The Resistance by Jenna Marie (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

blade above his head and just as he was about to strike it down, his smile faded and morphed into a wide “O” and his arms froze in the air above him. Time had stopped, and like a slow motion video he fell to his knees and then flat onto his face, a glint of silver poking from his shirt visible only for an instant and surrounded by splotches of red. As he fell, the machete skirted across Jen’s chest, cutting her across the breastbone. She gasped; it stung like hell.

The body lay next to her, completely and unarguably dead. Jen’s mind reeled and her heart raced. It took a moment for her to pull her eyes off of the knife that stuck out of the man’s back and look up. In the distance sat Daniela, wiping her eyes while being consoled by Mackenzie, whose body was blocked by a denim pant leg. Jen looked up. Jayden stood above her and the body, his jaw set and his eyes stone cold and distant. He didn’t seem angry, and he wasn’t happy to see Jen alive, either. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice her at all. In one quick movement he tore the knife from the man’s back and then bent down to search him.

Jen pulled herself up after carefully pushing the machete off of her and to the side. Pine needles and flakes of dirt stuck to her back and her cut stung. She dusted off her hand and gently touched the area. “Ah!” Her hand jerked away, her fingers covered in blood.

Jayden looked up suddenly as if noticing her for the first time. “You okay?”

“No—I got cut by the machete.”

His eyes fell on her cut, a long, thin line that ran parallel to her collar bones. There was blood dripping down her chest and absorbing into her shirt. “Oh!” He pocketed something and then jumped to his feet to help her up. “Grab the machete, we’ll head back to camp. There’s a first aid kit there. Just keep pressure on it for now.”

She picked up the accursed machete and made her way over to Mackenzie, who looked both tense and relieved at the same time. Poor Daniela remained on the ground and was still shaken, hot tears dripping down her face. When Jen asked if she was okay, she didn’t say anything; instead, she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off.

Jayden led them back to camp in silence. Finally the peak of a tent was visible; they had gone much farther into the forest than Jen realized. The small amount of light that passed through the clouds fell onto their eyes for the first time since waking up that morning, and they were temporarily blinded by it. Hovering on the edge of the forest just beneath the first few trees were Kiara and Ash, armed with a knife and bow respectively. Behind them, the camp was being soaked by the light rain that had begun to fall while they were deep in the forest. Mesha and Brian could be seen huddling within a single tent on the far side of camp, the flaps propped open.

At the sound of the rustle of the foliage, Ash and Kiara started, raising their weapons before them.

Jayden stepped around a tree. “It’s just us,” he said.

“You scared me!” Kiara said, lowering her knife to her side. Jayden drifted past both of them without saying a word, his hand concealing something that bulged from his pants pocket.

Ash hurried up next to him. “Did you find him?”

“Yep,” Jayden snapped. He disappeared into his tent, the flaps swinging shut behind him.

 

They ate breakfast beneath the trees in order to escape the heavy downpour that had started over the camp. Ash chopped down a few small trees with an axe he had found days ago in a toolshed and laid the logs in the grass so they could all sit. Mackenzie and Kiara sat at a distance with Daniela in order to calm her down while they ate; Jen, meanwhile, sat alone. She stared into the dirt at her feet, mindlessly picking at the bandage on her chest that irritated her skin.

Had Jayden been a second later in getting to that clearing, Jen would be dead. That man would have killed her, and probably gone back for Daniela as well.

Suddenly Ash rose to his feet and walked out into the rain. His feet sunk into the mud and splattered the bottom of his pants with every step he took, and the rain dotted his back and shoulders. Jen’s eyes followed him over to Jayden’s tent. He stood outside it and said something—she couldn’t hear him from that distance over the sound of the rain on the trees above her. He continued to speak to Jayden, but it didn’t look like he was getting a response. Finally, soaked and exasperated, he jogged back to the girls.

“He won’t say anything,” he muttered, throwing himself down on the log near Jen. “Would someone tell me what happened in there?”

Jen’s eyes stayed fixed on Jayden’s tent. “The man attacked Daniela and then me. He would have killed me if Jayden hadn’t gotten him first.”

“Jay killed him?”

“Yeah,” she said.

Mesha watched them from afar. “Did you say Jayden killed that man?”

Jen nodded in her direction. “Has he ever killed anyone before?”

Ash ran a hand back through his wet hair. “Once, I think. Yeah, once. And that was only because he was forced to.”

“Someone made him kill?”

“Yep. Last group we were with was pretty militaristic.”

“Is that why you left them?”

“No. They were falling apart, being constantly raided by different individuals. We left to protect ourselves. But I only met Jay there, I don’t know anything about his life prior to that.”

A raindrop fell through the leaves and landed on Jen’s arm. She brushed it away. “You know, he did find something on the man’s body. I didn’t see what it was because he put it in his pocket.”

“I’m sure it was just a knife or something. If it was anything serious he’d tell me.”

Imprint

Text: Jenna Marie
Images: Bookrix
Editing: Jenna Marie
Publication Date: 06-04-2015

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To all of the amazing people I've had the pleasure of getting to know.