Forever Scarred (9 page)

There was some muffled laughter
as everyone turned around and then there was a sudden silence at the back of the crowd.

“What’s the hold up?” Freeman called over everyone’s head. He forced his way through the throng of staff and immediately saw their problem. There were at least three distinct paths merging into one and they could have come from any of them. He looked down at the forest floor to see if the ground gave him any clue with footprints and the like but the mass of brown
leaves looked as disturbed on all of them. Jessica sidled up beside him and slipped her phone out of her pocket. Freeman gave her a quick glance and then looked down as he saw that she had her GPS on and working. He looked at the image and then turned to his staff, beckoning them to come forward.

“This way everyone.
Follow me. We’ll show this bunch that we can find our way in a forest without any help from them.” And he began walking purposefully along the path angling to the right. Jessica headed up the column of people with him and every so often she looked at her phone but it wasn’t long before there were some unhappy voices from the group behind them.

“We didn’t walk for this far
before. And we never walked up a hill this steep. We’re heading down into a valley. Are you sure we are on the right path?” There were one or two grumbles of agreement and Freeman came to a stop once again.

He looked down at his flustered assistant who shook her phone and turned it the other way around as if that would make a difference to the map she was looking at.
She reloaded the image and checked the GPS signal. Nothing made a blind bit of difference. The path looked like it was the correct one but it obviously wasn’t.

“I thought I was sure. Look, this is me holding the phone and this is us on the path. The chateau should be right here.” She
pointed at the phone and then looked up at the surrounding greenery. The chateau was clearly not where she expected it to be.

Freeman snatched the phone from her and set it to a different application. He looked at the signal bar to check it would work and then punched in some numbers. Nothing happened.

“Bastards have some kind of signal jammer set up. This thing is useless.” He shoved the telephone back at Jessica and rammed his hands in his pockets. The two disfigured men were making him look a fool on purpose. He knew they were probably watching from somewhere close by and he wondered if they were expecting him to make a fool of himself yet again, but he wasn’t about to make that mistake twice. He called out into the trees.

“Okay fellas, you’ve had your joke and obviously we were completely suckered. We admit defeat so you can come out of hiding and show us how to do it properly.” There was some rustling in the bushes to his right and David suddenly appeared right beside them.

“Just wanted to prove a point about the phones. You cannot rely on them in situations like this. One little problem and you gave up using your own initiative and tried to rely on something that is far more unreliable than your own brains.” He then proceeded to tell them all the signs they should have looked for. Half an hour later with plenty of demonstrating and allowing the people to discover signs for themselves, he thought that most of them would have been able to find their way back up the path given just a few careful observations. He went to the head of the group and started walking along an almost overgrown path and five minutes later they came out by the river where they met a smiling Lucy standing alongsideJoe.

Freeman stopped dead as he saw his secretary standing very close to the big man.

“How the fuck did you get here?” He demanded of Lucy as he strode up to her and stood far too close, totally ignoring the way Joe suddenly seemed to grow enormously in size. Lucy’s smile faded and she stepped back quickly from her angry boss.

“I just followed Joe like he asked. I didn’t realize that no one else had seen him disappear into the forest until it was too late.
If I had turned back to tell you I would have lost him and become disorientated myself.” Her voice was quiet, almost embarrassed as she explained what had happened.

Jessica came to stand by Freeman.

“You could have called to us or something. You made us look like complete idiots!” The woman was almost shrieking at Lucy.

Joe stepped forwards and spoke calmly.

“I’m afraid you managed that all by yourself Miss Dennison. I did tell you to take note of where you were going and to not trust any devices.”

Joe had been sorry that he was going to have to make a fool out of Lucy as well as the rest of the group when he had slipped into the undergrowth. He had walked almost a hundred metres before he realized that there was at least one person following him. Someone really quiet, and for a moment he wondered if David was playing a joke on him. He had turned quickly into some dense bushes and had waited until the person was just past him before he stepped out behind them and placed his hand over the person’s mouth. He realized immediately it was a woman more due to her size than anything else, but he kept his hand there all the same. He only did it because he didn’t want her to scream and let the others know that they had been deserted but he hadn’t expected her swift reaction.

A sharp elbow j
abbed him hard in the stomach and before he could trap the offending arm a swift foot stamped down painfully on his shin. It took every bit of his self-control not to snap back the woman’s head and wring her blasted neck.

He grunted as he pressed his k
nee into the back of hers and felt her dropping to the ground. He went with her and pressed her body against the forest floor. A muffled squeal met his ears as he tried to subdue the struggling woman. He didn’t want her to shout to the rest of the group to alert them. He breathed in deeply as he sat up across her back and pressed her face gently into the leaves. It took him a second to realize that the scent in his nostrils was already ingrained in his mind. Blonde hair fell from a coloured band at the back of her head and it dropped in familiar waves about her neck.

“Lucy!” His shocked whisper stopped her struggling far
more quickly than he could physically subdue her frenzied thrashing. He lifted up from her body and turned her over between his knees.

“Joe! Shit! You scared the life out of me!”
She struggled to sit up, spitting leaves and dirt as Joe spun from her body.

“Jesus Lucy! You have some kind of elbow on you. That bloody hurt.” Joe rubbed his flat stomach
and un-tucked his t-shirt. He tugged it downwards, desperately trying to disguise the throbbing that had begun in his groin the moment he had realized who he was sitting on.

Lucy rubbed her elbow and tried to look at it.

“Hurt me probably more than you. What the hell do you think you’re doing sneaking up on me like that? I was only following your instructions and trailing you.” She let go of her arm and sat breathing heavily on the overgrown path. She rubbed a hand across her face to remove some of the dirt.

Joe pulled a big white handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to Lucy. She took it and wiped her face all over before shaking it out and then handing it back to him.

“Sorry.” Joe squatted down beside her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just didn’t want you to give the game away. The way they are jabbering on they could be walking for miles before they have any idea that no one is with them. It makes for a great exercise for them to have to work together to find the way back out of here.” He looked at where Lucy had her hand pressed to her forehead. He noticed her wince and he reached forwards to remove her hand. There was a faint red mark on her forehead. “Shit! I’ve hurt you!” He grabbed his handkerchief again and poured some water from a bottle at his waist. He pressed the cool cloth gently against the graze as his eyes raked her face for other injuries he may have caused.

Lucy sat
still for a moment and then shuffled back from him. His masculine scent mixed with his spicy aftershave was too much for her. It took all she had not to throw herself into his muscled arms.

“I’m fine Joe. It’s nothing.”
She pushed his hand away from her face and tried to catch her hair back up in the band, then she began slapping at her shirt as she tried to remove the filth of the forest floor

Joe looked down at her as she brushed the dead leaves from her front. It took him a few moments to realize that they were now totally alone in the forest. The sound of the gr
oup had long since passed but he knew that David would be keeping up with them.

“Lucy, I am so sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.” His tone was agonized
as he glanced at the slight graze on her forehead. It burned his gut to think that he had caused her harm.

She looked up at him and smiled.

“You didn’t hurt me Joe. It’s just a graze. I should have realized that it was you. It was my own fault.”

His heart was pounding in his chest partly due to anger at himself for hurting her but mostly because he could still feel the heat from where she had been trapped beneath his body. Joe shook his head.

“No, it’s my job to know who is on my tail. I’m just rusty. It’s never happened before here.”

Lucy looked up at him quizzically.

“What do you mean? Hasn’t anyone seen you sneak off like that? It wasn’t like you were hiding or anything. The others were just distracted, that’s all.”

Joe nodded in agreement.

“But that’s the point. Up until now everyone has been distracted. You are the first to ever see me leave the group in nearly five years.”

Lucy smiled up at him.

“Don’t be daft. Someone must have seen you before now. I saw David disappear too. He was on the other side of the path. It was just easier for me to follow you.”

Joe’s eyes clouded for a moment as he realized what she was saying. She wasn’t following him deliberately. She was just following the nearest person to her. His heart sagged in his chest and he moved back from her, trying to give them both some space.

There was a rustle behind them and suddenly David appeared from behind the bushes. He lifted his chin at Lucy, his eyes shining with admiration.

“Well done love. You are the first to manage that feat.” He looked over at Joe and nodded. “I’ll
head them off for a bit and give you twenty minutes to get down to the river. I’ll meet you there with the rest of the group.” He gave Lucy one last smile and melded back into the bushes.

Joe stuck his hand out to Lucy who grabbed it and hauled herself from the ground. She dusted off the
remainder of the clinging leaves and looked up at Joe again.

“Ready?” She asked as he stared down at her.

He cleared his throat noisily.

“As
ready as I’ll ever be. Are you sure you are okay with that bump on the head?” He still sounded worried.

She gave him a quick smile and his heart leapt in his chest as he saw her dimples peek out once again.

“It’ll take more than a measly bump on the head to take me down. Come on, let’s get down to the river before the others. We can give them all a big surprise.” She smiled widely and stood back as Joe took one last glance at her and then stepped onto the path in front of them.

Jessica Dennison drew in a shocked breath and turned to her boss.

“Can you believe how he just spoke to us? That man is an idiot. He has no idea who we are. I want to leave immediately.” She stood with her hands on her hips and glared up at Freeman.

Carter Freeman stared down at the woman in front of him.

“I think we should let it go Jessica. These are just teething problems. Everything will be sorted out by the end of the day. If it comes to it, I can always complain to his boss.
He might look tough but it’s always the money that talks.” He looked over his shoulder and suddenly stopped speaking when he saw David smiling widely at him.

“You can give it a try if you like
mate…go on then, I’m waiting. What complaint would you like to make?” David grinned now as Freeman squirmed in his shoes.

He had completely forgotten that David was the joint owner of the chateau and project.
Freeman gritted his teeth and said nothing while the woman at his side made odd squeaking sounds in the back of her throat. It took him a moment or two to realize that she was grinding her teeth in fury. He looked at his secretary who although wasn’t grinning quite like a Cheshire cat, had a definite smirk on her face.

“Do you want to share how you came to be here with these men and not with the group? I thought the whole point of the exercise was that we stick together.” He sounded more than a little annoyed.

Joe stepped forwards.

“I asked you to follow me. Miss
Collins was just following my instructions a little better than the rest of you. Now if half of the group would like to go with David, the others can come with me and we’ll all meet back here to change activities in two hours.” He walked through the middle of the group indicating who each person should go with. He kept Freeman and Jessica in his own group and made sure Lucy was in David’s. He didn’t want her mixed up in anything these two were going to muck up. He even felt a bit sorry for the rest of the group and vowed to swap them around after these two tasks were performed.