It took them a while to completely navigate the woods, quite the longest time they had spent in the woods since they had begun to move around it.Actually, it was more than a while but they did get the hang of it later on and were soon out of the woods and on their way to the church, utterly thirty and tired.When they arrived at the church about an hour later, Saul and Jared were waiting outside for them,this was new and unexpected.They were seated on the stairs and talking to each other about something that seemed to be quite animated and engrossing as they had not noticed Clay and June walking up to them even though they were not even trying to be stealthy.Clay shook her head as she thought of what might have happened if it was some other people walking up to them instead.They turned around when they finally heard their footsteps from behind them and watched them walk a while before they moved.Saul jumped up the stairs in a way that made Clay suddenly curious of his age,he walk
Clay decided on her rifle though .For some reason even she was unaware of, Clay was keeping the bow and the new arrows she had just procured,she just did not want to use them.She forced her vest back on and stepped out of the room, ready to move and face whatever had attacked.Saul had left the pews and was standing by the church's doors now with a pistol in his hand,he quickly scanned around when he saw Clay approach and noted that June and Jared were no where to be found.Clay got off the altar and moved between the pews to look out of the glass stained windows to see if they could be seen from the windows.Since they were stained, it would be relatively hard for anyone to see through but Clay would have no problem seeing them.Clay looked out all the windows but saw nothing.She was on the last window when she caught a brief flutter,she spent a second longer at the window and noticed movement from fatigues like theirs.The strangers were all men and seemed to be working very well
SAUL'S STORYSaul's name had once been Daniel Hughman and he had been part of a pretty normal family.They had lived in a county town by the west and his father had been the sheriff of the county's police department and leader of the men of Valour from the local church.His mum had in turn herded the women's meetings and held regular sewing and knitting classes at their home while they had made Saul leader of everything they could think of that a child could handle.The whole county had looked at their family as the ideal family , something they were very far from .Saul however had never been a good liar , he had been a quiet boy because he was unable to relate his parents from outside with the parents he saw and knew at their home.His father was always hitting his mum while avoiding her face and his mum had a drinking problem that she used to forget that his father was actually the devil and demon she always prayed against.It was a whole cycle, they had a little argument that coul
Clay woke up for what was like the fourth time since she had tried to fall asleep.She was so exhausted but her brain was strangely excited and would not rest so she found herself waking for strange reasons , with her brain replaying almost every scenario that she had witnessed within the past few days over and over again.At first, the reason she had been unable to sleep had been quite simple , it had been because she had been unable to sleep as she was plagued with how Saul had looked as he read Carlos' note .She had tried to tell herself to keep calm that she would talk to Saul later on and they could resolve it when everyone was sufficiently rested , but her body would not obey so she had ended up getting up and trudging up the stairs to look for Saul who she had promptly found so deep in thought that he did not notice Clay outside his room for almost six minutes , when he had eventually turned and noticed Clay , Saul had looked quite depressed.So Clay had spoken briefly to Saul
"I can not sleep with all the yapping you two are doing".This was surprising as the room she slept in was quite far from here and there was no way she would have been able to hear them doing anything but none of them were ready to point that out since she was holding a gun and glaring at them with her fingers dangerously close to the trigger.So they both kept very quiet and very still.She sighed when she noticed how stiff they were,even people that she was in no rage to and put the gun by her waist , she left her hands to rest akimbo and pointed at each of them with her fore finger. "So what had your panties in a twist ?Did one of you finally lose their virginity?",She asked, genuinely curious about what they had been discussing about so excitedly.Clay and Jared both turned to glare at her now that her gun was not very close to their heads or so Clay had thought.When she turned around, she found that Jared was glaring at her and not June.June moved closer to Clay, she was still
"How to survive the night ", Clay reiterated to her team as they all looked on.They all collectively groaned at Clay's statement and Clay nodded in understanding , she also wanted to groan louder than they had all done altogether.She had also not imagined herself spending yet another night at the Arena and especially within the gauntlets ring, but right now, they did not have much of a choice if they did not want their names to be on the next day's pyramid fall.Clay had actually expected some kind of blow back from Vasquez and his team,she had just not known when and in what form it would come.People like that always wanted to establish their authority and when their authority was threatened, they did anything to return it to how is was.After all, June had first interrupted one of their fights and then she had gone in to also interrupt the already Interrupted fight.And as if that was enough, The very next day , June had gotten into yet another fight and then, there had been the
They had all been staring at the map for a while now with their excitement slowly dwindling from a desert fire into a slow burning candle fire as they found out that it would be much harder than they had anticipated to find Juan now that he had gone rogue and was not associated with any known groups ."Maybe we should take a break and just eat for now? Maybe a clue will fall into our laps if we hold on long enough",Jared suggested, realizing that they might not find anything tangible when everyone was so dispirited.Everyone immediately smiled, relieved at Jared's suggestion of a change of scenery, the candle was already burning brighter and faster.Jared and Saul left to bring out the rest of the food that they had gotten today while Clay remembered the dress she had gotten June and decided to give it to her now.She fished for the dress and found it a couple of minutes later before leaving too to join the others outside .They were already laying out bread and a jar of jelly while J
"Long time no see, Westbrooke".Clay cringed over the name and frowned deeply at Juan who was smiling broadly like he had just won some kind of lottery .Clay had expected him to still be quite enraged or in a sour mood after everything that had happened to him in just one night but he seemed quite okay actually, he seemed more than okay , which was kind of shocking to Clay who had been discretely hoping that his grieving would make him easier to handle.Clay put her gun down since none of Juan's men, including Juan had their weapons out and she did not want to be the odd one out since Juan was obviously not here for any sort of violence.But it was just her that thought so,the others refused to out their own weapons down.Saul and from the corner of her eyes,June and Jared too, they all still had their weapons up in case something went wrong which was highly likely with how excited Juan looked,he definitely did not look like someone that was here for a meet and greet."I honestly wis