Repatriate Protocol Box Set 3 by Kelli Kimble

Author:Kelli Kimble [Kimble, Kelli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Every day, Gayle begged me to leave her. At first, I was able to easily put her off by reminding her that I, too, was injured. But my wrist soon betrayed me. It must have been a sprain, rather than a break, because in less than a week, it was feeling better. I still couldn’t use it much, but the pain was only there when I tried.

Gayle’s leg didn’t seem much different. Every day, I tried to sense the damage to the inner workings of her body. The changes were just too tiny for my amateur eye to discern. It looked the same each day as it had the day before. Was it getting better? Would it ever change?

Her insistence that I should go increased with each day, and her attitude sunk lower in a direct ratio. By the end of the first week in the cave, I was having trouble getting her to eat.

But that changed the day I sensed something other than animals around.

I was at the creek, grinding two rocks together. I’d figured out I could make a sort of shallow bowl if rubbed a harder rock against a soft rock. It took a lot of trial and error, because I really knew nothing about rocks. But I’d found two rocks, and when combined, they were developing into a bowl I could use to transport water back to the cave without using the horrible stinkweed.

Over the week, I’d started to get lax about checking my surroundings. The cats didn’t seem to be around, and I’d sensed no bears, nor any other large animal, since we’d first set up our shelter.

That’s why I didn’t sense them.

I heard them.

They were talking to each other, projecting mentally, as they tramped through the grass. They seemed to be following the riverbed, but rather than following it into the curve, where I was, they were cutting across to where it bent perpendicular to the cliff and moved away.

Searchers.

I stifled a gasp and sunk to the ground. They didn’t seem to have seen or heard me. I watched as they came to the riverbed, then turned to follow it away from me. I waited until I was sure they were not going to see me, then I practically flew back up to the cave.

“Gayle,” I hissed.

She was curled up on the sleeping bag, her splinted leg sticking out stiffly. Often, it was her default position. “What?” she asked. Though I knew they couldn’t hear us, I shushed her. She sat up, her eyes wide. “Is it a cat?”

“No,” I said. “Searchers.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

“They’re following the riverbed down that way, away from here.”

“You’ve got to follow them. You know, with your mind,” she said.

Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Yeah, yeah. That’s a good idea. You’re right.” I sat in front of the fire ring. I was glad, for once, that Gayle displayed so little interest in the fire; it had reduced to coals and wasn’t producing smoke, which would have given our position away.

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