Children of Dawn

Ashley’s POV
One month had passed since Jinxx’s second suicide attempt. At that point it was the beginning of March, the days were finally starting to get warmer and every day my leg was getting more and more usable. Mostly thanks to the brace and crutches that Jake had built me. He and CC had been busy. While I was down for the counts they had pretty much built a log cabin around me. Jinxx helped a bit. He hadn’t tried to hurt himself again which was a plus, but he barely spoke to the rest of us. He sat quietly alone and simply existed. The bruises on his neck had faded from purple, to yellow, and then they finally disappeared altogether, but none of us ever forgot. Jake and CC made a point to never let Jinxx out of their sight. As I got better and could finally move around a bit on my own they sometimes left me alone to keep an eye on him, even more when my arm finally got better and I could do things more easily.
Things were going very well. Jake, CC and I got along splendidly, they were like an extension of my family within a week of me meeting them. We still had boatloads of money, no one knew we were living down by the river, and the warming weather was lifting all of our spirits after a few weeks of freezing our asses off. Things were looking pretty good for us until that one day in the middle of March. I was standing just outside the entrance to our hut that was quickly becoming a cabin, watching CC and Jake attempt to play baseball with a black walnut and a stick. It wasn’t going well and the three of us were laughing harder than we had in a long time. Jinxx was sitting on a rock by the river with his chin on his knees, he was watching the rest of us. The corners of his mouth twitched when CC accidentally hit Jake with a walnut and the nut’s insides went everywhere. It looked like Jinxx almost cracked a smile, which was more than we’d gotten from him in a few days, so it was a good sign.
Suddenly, as I was standing there shaking my head and grinning I felt a heat at my back. At first I thought that the sun had just come out from behind the clouds, but then the heat grew from warm to hot and as I quickly turned around I saw flashes of orange flame.
“Oh shit!” I yelled as I quickly crutched backwards away from the blaze that was creeping up the walls of our hut. The laughter stopped and was replaced by cursing and running footsteps. Jake was the first one into the fire followed quickly by CC. I was still only a few feet away from the burning wall and I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, back up, you’ll get hurt!” I voice that was barely familiar said in my ear. I was surprised to see Jinxx had appeared behind me. I hobbled backwards a few feet, where the air was cooler and didn’t make my eyes sting quite so much. Then Jinxx sprinted up to the door of the hut he reached in and pulled out blankets and pillows, anything that was right by the door that could be saved. I had never felt so helpless as I watched what had been our home burn. Only a second or two later Jake and CC erupted from the hut with their arms full of what little items we had. The backpacks full of money, cans of food, clothes, anything they could get their hands on. As they ran out they grabbed Jinxx with them and pulled him away, a few blankets still in hand. Just as they got out of the way there was a crack and the roof of our home caved inwards. We all stood in awe as the sparks danced up into the sky. Then it went from bad to worse. The sparks drifted up and settled in the tops of the bare dry trees. It started slowly at first but then it just got bigger. The flames leapt from the ruins of our home to the trees, and from one branch to another. Before we knew what was happening the fire was growing exponentially and we’d managed to start a forest fire.
“Shit, we gotta get out of here!” Jake yelled over the roaring of the flames as they began to pick up more vigor. Jinxx was shoving everything he could into the bags that we had. I stumbled back and started making my way as fast as I could downriver, to the east. I knew that the rest of the guys would be able to catch up with me, so I thought that I had better get a head start. It wasn’t long before I heard their running footsteps behind me. I kept going as fast as I could, but I was quickly running out of breath. Using crutches at a high speed was a lot harder than running. My leg was aching. Soon Jinxx and CC were right next to me. They had packs filled to the brim on their backs and they were running. They passed me up before long and I thought they were just going to leave me behind when I was suddenly grabbed and pulled off my feet.
It took me a second to realize that it was Jake. We were all skinny but out of all of us, Jake was probably the most muscular other than myself. He threw me over his shoulder and barrelled into the woods as fast as he could go. I looked up and saw flames licking the sky behind us and smoke billowing into the air. Then I just focused on keeping my crutches out of his way so he didn’t trip. He ran for an impressively long amount of time along the river that was rushing with snow melt. If I had to guess I would say that we travelled more than a mile and a half. We passed by the town where I had bought the original camping supplies for Jinxx and I. We just kept on running. After a while I could feel Jake starting to run out of steam, he was heaving and his loping steps were getting slower and slower. I stared at the ground below us and watched it race by. All the blood was going to my head and my leg was throbbing so I wasn’t aware of much else. I heard CC’s voice shouting and suddenly I was flipped right side up.
Pain seared through my leg as suddenly I was in CC’s arms, bridal style. He sat me down quickly on a hard plastic seat. As the black blotches cleared from my eyes I was able to discern that we were in a much wider portion of the river and I was sitting in a boat. The boat rocked as Jake hopped in gasping for breath and then suddenly we were off. We raced down the river (out of a dock in someone’s back yard) at a much faster pace than we could run. As we raced away I could still see the embers from the fire reaching up into the sky. I heard sirens rushing in that direction. Everything felt numb as we left that place behind. I wasn’t scared, or mad, or sad, I was just empty, and so tired. I got the sense that everyone else felt the same way. We flew quietly away from the residential area that we stole the boat from and the river was quickly swallowed by trees. We all sat in silen

Notes

I know it's a shorter chapter but it gets this story moving along. I don't want it to drag out because it is going to be pretty long, so I will skip chunks of time. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed because I know that I did. Let me know what you think in the comments and have a good week.