One foot dragged after the other. Although hours passed, marked by the position of the full moon, time seemed to move at a snail's pace since becoming a liability. Moments like these made me wonder what kind of man I would be if I was the one who took on the responsibility of assisting another. Why was Aiden helping me? The thought nagged at me, but I never questioned it aloud, afraid that if I mentioned it, he'd come to his senses and move on without me. Not that I wouldn't crawl the forest floor alone to claw my way out, but there was something about his company I didn't want to part with. Not yet.

"Thank you." My voice was just above the sound of Aiden's large blade chopping at low twisted branches in our path.

"Thank you." Aiden patted my hand on his shoulder with his fingertips. "I was prepared to make my bed in that cage and lie in it. You know?" His voice dragged and caught. A hint of sadness?

"Why? You guys didn't deserve that." It was true. "Santos and his lap dog are just power hungry, locking you up because nobody's got the― the balls to stop them." That had been my job, to prevent unnecessary cruel treatment of people, to watch over the innocent young men and women and their mothers, to provide food, shelter, and hope to those who'd come in search of it. Still, that wasn't the first time I had failed.

I've done many things throughout my life that ended in disaster. I pulled from every fiber of my existence to stop vivid visions of my first camp from replaying in my mind. The camp, similar to the one Santos had now overtaken, was home to the only people I'd ever cared about. Sure, some were strangers, but all were family.

Incomplete structures, little food, cold nights― never a worry when there was Christie and Samuel. Because of them, my confidence soared and no matter the obstacle, I had faith we'd overcome it. Christie and the contagious giggle she possessed entered my thoughts. The thought of Samuel, too, made me mimic his grin despite the surrounding devastation.

My breath caught on the lump in my throat, and I pressed my knuckles against my aching chest.

"You hear that? Smell the salt?" A trace of enthusiasm blended in Aiden's hushed tone. "It's the ocean. We're close."

"Being on the coast doesn't mean we're out of danger," I pointed out, thankful for the distraction away from my crippling thoughts.

"It does."

The sureness in his tone perked my curiosity. "How so?"

"It means we're farther from camp. Farther from Santos. That's our goal, right?"

I attempted to open my eyes again, and decided against it when tiny bits of debris scratched under the lids. "We need to rest soon."

"Now's good as ever." Aiden paused. "There's a big rock to your left you can sit on."

I kneeled, arm outstretched, until I found the smooth surface beside me. Exhaustion seized me as soon as I sat. Lack of food, water, and sleep was starting to take its toll.

"You didn't have to let us go, you know," Aiden started.

"What, you wanted me to leave you in that hell hole?" I scoffed. "For Santos to do god knows what to you?"

"No, I'm glad you did, but..." The scratching, dragging sound of his shoe scraping the dirt gave away his unease. "Why did you?"

"Is it strange to hate human suffering?" I asked. "Do we need a legitimate reason to keep people from unnecessary pain?" Was that kind of thinking a sign of the times?

"Yes. Nowadays people are fucking cruel just because. One day they're your saviors, the next they're―" His fidgeting stopped. "I wasn't suffering."

"Oh, yeah?" I shrugged. "Well, what do you call it then?"

"Adapting." There was that self-assurance again.

"Adapting, right." I held back my chuckle as he went on.

"Suffering is what my sister went through," he said. "If you only saw what people put her through then you'd understand that freezing and starving was the least horrible thing to go through. What those assholes did―" His voice cracked as he spoke and I visualized the sadness in his eyes. What strength it took to relive a devastating moment by retelling it, keeping it alive and fresh. "No, what I experienced being caged wasn't suffering. But I thank you anyway." He cleared his throat.

I swallowed, gulping. "Sorry."

Minutes passed and the only noise was the chirping of crickets and other insects.

"You lost your family, didn't you?" Aiden asked, finally breaking the silence.

There was once a time when the standard questions were, where's your family? Do you have anyone you care about? Are you in love? Now, asking if you've lost someone wasn't weird at all.

"No." That was all I could manage.

"Good." A gentle, soothing pat touched my shoulder. "You were spared from being forced to watch their deaths. You're lucky."

Lucky? Far from it.

My tongue slid across my dry lips. The salt in the air, the long trek, the fact I hadn't had a drink in hours, caused a strong craving for hydration. I fetched the canister of water from my pocket and took a drink, then handed the rest to Aiden. It disappeared from my hand, and a loud gulp followed.

The thought of Santos aiming his accurate bow and arrow at the back of my head came to mind. "You know, Santos is gonna come looking for me," I warned. "Every morning at daybreak, he and his buddy go hunting for food in these woods. I'm sure I'm now on his list of game."

"You mean us." The water swished in the nearly empty canister. "He'll be looking for us."

"No, me," I corrected. "He'll be looking for me."

"What does he want with you so bad, anyway?"

"He wants to take my place as leader. He's been giving off hints and threats for a while."

"But you left." The cold canister grazed my fingertips. "He's got what he wants. Makes no sense to hunt you down now."

I shooed away the offer of water with a swipe of my hand. "He'll feel threatened until he kills me or locks me up. But the only way he would be able to lay a hand on me is if I'm dead." I waited for Aiden's response. He was silent. "Once we get to the coast, we'll split up. You go your own way from there. You might have a better chance."

"Yeah? And you will have a better chance if I'm with you."

This man has done so much already. Putting his life in further danger wasn't an option. I didn't have the strength to carry it on my conscience if he got hurt. "I can't ask you to help me." My voice cracked as I forced the words out.

"You don't have to ask. I already offered."

"Don't feel obligated―"

"You expect me to sit back and watch a man suffer and not do what I can to stop it?" An unexpected nudge on my shoulder took me off guard and I braced myself. "Just like you, Luke, I'm not that kind of man."

"Being that kind of man is what got you locked up in the first place," I reminded him. "Don't risk your life for me."

"You could've left when I couldn't get that door open in the cage." He raised his voice. "You could've dropped everything right there and ran, but you didn't. And now I'm faced with the same decision you had, and I made the same choice."

"You don't owe me anything." The thought of an innocent person dying for my sake? Unforgivable.

"I've already decided," he said with that familiar sureness.

"Suit yourself." I stood. There was no convincing him. "We have to get out of these woods by first light."

He stirred, the heat of his nearby presence apparent. Gentle, narrow fingers touched mine, lifting my hand to his broad shoulder. "We'll make it."

I took a step, allowing him to lead, but rustling came from far behind. I stopped and pulled my blade from my pocket, holding it at my side. "Someone's here."

We paused. After a few seconds of immobility and silence, Aiden concluded, "It's just an animal. Probably a squirrel, raccoon, or something."

He was more familiar with the animals of the forest; however, the crunch of twigs suggested that whatever it was had to be much larger than an average woodland creature. "Let's keep moving," I whispered. Keeping my ears honed in to any other sound than our footsteps, I increasingly became more cautious and paranoid.

A chill crept down my spine as I realized my only warning against impending threats were my hearing skills and Aiden acting as my eyes. He was right. Getting out of the forest would have been next to impossible without his help. Still, the stirring in the foliage was only animals?

Not so. The stench of an unfamiliar body odor permeated the air.

"Hey," I said in a hushed voice. "Someone's following."

Before the last word left my mouth, quickened footsteps in the brush startled me. Aiden jumped and gasped. Blade before me, preparing for a confrontation, I staggered backward.

"Come on, asshole," I called out. "I'm ready for you."

Aiden palmed my shoulder. "Sshh," he whispered. His footsteps crept past me and toward the crackling of twigs snapping on the ground from the pressure of weight. My imagination soared and I envisioned him― tall, slim-framed and wide-eyed― huffing as he hoisted the corroded blade up near his shoulder, ready to swing like a batter on the home plate.

Another snap and I stepped back, anticipating Aiden's swing and strike. All of a sudden, a panicked yowl emerged from the brush ahead of me, growing louder and more urgent as it neared me. Heavy stomps threw off my concentration as I tried to gauge my threat and proper defense. Before I knew it, rough fingers gripped my wrists, pushing me down.

A ridged rock the size of my fist lodged into my ribs as the man straddled me, forcing my back into the ground while struggling to take the blade from my hand. His guttural growl rumbled my eardrum as his beard and lips grazed my chin.

"Get off!" Aiden's voice was close above me and powerful, deeper than my attacker's growl and sterner than a bull. "Not gonna say it again. You want this big edge lodged into your skull, asshole?"

With all my strength, I pushed my handheld blade forward, aiming it toward the man on top of me. Which part would I pierce? I didn't know, his neck, his back, his side? It didn't matter, as long as it got him off of me.

A metallic clanking on the ground beside me took me out of my thoughts. Aiden's grunt followed the weight of my attacker lifting. With the man no longer crushing my diaphragm, my breathing became less labored.

"I need him," the man said through shallow breaths. "My fucking family's back there. I can't go back without him."

"Who are you?" I asked, getting up on my feet. I opened my eyes but the pain wouldn't allow me to keep them open for long. Moisture pooled around my lids, and I suppressed the urge to rub them, not wanting to cause further damage.

"What the hell are you talking about?" The impatience in his voice was evident, so was the desperation.

The sweat from my palm soaked the twined handle of my blade, but I gripped it tighter, readying myself for another attack. "You with that other guy?" Although he didn't sound like the man whose vision I'd love to take, he had to be the third prisoner that had escaped the cage and had the same idea as the other escapee.

"If we give you to Santos, then maybe he'll have mercy on us," he said, confirming my suspicions.

"If you didn't want to leave then why did you?" Aiden asked, stealing the words right out of my mouth.

The man huffed as if the answer was obvious. "I'm cold and hungry and―"

"And you weren't cold and hungry at the camp?" I pointed out. The craving to look the man in the face, to judge my threat, nagged me. I opened my eyes, but the sting worsened.

"If I go back―" the man started. "If― if I go back―"

"He'll kill you," I finished. "That guy is hopped up on power. He wants to run things his way, he wants fear. Screw respect, he wants to terrorize you, and he will force it on you and everyone there without a second thought."

The people at camp kept their distance from Santos and his friend after hearing of the sadistic and inhumane way he enjoyed preparing his half-dead game for feasting. He'd then offer the meat to the camp, which was enough to psychologically traumatize anyone. Knowing their hunger prevented them from refusing a meal was similar to forcing their hand in the cruel treatment of the animal they were eating. With every bite, they were reminded of the torture the animal had suffered. Just one of many signs of Santos' insane psychological manipulation. Memories of the community's somber, scared, diverted eyes came to mind. Thankfully, Santos' murderous threats had been on me only and not on those innocent folk.

"Of course he feeds off our fear," Aiden said.

"I don't know, maybe he needs something consistent, control. Maybe that's what makes him feel alive, other people's fear." I shrugged. A man without a family to love and return love was a man without a purpose to live, a selfish, undetermined, waste of space. Nothing more than a beast with its conscience eaten away and living off the misery of others to feel important.

"You know all this and still you won't help?" the man asked.

"I've done all I could do. I let you guys go. That's all I have in me." The truth put a sour taste in my mouth that was hard to swallow but necessary to state.

"You used to do more than that," the man said. "You welcomed us in, now you're gonna turn your back on us." It wasn't a question, but came out more as a sickening observation.

"Look, I may hold some responsibility for opening that cage―"

"Damn right," the man said through clenched teeth.

"But I didn't force you to leave," I said. "And I'm not going back."

"All those people you left back there, my family too, depended on you. 'Luke will save the day. Luke will turn everything around. Luke will put things back the way they used to be.' And all you did was run away. Well, fuck you, Luke." His anger was obvious. But so was his pain, the way he gulped, swallowing his agony, told it all.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do." I lowered my blade, relaxed my grip, and sighed at my misfortune. As much as I wanted to distance myself from the situation, I had no way of identifying the right way to go. Dread crept upon me at the thought of having to trust a stranger, especially when two of them had tried to kill me soon after freeing them.

So much for rewarding the kind people and punishing the cruel. Where was karma and justice when needed?

Maybe Aiden sensed my need. The sound of metal scratching against the gravel and sand made me think of his blade dragging as he retrieved it from the ground. Aiden cleared his throat. "I suggest you figure out another way to get Santos' mercy." The crunch of his footsteps approached. I calculated each step to gauge his distance. Soon his palm slid down my spine to rest on my lower back. "Let's keep moving." His voice was a mere millimeter from my ear, just above a whisper, and comforting.

His shoulder radiated heat onto my palm and with his assistance, I took a few steps.

"You know what?" the man said from behind. "Just― just walk away. Just keep walking."

And we did.

However, the realization of possibly being led right back to the very place I was running from just about paralyzed me. I had placed a lot of trust in Aiden, and no matter how good a person was they still had to have a reason for risking it all for another, especially in times like these.

As we walked, I tried to piece together what pushed Aiden to take another step, and beside me nonetheless.