a table below. The fall was only twenty or thirty feet, maybe not enough to kill him, but he wriggles around as though he’s in a lot of pain.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t move,” Kindra’s mother says, “Go get my daughter.”
I sprint back through the hallways. By the time I reach the final one, Chesrie and Kindra are already walking out of the room that the man was guarding. Chesrie remains panicked.
“It’s okay,” I reassure. “Her mother saved me, but we need to get out of here fast.”
They catch up to me, and the three of us walk briskly back toward the stairs. Kindra’s mother is where I left her, still staring down at the man, whose groaning continues.
“Kindra!” she cries out when she sees us, picking her daughter up and swinging her around in her arms.
I stop and admire them. Mother used to swing me around in the same way. I’d forgotten how much I truly miss it.
“We need to get you away from here,” she says to Kindra, then turning to me. “I hid a boat just south of the harbor. We need to get there before too many people are back.”
Chesrie and I nod and follow her as she leads us down the stairs. The man is silent now. I do not know if that means that he is dead or if he just wants us to think that, but there is no time to check. We are almost out of this nightmare.
As we run through the streets, I see a few people walking in silence, some of them alone and others in groups. They watch us as we go by, but they don’t say anything.
“What will they do now?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” Kindra’s mother answers. “I imagine many will want to leave. Today’s events will be… too much for a lot of them. But I don’t doubt that Maltehom will fulfill his promise if everyone chooses to abandon this place.”
