"What are you doing, bro?" Liam asked with his teeth held tightly against each other.
Leo ignored him. You're just a child, how will you know?, Leo thought.
The people slowed down at the sound of something that hissed. It wasn't loud, nor was it a soft hiss, but they could all hear it including Leo and the rest.
Then they heard it again.
Everyone stared at the elderly man that had a spear in his hand, and also the man that stood closer to them.
Slowly, and like he missed something, his expression changed as he knelt on one of his knee and packed some sand into his palms.
The sand in his palms gradually turned red and so with the sand on the ground.
It wasn't anything that turned it red, but the earth surface kept the particles moving and bouncing like a giant was coming.
"Eartheneous" the elderly man whispered and stood up.
"Choose one! You come with us and we fight this together, or you go your seperate way!"
Leo turned to look at Ryan, the same time Ryan had turned to look at Leo.
Ryan nodded and so did Chloe. He turned to look at Liam and his little brother and they also did the same as Chloe and Ryan.
Joe who was still behind, nodded slowly with a faint, and when I mean faint, I mean a very faint smile on his face.
Leo smiled and turned back to the men down the hill.
"We are with you!"
The man holding the spear still didn't trust them, but Leo knew it was out of sincerity that he had spoken.
The families had stopped running when Ryan yelled, but a few were walking out on them. But now, they all stopped both walking and running.
The man down the hill, raised his hand and signalled Leo and the others to come to him with two of his fingers.
"How are we to trust these people when we just met them?" One of the fathers that had a spear in his hand asked.
"We don't. We just have to test them" the elderly man whispered, but made sure the man who asked the question heard his reply.
Chloe and the others climbed down the hill in full hope that they had made the right decision now that Leo was in charge. Even if Leo had not told them what he had seen on the spear's metal head, they knew he saw something. Something a bit interesting.
When Leo and the others were just a little distance away from the men, they stopped walking and as Chloe wanted to step forward, but Ryan stretched his hand out and lowered it when he was not moving.
A smirk spread on his face, but because he still faced front, Chloe didn't see his complete smirk.
"Why are you children out here?!"
"It's you who knows the children around here" Liam sulked deeply, though he didn't say it in a tune that they'd hear.
"We are out of Peril. A town nearby!" Joe answered.
It was a surprise because big man Joe hardly even spoke to his siblings on this journey.
Perhaps the Lord touched his heart.
Leo felt a feeling of relief.
"And where are you heading to?" Another man asked.
"We want to find our friend! She was captured not quite long ago!" Chloe said.
Her voice showed desperation and loneliness because the only girl that had stayed with her was taken.
The men in front kept quiet, and so with their families.
"Do you think Felicity went ravaging again?" The man that had spoken about trust to the elderly man asked.
The elderly man gnashed his teeth in anger and rage.
"Were the people with horses?" came another question.
"Brown. Yes, they were" Joe answered again.
The elderly man and the rest smacked their head in anger. Some filling their palms with sand and throwing them into the air as if they have an insurmountable situation at hand.
"That girl!" a loud voice shouted in anger.
The elderly man had just shouted in front of them and it seemed like the girl they were talking about really gave them a headache, all the time.
"You will come with us, and if your friend is with us, we will do whatever you ask us to do. But if she is not... "
He paused and held his head high.
"Then you do what we want" the elderly men said and Ryan looked at Leo.
Leo remained silent. The whole place filled with silence and tension.
When Ryan saw that Leo said nothing, he thought he could help.
"We are sorry but - "
"Deal!"
All eyes widened at how Leo said it.
His voice sounded determined and strong. It was like he was desperate to find LiLi.
But was he?
Meanwhile, LiLi is seen with Aisha, Felicity and four other girls sitting round a stone and staring out at the sun set, from the cave-like place they were in.
"We had a deal, remember? Where the hell is Perilous?" LiLi asked again and again did Felicity sucked her thumb.
The roasted things they ate stuck to their fingers dryly, so they had to suck it out from their fingers as the finishing touch.
"The deal didn't mean I'd tell you anything. I said that I'd do anything"
"Saying things are actions. Look sis, you better answer me else - "
"Else what?" Felicity snapped and the rest of the girls apart from Aisha bursted into laughter.
LiLi said nothing because her ears caught up with the sound of something.
"Shh.. " she whispered.
"What? You wanna hear your grandpa's call?" one of the girls mocked, making more laughter to arouse.
But LiLi was hearing something. Something like the voices of men.
"I said keep it low" she said and only Aisha listened this time.
When the laughter became unbearable and LiLi couldn't hear the voices like before, she yelled:
"I said keep it down!"
Everywhere is dead silent.
"Look at me in the eye and tell me everything you see?!" LiLi yelled.
Felicity eyes diverted to a sight beside LiLi's head and it widened. For once, at least in a lifetime for LiLi, Felicity looks petrified.
"Felicity!" a man's voice was heard.
LiLi turned to face the person behind her and she looked surprised and shocked at the sight of...
Leo.