Arya's POV
"November 21st." I murmured to myself, shuffling through a collective number of photographs I'd bundled together, in an effort to find my friend.
Luke slumped down on the cushion beside me, a defeated look in his eyes.
"Give over, Arya." He mumbled, eying me helplessly "We've been searching for ages. Neither of us can remember that date."
"Call Elodie."
I looked at him curiously, raising my eyebrows to which I was returned with a nod of affirmation. So, I pulled out my phone, hitting my finger vigorously at the screen as it failed to process, before typing in the eleven digits that were the burner phone we knew Elodie had taken from an abandoned store.
The phone rang, vibrating in intervals in the palm of my hand. Pressing it tightly against my ear and holding my breath. It rang three times, then somebody picked up
"Hello? Elodie?"
For a second it was only static, then a voice said "Hi, Arya."
"Elle, are you alright? Connection is a little funny, you sound sort of muffled."
"All good." She replied.
"We can't find Cara, her things are here but she has completely disappeared, not a trace."
She didn't reply, the phone making a crackling sound and muffled voices speaking in the background.
"Elle? Who is that? Are you okay?"
I swore in that moment I heard her gulp, and surely I wasn't imagining the unusual anxiety laced into the tone of her voice.
"I'm fine." She replied. "Just Kieran."
"Alright. Do you need us to come back-"
Another crackling sound. Unsurprising though considering the distance between us in that moment.
"Yes. We're fearful of an attack."
"OK. We'll leave now."
***
Elodie's POV
Surely nobody could mistake the feeling of a gun pressed against the side of your head, the cold steel digging in unnaturally and ending in you walking out of there with an awful headache.
Relying on the chance that you did walk out.
And it didn't seem so likely I'd be doing that in that moment.
Believe it or not, the person that had me cornered against the wall wasn't Kieran. And he was right when he'd told he'd never seen the logo before, because I'd pulled out Luke's spare gun pointing at him and failed to notice the same pattern had been painted onto that too.
It was an hour of my bow aiming at him, until he walked with me to the camp indoors looking for other guns we could locate. I felt disgusted with myself afterwards for accusing him in the first place.
Yet, I felt even more disgusted when three armed missionaries had run round the corner with pistols directly at our skulls.
I'd been too loud, too fearful and not trusting enough and it had landed the both of us in a moment that could be our last.
"Elodie Blue." One had said, dropping his hand holding the gun to his side and relying on his accomplices. "I can't believe it! And god, you're just a kid too."
"I'm not a kid." I sneered. "I'm nineteen and can clearly handle myself better than you as it took you this long to find me."
He smiled and cocked his head to the side. "Don't you think you're a little too pretty to have an attitude like that, my dear?"
Kieran let out something near to a growl, choking on his own breath as he was forced against a wall opposite me. I narrowed my eyes and clenched my fists at my side.
"Leave him alone." I whispered. "He has no part in this."
At this point, the additional guard had snuck round to give me the same treatment Kieran had been subjected to and I was being forced against a wall painfully.
"Listen, Ellie." The main guard had said. "Can I call you Ellie? What's going to happen is your going to tell us exactly where the rest of your friends are. And then we're going to kill you, and you can guarantee I won't hesitate. There's a lot of people who wouldn't mind having your blood on their hands, love. I'm probably doing you a favor."
I opened my mouth to uselessly protest, or to let out the last snarky remark I could.
But suddenly, my phone rang.
The guard wandered over to it, smiling. "Even better." He whispered. "What about we just make them come to us?" Suddenly a barrel was thrusted up against the side of my head. "Answer. You're going to act normal and tell them to come right here. Tell them you're fine or we'll put a bullet through your skull."
I nodded, clicking the answer button and waiting a second.
"Hello? Elodie?"