ASK Part 6 (2)

“Shayne! Shayne!”

I woke up. Natalie and Ginny crouched in the doorway of the shelter.

“Shayne, we just found Caroline dead!” Natalie said. “We need to hide! Daniella killed her and if we don’t hide, she could come find us!”

I sat up fast. Caroline was dead? Then she had needed help when I heard her scream. And what did I do? Nothing.

“Come on, Shayne! Rupert’s outside. He thinks he knows a place we can hide,” Ginny said.

“Okay,” I said, my head still swimming with the fact that Caroline was dead. That just left Daniella and us kids. Who would die next? I was terrified. I wanted to scream or cry or break something. I wanted to be off this stupid island and safe at home. But I had to hold it together for my sisters.

We went outside the shelter.

“Come on, guys,” Rupert said. “She won’t find us where we’re going.”

We followed Rupert through the forest, past where the ferns grew, to an overgrown tangle of thorns and bushes.

“If we go in here far enough that she can’t see us, she might not bother coming in to find us,” Rupert said. He pulled a knife out of his pocket, got on his hands and knees and said, “I’ll clear a bit of a path through here.” He crawled through the brush, cutting away branches. When he made a kind of long tunnel through the thorns, he said, “Come on in, guys.”

We crawled in after him and sat

.

“Look what we found near Caroline’s body, Shayne,” Rupert said, holding out the knife, whcih I recognized as a knife from the pile. “And the word ‘ask’ was there, just like with Liam.”

“Guys, I feel bad. I heard Caroline scream, but I just stayed in the shelter. I tried to make myself believe she just stubbed her toe or something. But I kind of had a feeling. I just didn’t want to believe it. If I’d gotten up and done something, Caroline might not be dead.”

“Did you confess that to God? That will probably help you feel a little better,” Natalie said.

I didn’t answer. I really didn’t see the good that would do.

Later that day, Rupert used the knife to cut away more thorns so we all had room to lie down. By that time, it was dark, and I surprisingly fell asleep right away. I slept for a little while, but then I woke up again. I groaned. Why couldn’t I just lie down and sleep normally?

-Shayne