Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (21 page)

We stay on the fringe of the forest, watching the motel and the surrounding woods for any sign of movement. The motel is old; cracked paint on the walls, neon sign with only a few letters illuminated, several rooms with broken windows, weeds growing out of control in the parking lot. The ‘Adventure Tours’ jeep is the only vehicle parked in the lot, at the end of the row of rooms. At least my mother is still waiting here for me… unless her stalker took her from here a different way.

Amelia and I quietly circle the forest around the motel, checking for any sign of danger. I stare toward my mother’s room the entire time, watching the curtains for the slightest hint of change. I’m anxious to find out if Mom’s okay but I can’t ignore the tingle of warning that pokes at the back of my mind. There’s definitely a presence in the woods. The icy hand of dread grips my spine when I realize my mother wasn’t just being paranoid.

Amelia senses it, too, and the only way we communicate is with hand signals. We move much slower during our patrol but only spot the faintest signs that someone has been here recently: a snapped twig, recently disturbed rocks, the slight indent of footprints in a few leaf piles. The clues are faint and would probably be missed by most but I’ve had more than a century and a half of tracking experience.

“Are you sure it’s not just an animal that left these clues?” Amelia whispers.

I
wish
that were the case; it would make the truth far less chilling.

“It looks like someone is
used
to hiding in the woods,
used
to covering up his trail,” I tell her. “But I have no doubt that he
is
out here somewhere.”

“How do you know it’s a
he
?” Amelia asks.

Her comment immediately makes me think of the Queen Clan. I’m tempted to become lost in my memories about life with the Amazons, to try and remember any clues that might help me figure out who’s coming after my mother. But focusing on the here and now is more important than ever. A plan suddenly explodes in my mind as brightly as the firework I used to signal Amelia.

“Whoever is out there must be expecting me to come alone,” I say, pulling off my hooded sweatshirt. “I have a plan but it will put you in certain danger.”

Amelia smiles. “I would expect nothing less, just like old times.”

I hand her my sweatshirt and explain the plan to use her as a decoy to help flush out the stalker. I hate putting her in jeopardy – she might be older than me at this moment in time but the more time I’ve spent with her, the more motherly I feel toward her. But she puts on the sweatshirt and pulls the hood low over her face without hesitating.

“You’ll walk slowly toward my mom’s room and when
whoever’s
out there
makes a move, I’ll pounce,” I say. Amelia nods unlike Celeste, who always questioned my ideas. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“I’ve always trusted you, Mentor, ever since the first day we met,” Amelia says.

After the search party of Japanese troops trudge by our tree, Amelia and I climb down from our hiding spot and retrace our path back to the dirt runway. Being such a skilled tracker, I have no trouble finding our way back. But a blind person could’ve located the runway based upon the acrid smell of smoke that permeates the air. A stream of it rises into the sky, leading us directly where we need to go.

The smoke is at the end of the path we’re following so we circle around and reach the edge of the forest line farther down the runway. The cause of the smoke stops Amelia in her tracks. Though Electra was seriously damaged in the crash, we left it mostly intact before rushing off. Now, it’s totally engulfed in flames, a crowd of soldiers surrounding it, throwing more firewood onto the flames. Amelia looks like she wants to run after her plane but we both know it’s too late: it won’t be long until no sign of Electra exists.

I’m determined to make sure the same fate doesn’t befall Amelia and I. As my new recruit watches her old plane, I’m more interested in finding a new one. Since our crash landing, it looks like every soldier on the island was called to this area. More than a dozen trekked after us in the jungle while the same amount burns the Electra to ashy nothingness. But the rest are scattered along the runway, with the majority stationed around the row of fighter planes.

“You have to take one of those planes,” I tell Amelia, who finally turns her attention away from the blaze.

“Just walk right up and ask to
borrow
one?” she asks, trying to sound light-hearted though her voice is laden with sadness and concern.

“I’ll distract them and draw the troops away from the planes,” I say. “You steal one and take off down the runway.”

“How will you get aboard?” Amelia asks.

I stop and wonder that myself. But this situation isn’t exactly the easiest to plan out every detail.

“I’ll figure something out,” I say. “But you don’t worry about that. You take that plane and fly away, whether I catch up or not.”

“But I can’t just leave you here,” Amelia says.

“You’re going to have to trust me,” I tell her.

Amelia nods reluctantly and I tell her to move farther down along the runway just beyond where the planes are parked. Once she’s in position, I take the bow off my shoulder and ready an arrow. Taking a deep breath, I emerge from the safety of the trees and face the troops guarding the planes.

“Hey!” I yell, trying to draw their attention.

That doesn’t take long to do. Within seconds, dozens of eyes – and more importantly guns – are aimed in my direction. I fire several arrows in their direction to get their attention, making sure not to hit any of them since I don’t want them to hunker down near the planes. They fire back at me and I nearly hesitate too long. The chase is on with all but two of the soldiers sprinting in my direction, trying to gun me down. I lead them toward the forest again but not before stealing a glance back, looking beyond my pursuers.

Amelia followed my orders and makes a beeline for the planes. Luckily, the two troops left guarding the planes watch the chase and don’t see Amelia sprinting toward them. I want to stay in view and watch to make sure she’s okay but the hail of bullets fired at me are getting closer and closer to finding their intended target. I escape into the woods yet again, this time losing sight of my new recruit just before she encounters danger.

I’m a lot more nervous for her than I am for myself…

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Amelia has been an Amazon for decades and has survived many dangers, but that doesn’t stop my heart from nearly pounding out of my chest. With the hood low over her face, my recruit slowly walks across the parking lot, never once looking up to give away her true identity. I’m desperate to see if my mother is still in her room but my eyes are peeled on the rest of the woods around us, waiting to see if the stalker shows up.

Amelia reaches the motel’s final room at the end – nothing has happened, nobody has shown up. I hope this means she was simply being paranoid during our phone call. But I can’t shake the feeling that somebody
is
out there. She reaches the door to Mom’s room and glances around before knocking. The sound echoes in this quiet part of the woods; if somebody out there didn’t notice Amelia’s arrival before, he –
or she
– certainly knows now.

Seconds slowly tick by, my pulse racing as I wait for the door to open. But it never does, not even when Amelia knocks several more times. She glances in my direction but keeps her hood pulled down. Is my mother gone? Is this some sort of trap?

Amelia finally tries the doorknob and I can see that she has no success. Even though it’s locked, that doesn’t stop her. She lowers her shoulder and forces the door open, nearly snapping off the hinges in the process. From my vantage point, I can’t see inside the room but I
can
tell that no lights are on. She heads inside and the longest minute of my life follows as I wait for any sign of Amelia or my mother to emerge.

I’m so focused on the motel room that I almost miss the blur of movement from the forest on the other side of the parking lot. I curse myself for waiting on the opposite end of the room. The person running toward the open doorway is tall and thin but also wears an oversized hoodie so I can’t recognize who it is. But the speed with which the person moves is clearly
not
natural and can only be the product of drinking the special water.

I react instantly but know I’ll still be too late: the stalker is much closer to the room and reaches the open doorway first. If I was worried watching the stalker run inside, then I’m downright terrified by the sound of my mother’s scream that suddenly pierces the silence.

When I reach the open door, I see that a dim light has been turned on inside the dingy room. Amelia stands in the corner, shielding my mother, who is crouched down in the corner, her face a mask of utter fear as she looks up at the intruder standing just in front of them. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was looking at a ghost.

But when I tackle the stalker from behind, I can tell that it’s no ghost.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

If time was no factor, I have every confidence that I could hide in the jungle and pick off my Japanese hunters one by one. There are more troops chasing me than arrows in my quiver but they are clumsy and slow and prove little threat to me beyond the sheer number of them. But time is of the essence and I can’t lead them as far into the jungle as I did the earlier search party.

I shoot a few soldiers with arrows but only to entice their comrades farther away from the runway. Once I feel we’re far enough from my recruit and the planes, I circle my way back around, spurred on by the sound of an airplane’s engine growing louder and louder. I emerge from the trees and see a fighter plane slowly taxiing down the long stretch of dirt, a familiar face sitting inside the open cockpit.

I can’t help but smile, especially when I look back toward the other planes and see the two guards, unconscious, collapsed in the dirt. My smile doesn’t last long. The nearby sound of gunfire explodes and bark from the tree just next to me rains down around me. I guess I didn’t lead the soldiers far enough or maybe they rushed back upon hearing the plane. Either way, I don’t have time to stand around and admire my recruit’s handiwork, especially since her fighter plane picks up speed as she shoots down the runway.

I run, without a single care for the bullets being shot behind me. Amelia spots me but I wave my arm for her to keep going, to keep picking up speed. She’s already halfway down the long stretch of flattened dirt and though I know almost nothing about flying,
I
can even tell that the plane isn’t moving fast enough to lift off the ground. But the sight of me and sound of firing guns is enough motivation for Amelia to push the plane harder.

More troops emerge from the woods as I sprint toward the plane and I’m forced to slow down to shoot arrows at them. Amelia has passed the point of no return – she can’t slow down or the plane will never clear the Electra wreckage at the end of the runway – so she’s going to takeoff with or without me.

I need to make sure it’s
with
me. With my chance for escape literally about to fly away, I push myself harder than I ever have. No sooner does the fighter plane begin to liftoff from the ground when I leap and soar through the air myself, barely grabbing hold of a wing. A normal person with normal strength would’ve been ripped off from the force of rushing airflow but I summon all my strength and hang on for dear life.

I make the mistake of glancing back long enough to see the island now hundreds of feet below. My head suddenly spins from being up so high and having nothing more than my grip being the difference between life and a plunging death. I close my eyes and concentrate on breathing, not so easy when rushing wind pushes against every part of my body. I’m finally strong enough to inch my way toward the open cockpit, where Amelia reaches over a helping hand and pulls me into the plane’s gunner seat.

“Where to?” Amelia calls back to me once Saipan is nothing but a green dot on the great ocean behind us.

“South America.”

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The intruder grunts when I crash into him from behind. He’s tall and wiry but also very strong, absorbing the blow much better than I expected. I didn’t even knock him down. My mother screams and Amelia springs into action. The two of us are able to wrestle him down, though it’s not so difficult since he doesn’t fight back. I hold his arms behind his back and his hood finally shakes down to reveal his identity to my mother, the only one facing him.

Her face instantly goes pale. She tries to recoil but can’t back up any farther into the corner.

I spin him around and look up into his face. I’m so shocked that my hands fall to my side, leaving me defenseless. But I have no fear of retaliation, especially when the intruder smiles at me. I feel utterly speechless, though a single word
does
escape my lips.

“John?”