REDEMPTION

CHAPTER 6

Before Derek could stop me, I spoke up.

“Hey, we’re over here”, I said.

Immediately the three Rangers whipped around and stared at us for a second.

Derek said a string of curses furiously under his breath and glared at me from the corner of his eyes. I ignored his glare and took a step forward.

“Hello, we are citizens of Detrix. Our pod crashed about a week ago and we were trying to get to Eletia. We are on our own and we would be grateful if you would help us”, I said politely.

“Citizens of Detrix you say?”, said the first Ranger dubiously.

I showed him my Iris bracelet and pointed to Derek’s.

He seemed to believe me and the suspicion left his eyes.

“What are your names?”, asked the third Ranger.

Before I could speak, Derek answered,

“I am Ryan and this is Elena”, he said.
He lied.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes and he took my hand and squeezed it subtly, imploring me not to say anything. I decided to trust him and play along and I didn’t correct him.

The second Ranger asked Derek where he had gotten his rifle and he told them the same story he had told me, that he had nabbed it from one of the dead Rangers where our pod had crashed.

The Rangers stared at us for a while longer and made an unspoken decision among themselves.The first Ranger gestured at us to follow them. Derek quickly grabbed his bag pack from inside the cave and we started trailing after them. He grabbed my hand and slowed us down a little so that there was some distance between us and the Rangers.

“Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut?”  He whispered angrily at me.

“I did nothing wrong. The Rangers will help us get to Eletia”, I whispered back.

“We didn’t need their help, we were fine on our own. When will you understand that the Rangers aren’t there to protect us, they are there to keep us from knowing something.”

“What are you talking about?”, I asked him.

Derek  clammed up again and didn’t answer. He left my hand and I didn’t try to pacify his anger. I was done trying to be nice to him and always accepting his sudden shifts in his mood. He spoke like he knew some big secret that the rest of us weren’t aware of and whenever I tried to broach the subject, he shut me out. I could understand he didn’t like to talk about his parents but this was ridiculous. Suddenly, I realized something and I felt a shiver trail down my spine and I broke out in a cold sweat. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of Derek or afraid for him. The way he spoke, he almost sounded like a Rebel, full of hatred and loathing for the system, and if the Rangers overheard him talking like this, God knows what would happen.

I increased my pace so that I wasn’t walking beside him anymore.

We walked for a while and then the Rangers stopped suddenly. One of the Rangers searched among the bushes for a bit and revealed three hover-bikes behind them.
The Rangers motioned for us to get on. I sat behind one Ranger and Derek sat behind another and the third, alone, Ranger was in the lead. They started the bikes and we sped away into the night.

I lost track of the time. I had never ridden a hover bike before and the first few minutes, I was very tense and was holding onto the Ranger for my life, but then I started to relax and I started to enjoy the sensation of the wind whipping through my hair. Branches scratched my arms and leaves got tangled in my hair, but I was too busy feeling thrilled and scared at the same time to notice the pain. For a second, I forgot all the bad things that had happened and no matter what Derek said, I had been raised to believe that the Rangers were there to protect us and on that belief, I let myself get lulled into a false sense of security and I let myself believe that everything would be alright, and that the Rangers would make sure we would get to Eletia safe and sound, I mean, that was their duty, wasn’t it?