Young Writers Society

James nodded, carefully taking in her words and her tone - observing her body language.

It's genuine. She's telling the truth.

He got up and walked over to his blanket, slowly sitting down. He was already starting to ache from landing flat on his face, but it didn't matter. He pulled the blanket over himself, facing Runi's direction so she was still in his sight, though he didn't look at her directly.

"Thank you," he muttered again, finding his words coming out as bitter as they felt.

"You're welcome," she quietly said. The bitterness didn't escape her notice, but she wasn't going to bother him about it. She knew the reason for his dislike of her, so why try pretending that she didn't? She rolled onto her back again and stared up at the stars.

Another chapter of her life had abruptly come to an end. It had been relatively long compared to some of the other ones, but it hadn't been half as long as she had wanted it to. She could continue being a bounty hunter after everything that had occurred, but doing so wouldn't feel right. There could be countless other people like Tiberius out there, and she didn't have a right to capture anyone when she couldn't even trust her research.

"Night, Tiberius," she quietly said.

Only an hour could've passed before James jolted awake, breathing hard. He took a moment to control his quivering breath, grasping the blanket in a vice-like grip. Runi let you go. You can go. You can leave whenever you want.

He slowly got up to his feet with the blanket in hand before letting it drop to the ground. He didn't plan on stealing anything from her, so as soon as he was on his feet, he immediately started to walk out into the dark forest. Suspicion caused him to briefly shoot a glance back at Runi, and he was surprised when he didn't see her asleep as expected. Instead, she was standing up as well. But she looked... ready to leave?

Oh well. It didn't matter to him.

She woke up early, that night. It wasn't because she had heard Tiberius making any noise in her sleep - every once in awhile, she had a nightmare, and that was one of this times. There was just something about nightmare that made her suddenly jolt out of her sleep, her mind alert and all parts of her terrified. Laying there, staring at the stars, she had come to the decisions she had already been contemplating prior to falling asleep.

She was going to leave before Tiberius did.

She wanted to put this all behind her. She could find something else to do with her life, maybe, even though she currently had no idea what that something was going to be.

But just as she was almost ready to leave, her instincts kicked in, and she turned to see Tiberius doing the exact same thing as her.

"Oh," she quietly said, "this is awkward."

James looked at her with dead eyes.

"For you, maybe," he said dryly, before he started back off into the forest.

Well, that was unexpected. Runi watched him retreat into the depths of the forest, leaving her and her little campsite all to herself. Taking a deep breath, she spun around and returned to where she had been laying minutes earlier. With Tiberius gone, there really was no reason to leave before morning, was there?

It had been a long night of wandering into the darkness until he'd made enough distance between him and Runi to feel comfortable. After a few hours of starting and stopping his aimless journeying in the dark, exhaustion finally overtook him, and he had to find a place to sleep.

He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following him, but he knew it wasn't Runi. At the same time, he knew he couldn't go much longer without sleeping, so he quietly found a large, thick tree and climbed up into it. He found a nook in a sturdy branch hidden by the leaves and huddled in the dark, waiting until sleep overtook him.

He awoke with the alarming sensation of falling, after a forceful jolt shaking him and the tree. As he fell through the branches he panicked, reaching out for branches and leaves, desperately trying to catch his fall. But all he received were violent bruises and scraped from the bark and leaves as everything escaped his grasp. And in a few seconds, he landed on his back; the wind knocked out of him completely.

For a few solid seconds, he couldn't breathe. His entire body felt like a deadweight against the ground as he tried to revive his lungs to take a breath, but nothing came. He could feel a shadow fall over him and he looked up into the face of a bounty hunter he feared more than all the others.

Butch.

A six-foot, massive hulk of a man with a large square jaw and sideburns that curved down to the level of his mouth. His long, wild brown hair was pulled back into a high bun and his slight underbite only served to emphasize his self-satisfied grin.

James's heart leaped out of his chest and he gasped for breath, struggling to leap to his feet. But Butch's large boot stomped down onto his chest, pushing him back down. Before he could get his bearings about him, two of Butch's assistants came on either side of him and clicked cuffs around his wrists and ankles. His efforts to fight them and wriggle out of the way were quickly stifled as Butch yanked him to his feet from the collar of his shirt with one swift motion.

Butch smiled and gave James a pat on his back that did nothing to help James catch his breath.

"Good to see you again, Tiberius," Butch's low voice rumbled before he grabbed James like a sack of potatoes and threw him over the back of his horse.



James found himself bitterly missing Runi's kindness when he found himself red in the face from being upside-down for a large portion of the journey. And his back was doing nothing for him either. It ached with every bump and step of the horse as it remained arched over the horse's back.

It was almost a relief when they took him off, but it was brief. He was quickly tied to a tree as his three captors settled down the next night to sleep.

With his arms behind his back and his ankles stuck together, there was no possible comfort he could find that would encourage sleep or relief for his joints for that matter. He thought upon the necessary steps to escape again with dread as he watched Butch and the assistants feast on some presumably pre-caught game.

It figured that Butch was following him and Runi, just waiting until he escaped so he could catch him again.

She hadn't meant to find Tiberius again. She hadn't even thought such a thing was possible, considering that she had tried to go in a different direction that morning when she had awoke. But here she was, peering over a bush on the very edge of a clearing where Tiberius was being held captive.

She took in the three people that had apparently done the capturing, and tried her best not to gulp when she saw how big one of them was. She liked to trust in her own skills, but he was gigantic and she didn't really have much to offer. She had herself. She had her ability to turn into a cat. She had a good amount of knives. But none of those would probably work all that way against such an enormous opponent.

It was only while she was thinking this through that she realized she had already decided to rescue Tiberius. There hadn't been a conscious train of thought behind the decision; it had just felt like the right thing to do. She could deal with that. It really was the right thing to do in a situation like this, even though it definitely wasn't going to be easy.

Taking a quiet deep breath, she snuck around to the back of clearing. His captors had fallen asleep a short time ago. One of them still sat on guard, but it was easy to tell he was on the verge of following in their footsteps from the way his head kept ducking down ever few moments. Worried that she would alert the guard to her presence, she silently began to untie Tiberius's bonds - thankfully, they had decided to tie it in the back and not the front. It didn't take long for her to undo the knot.

The rope fell to the ground.

After a moment of hesitation, she risked being caught by having her hand shoot out from the bush and tap Tiberius on the shoulder.

He could feel the soft tugs at the rope around his waist and chest. He knew someone was there - and for a moment, he wondered if he should risk making noise to alarm his captors of their presence.

If they were untying him it was either to free him or to recapture him. But in any case, they were untying him, and he had no way or reason to refuse the favor, so he was glad when the ropes fell loosely into his lap. About to lean forward and attempt to stand, he stopped when he felt the tap on his shoulder and slowly turned around.

Runi. She'd come back? Or found him again, by chance. His eyes widened and his brows drew together with intensity and he sent a glance back at the others sleeping. He hoped an insistent stare would encourage her not to move as he silently and slowly stood on his feet.

Next came the hard part. Getting his hand out of his cuffs. He wasn't going to bet on Runi's ability to find the keys quietly, so he bent his neck and bit his shirt between his teeth as he began to pull at his left hand.

She wasn't really sure what Tiberius was planning on doing to get out of his cuffs, but something told her it probably wouldn't end well. She frantically shook her head. She wanted to tell him there was no need - she was adept at picking locks - but making noise wasn't in her best interest at the moment. She resigned herself to hurriedly miming the action as she desperately hoped he'd understand what she was trying to convey.

James let go of his shirt. He understood the motion, and nodded curtly, motioning with his head for her to hurry - there were his hands and his feet, and they didn’t have much time before the man on watch woke from their lulled sleep.

Well, shoot. Even though she had implied she could take care of the locks, she hadn't meant now. She had been hoping they could sneak a short distance away, and she could take care of them then. Now she had to go digging through her pockets for her kit, and, on top of that, had to do the deed quickly and silently.

She eyed his cuffs. The wrists could come later; the ankles were the priority. Keeping her attention on the drowsy guard, she started to pick the locks around Tiberius's ankles. Her hands were sweaty from the stress, and she nearly dropped her supplies once or twice, but she was able to rid him of what was keeping him from easily moving.

She hopped back up to her feet and gestured for them to go off into the woods, hoping that he understood that she would take of the cuffs on his hands once they were farther away.

As soon as his ankles were free he didn't need any further indication to flee, but nodded to Runi in agreement before quickly following after her on light feet. Though the forest floor was dark and far from soft his footsteps were faint and he hurried eagerly away from his captors.

Once they had finally gotten far enough from the makeshift campsite, Runi came to a stop and began to pick the handcuffs that Tiberius was currently stuck wearing. Now without the stress of their escape weighing on her mind, it was a relatively simple task. The handcuffs felt to the ground with a soft thud, and she looked up at Tiberius with a small smile on her face.

"I tried going in the opposite direction from you," she said, "but I guess it's a good thing we ended up going in the same one."

James didn't smile back, but he did give her a grateful bow of his head.

"Good for me, yes. But it's best for you that you're not associated with me outside of hunting me. So it seems now we must part ways again," he said, rubbing the skin around his wrists.

"Thank you," he said again, though this time, he meant it.