Too Young (The Jewel Project #1)

Chapter 13.2 - The traitor

Tom suddenly stopped and Angie bumped into him. She staggered back and managed to regain her balance. Tom dropped his rifle and kneeled on the ground next to Gina. She lay motionless, her limbs spread at a rather odd angle.

Tom took her pulse. "She's not dead."

Angie rolled her eyes. Of course she wasn't dead. She'd just screamed, and since there was no puddle of blood under her, Angie half-suspected Gina was faking.

Tom picked Gina up and glanced around. He wheeled to face Angie and reached out his hands, as if he wanted to pass Gina to her, but thought better of it. Angie frowned, not understanding why he looked so torn up.

"Could you... you know, go check the surroundings?" he said tentatively. Angie snapped out of it. Of course they had to check for intruders. If Gina wasn't faking, someone had been in camp.

Angie tightened her grip on the rifle and set off between the bushes. She turned up her headlamp and analyzed the ground. It was still moist and muddy after all the rain, so she could easily distinguish a footprint. She stepped carefully, searching for more clues until she reached the trap on this side of camp. The strings and the cover leafs were untouched. She checked the pins, but there appeared to be nothing out of place. Angie shone the light in front to see the footsteps disappearing into the bushes.

The rustling of tree branches coming from behind had Angie turning around, gun pointing. Tom appeared from the vegetation, his own rifle clenched in his hand.

"Find anything?" he asked. She pointed to the ground and Tom crouched to see better. "Wait here." He took her headlamp and followed the footprints out of sight.

Angie remained rooted to the spot, plunged in complete darkness. Her heart beat against her ribs and she got a sudden urge to knock her head against the nearest tree. She was worried about him.

She was supposed to hope he got killed, but he had managed to turn everything around in just a couple of minutes. What made matters worse was that she couldn't even convince herself to hate him anymore. The relief she felt once seeing him coming back was disconcerting.

"They're gone. Let's go back." He walked back to the clearing, picked Gina up again and headed for her tent. Angie followed, holding Tom's rifle as well as hers.

Once inside Gina's tent, Tom gave Angie the headlamp back and started prodding Gina. Angie looked around the tent. Being a new comer, Gina had a tent all to herself and she'd made sure to fill it with what looked like the entire content of her rucksack. Angie used the rifle to remove a pair of pants from the top of a lantern and busied herself to turn it on.

"Angie, what are you doing? I need the light," Tom said, turning Gina on her back.

"No you don't. It's not like she's dying. I'll be done in a minute."

"What are you doing anyway?"

"Turning this thing on." A low light filled the tent and Angie drew back from the lantern, trying to avoid touching anything. She felt as if she was standing in a nest. "There, now you can go back to prodding her. I bet she loves it."

"I doubt she feels it," Tom mumbled, his attention back on Gina, checking every joint.

"I doubt she's not faking," Angie said to herself.

Tom turned away from Gina. "Why do you have to do this?"

Angie shrugged. "Do what?"

"She hasn't done anything to gain this hostility."