The Swim series - Book One

Chapter 8

Accept that it's going to be terrible, I told myself before leaving the Activities centre. Accept that you're not going to like this game and that Landon and Jackson had no reason to be nice to me.

Accepting my reality didn't change my reality but it did lower my cause of alarm. Just put your head down and do what you're told. Compliance and good behaviour; that's how you survive a kidnapping.

"Alright, let's go" Jackson lead the group of us. Claire and I naturally drifted towards the middle. Landon was the last to move away from the shed, because his girlfriend was in the shed, probably being threatened by Quentin.

We took off into the trees. Jackson wanted to run so run is what we did (or stumble around, in my case, because that's all I was really capable of doing) Brett's theory about me being smaller and therefore easier to move was proved wrong during the first few seconds. Because yes I was a lot lighter than Jackson and Landon, but I was also a lot shorter than they were, meaning my not-so-long legs couldn't match their simple strides.

"Hurry up" Jackson barked at Claire, who was struggling just as much. "What are you doing? Pay attention to your feet!" he demanded, when she fell down into the dirt.

When I fell over he looked down at me, ready to bark out an insult. But then something changed on his face and he considered me for a moment, running through all of his options alright.

"Are you okay?" he offered my a hand off the ground. I dusted myself off and nodded quickly, not wanting to remain singled out for long.

Jackson looked me up and down. "You're lucky" he told Landon. "The girls in our Grade are as ugly as hell"

We started moving through the trees again but I noticed that this time Jackson remained right by my shoulder. He caught me before I had a chance to fall down, and helped me climb any of the more crumbling dirt hills.

"What's your name again? Your heaps pretty. What did school did you come from? You must be new"

Jackson of course knew all of the Scotts transfer kids. He would have spent a lot of time getting to know them during his years at Scotts primary.

"I'll let you go" he promised me, answering a request that I'd never actually made, "Nah, i will. Before the end of the game, I'll let you go. I'm not a bad guy. In the real world, I'd never make you my hostage"

His attention was so quick and forced that I didn't know what to do with it. Run... my instincts were saying. Because this boy is all types of bad news.

"Emily, come walk by me" Claire seemed to pick up on it too.

Finally we reached a break in the trees that was somewhat covered by shade. In the distance I could see the back of an old boat shed that was covered from top to bottom in bird poo.

"I'll wait here with them" Jackson said, turning back towards Landon.

"No. I'll watch them" Landon dropped his bag on the ground, and then slid down against a large trunk of tree.

Landon didn't care about this game. That became very clear when Jackson left the clearing and Landon made zero effort to watch us.

"Should we try to negotiate with him?" Claire whispered, cornering me off from view. I was on the ground and had my head in my hands. My brain was completely cooked from the heat.

I'd long passed the point of feeling tired. No, now I'd reached the point of feeling physically ill. I had a stitch in my stomach that wouldn't go away and a blade lodged between my eyeballs that was causing the worst headache I'd ever known.

"Landon" Claire said, deciding to talk to Landon on her own. "You have your phone on you. You can call Brett. Get him to release Shell in exchange for one of us"