AncilSam, who seemed to be the only one making an effort to get to know Sara said, “So what’s your story Sara?”
Without answering she turned to me and shouted, “You told them my name?”
“I didn’t know that…” I started.
“Does it matter if we know your name or not?” Megan said.
“Yes, I don’t want you people calling me.”
Sara closed down her pocket knife with a flick, got up and began marching out of the room in a hurry but Bookman grabbed her hand before she could leave. He began inspecting her hand which had faint signs of blue and purple sores.
“You infected,” Bookman said. Sara pulled her hand away in a rage and scurried off. Bookman stared at Justin and Saraya who were sitting on the floor with Melanie and he pointed out that they were also infected. “I see infected people before change in a matter of seconds,” Bookman said. “One minute they talking to you good and the next minute, they is……….Juuumbieeeee!!”
“So now we have a valid reason to put her in her place,” Megan said.
“I was living with this girl for weeks and she hasn’t changed yet,” I interjected, standing at the entrance to the living room, leaning against the wall with my arms folded
“But what if food gets scarce? Then what?” Cornell asked.
“Well we will cross that bridge when we reach it,” I answered.
“I kind of agree with Cornell though. She’s a ticking time bomb,” Sam said. “The children too. When things hit the fan we can’t have them around us. I suggest that we don’t try to get too close to her or the children because she may not be here very long.”
“We are all going to die anyway. The chances of her dying is just as high as our chances,” I said.
“But she’s the weakest link,” Sam said. “I was trying to get her acquainted with us but now I think the further she is from us, the better.”
“What about you?” I asked, referring to Sam.
“What about me?”
“You still have that bomb in your head right?”
Everyone looked at Sam eagerly awaiting her answer. I think most of them had probably forgotten about the bomb in her head.
She hesitated for a while then said, “It was never removed.”
“Then who’s really the weakest link huh? Who’s really the ticking time bomb?” I said. “What if the Midnight Robber decides to trigger that bomb? We will all be caught in the blast.”
“He has a point,” Saraya said, a bit out of place.
“What you know about bomb?” Melanie shouted
“Yeah!!” Justin agreed.
Saraya didn’t respond. She just sat on the floor and stared at Sam with a pent up kind of anger that didn’t seem like surface anger but anger that was deep down in a pit somewhere in her soul. I was a bit confused when I saw Saraya’s facial expression while she looked at Sam. I was also confused by the fact that Sam maintained intense eye contact with her as well.
“There must be a reason why the Midnight Robber hasn’t triggered the bomb yet,” Cornell said.
“The Midnight Robber will not kill Ms. Sam Jack,” Bookman said.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
Bookman didn’t answer.
A silent negative energy entered the room. I looked at Megan, who was already looking at me, as if she also noticed the negative energy. Something was being withheld.
“Maybe we should continue this discussion in the morning,” Sam suggested. “I think we all need some rest. It’s been a long day.”
The negative energy lingered and I started to feel a bit suspicious of Sam. She had been shady before and she dedicated herself to both sides of the spectrum of good and evil. She had sent us to Tobago with the Twin Republic army to die. She betrayed us but then she helped us. Or did she? Maybe by helping Megan and I back on the Red House roof she was helping herself. She was already angry at the Midnight Robber for not staying true to his word so shooting him off the roof was probably her way of fueling some vengeful rage. It didn’t explain why she kept helping us though, knowing that her life was in the Midnight Robber’s hands. I had no idea what to think of Sam.
“Yeah, we should get some sleep,” Cornell agreed. He stretched his both arms up in the air, yawned then continued. “We did have a long day today and we will have an even longer one tomorrow.”
Everyone, including me, then got up from the chairs and headed upstairs. However, a thought suddenly struck me encouraging me to look out the window. I usually listened to my gut and did as it told me even though it had lost some credibility after causing me to go into the grocery store and to get captured by Dee Baba. There wasn’t much to see out the window because it was all pitch black but in the distance, there was a light. Not a light, lights. There were dozens of small lights in the distance. Lights that were clearly not stars because they were big in comparison and kept getting bigger and bigger by the second. I quickly stopped everyone in their tracks.
“Sam, that bomb in your head. Does it have a tracker?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered.
Could it be that they tracked her here? We had been extremely careful not to be detected. They couldn’t have tracked us from the skies. I told the others about the lights I was seeing outside and it caused some unrest among the camp.
Cornell shoved me out of the way to check out the strange lights. His eyes widened. “We have to get out of here. NOW!! No time to grab anything, just get to the chopper!!!”
