Exhaustion hit me harder than ever. Grant was breathing steadily in my ear, his warm breath against my face. Thankfully, I didn’t dream at all. Even my brain was too tired to have nightmares, fortunately. I turned over and felt dirt against my cheek. Figuring I must have rolled off of Grant’s arm, I turned over to the other side and reached out for him. My hand grazed across the dirt. I opened one eye and then the other, waiting for my sight to adjust in the dark.

"Grant?" I whispered, feeling around again for him.

He wasn’t there. I let my mind wake up, trying to leave sleep behind me. I heard the cracking of branches coming from the other side of the tree trunk and I froze in place.

"Ryleigh?" Grant whispered.

I sat up quickly. Grant was rushing toward me, crouching down until he got to my side.

"What are you doing? Where’d you go?" I whispered.

"Shh. We’re not alone," he said as he slowly pushed me back down.

We both stayed completely still, listening for sounds of someone else nearby. A slow crackling of tree branches littered the ground around us, serving as our very own burglar detector. The sound made my stomach drop.

Grant reached up, grabbed the backpack, threw it onto his back, and then poked me. He motioned for me to get up and follow him. I rolled onto my side and carefully stood up, staying slightly bent over to conceal myself as best as possible. He took each step slowly and carefully and I tried to follow his exact moves. My shoe misstepped, landing on a crooked stick instead of on the ground, and it cracked loudly. I froze before releasing my foot.

Footsteps came toward us at a rapid pace. Grant rushed through the trees, glancing behind himself to make sure I was still there periodically before continuing on. I shot a quick look over my shoulder, and when I turned back around, Grant was gone. I had lost sight of him. It was still dark and the woods were too thick to benefit from the moonlight. When I listened for his footsteps, I wasn’t sure of what I was hearing belonged to him or someone else, and I wasn’t about to wait to find out.

"Grant!" I called out.

More crackling from behind me. Whoever was after us was getting close to me. I called out for Grant again.

"Grant!" a voice came from behind, mimicking me.

I shuddered and frantically ran through the trees. My eyes shot back and forth, scanning my surroundings for him.

"Grant!" the voice yelled again, followed this time by a short laugh.

A hand reached out and grabbed me, and I screamed.

"It’s me! Come on!" Grant had jumped out from behind a tree, waiting for me.

I stayed right behind him. We ran toward the light, the moon shining closer to the edge of the cliff. Grant screeched to a halt and I was so close behind that I almost collided with his back.

"Why’d you stop?" I blurted.

He stepped back and I leaned to see over his shoulder. We had reached the end of a cliff, it’s neighboring piece of land sitting next to it, but not close enough for us to get across.

We both backed up. It was too far away for us to jump; we’d have to backtrack. As we turned around to head in another direction, we froze. A shadowy figure was heading straight for us in the dark. I grabbed onto Grant’s arm tightly.

"It’s okay," he whispered. "We got this."

We slowly took a few steps down the hill, the cliff at our backs. I heard the sound of footsteps echoing toward us. Grant took another step forward, but I held back. The shadow grew bigger before coming into view. I was still gripping onto Grant’s arm when I felt his tensed muscles relax.

"Awww, man! You scared us!" Grant said and exhaled loudly.

"Did I?"

I watched as Aaron came toward us.

"Aaron?" I gasped. "Where have you been?"

He smiled, still walking in our direction.

"You mean after we got separated at the stream?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Well, let’s see. After Romeo here had to wait for you, slowpoke, which, by the way, he’s still doing, I see. He would’ve been able to outrun me just now had he not stopped and waited for you to catch up again. Anyway, your boyfriend had to wait for you to cross the stream, so I took off. So did Will, but we got separated, too."

"Where’d you go, Aaron? Back to your real team to snitch on us? To tell them all about us?" Grant spat.

Aaron stood before us, grinning. "Don’t flatter yourself. There’s not much to tell about you guys."

I stared at Aaron, not understanding what he was saying.

"How could you?" Grant shouted. "After everything we’ve all been through! We came after you; saved you from Dean and Gina’s. Or was that all fake? I guess so, huh?"

Aaron laughed and shook his head. "Grant, you make this too easy! I almost feel bad for you...Almost."

I shook my head in disbelief. "You’re the mole! But, why?"

He folded his arms across his chest. "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you, Ryleigh?"

Grant moved in front of me. "Why don’t you enlighten us, Aaron? Tell us why you’ve been playing us this whole time."

"Playing you," Aaron said. "Interesting choice of words."

Grant sighed. "What do you want? Just spit it out so we can get on with it."

Aaron shook his head, a smirk growing across his face. "It took you long enough to figure me out, Grant. But, I guess you had something, or someone, else on your mind."

He was eyeing me as I suddenly cowered behind Grant. The look on his face, I can’t explain it. He was like a completely different person than the Aaron I had met before; not that either were charming or relatively good guys. But there was something haunting and evil about the Aaron who stood before us now. Grant pushed me further behind him slowly with one hand.

Aaron chuckled to himself and started walking toward us. My body started to tremble and I was sure Grant could feel me close to convulsing behind him. I took deep breaths in and out to try and slow my heartbeat.

"I couldn’t believe it when I got stuck with what must be the worst group on the planet," Aaron said as he walked.

"Oh, yeah?" Grant spat. "Then why’s you stick with us after we got out of that basement? You could’ve left right then. No one was forcing you to stay with us."

"Why? Because that was my strategy! Don’t you get it yet?" Aaron laughed.

Grant rubbed his hand over his face and then whispered to me, "When I say so, you run."

"Okay," I muttered quietly.

My right hip was still protruding out from behind Grant, clearly within Aaron’s view. But my left side was hidden. I slowly reached into my pocket with my left hand. I was relieved to feel Gina’s injections in my pocket. I grabbed one and flicked off its cap.

"I guess I still don’t get it, Aaron," Grant sighed. "You faked getting kidnapped and thrown into that basement with us? I have no idea why, I mean, what kind of a stupid strategy is that?"

Aaron glared at him. "Stupid? You think so? And yet here we are, and it looks like I’m the one with the advantage."

Grant laughed. "We’ll see about that."

Aaron stopped about three feet in front of us. "Now there’s the side of you I was waiting for, Grant! I knew you’d want to play! Too bad it’ll be short lived."

Grant laughed and looked at the ground and whispered to me, "Now!"

I ran out from behind him toward the woods. Aaron yelled out and rushed at Grant, knocking him to the ground. I was inches away from the woods, from getting away safely, but I couldn’t keep running. As soon as I saw them tackling each other on the ground, I spun around and ran toward them. There was no way I could leave Grant behind.

Next Chapter: Thirty Seven