"Cindy!" Jimmy shouted as he finally got a little closer to Cindy.
"Quiet," Libby warned him. "The cops are still out here."
Cindy continued running as fast as she could, but she was beginning to slow down from fatigue. "Damn it!" she shouted as she tripped over a rock and landed flat on her face.
Libby and Jimmy slid to a stop beside her. Jimmy grabbed her face with her hands. He looked concerned as he viewed the nice gash on her forehead. "You'll be fine. But you've got to be more careful," he quietly said to her.
Sheen and Carl came crawling up to the other three a few seconds later. "You...guys...should be on the track team," Sheen said between breaths. Carl just nodded before collapsing onto his back.
"Seriously, Cindy. You need to be careful. If you get injured, we're as good as dead," Libby said while pulling a rag out of her pocket and holding it to Cindy's head.
"And if I don't run as fast as I can we're worse than dead," Cindy told them.
Jimmy bit his lip before nodding a little. "Point taken." He looked behind him and motioned for the others to be quiet. "I don't hear anybody. We've got to be a good mile away by now. Anyone have any idea how far these woods extend?"
Everyone shook their heads. "Well, we've got to get out of this forest soon. They know we're still in here somewhere."
"Jimmy's right. We've got to get as far away from those guys as possible," Libby said.
Sheen picked his head up. "Can't we rest for a minute?"
Jimmy slung his backpack over his shoulder and shook his head. "We stay here much longer, we'll be resting forever six feet under."
"Six feet under what?" Sheen asked.
Libby gathered her supplies and whispered into his ear. "We'll be dead."
"Oh," Sheen sadly said.
Sheen and Carl gathered the few supplies they had with them. They looked at each other before following their three friends in front of them. "You think we're slowing them down?" Carl asked.
Sheen nodded. "One problem at a time, good buddy."
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Five hours later the sun was nearly set. The five exhausted kids threw their backpacks down and sat down on the dirt.
"How far have we gone?" Cindy said while holding her hand to her head. The bleeding had long stopped, but it still throbbed with pain.
Jimmy took a sip of some water they had found two hours earlier by a stream. Luckily Sheen had had some empty bottles to hold it. "Our walking rate was maybe two hours an hour. Cut that in half because of the difficult terrain. Minus maybe half a mile for the breaks we took. I'd guess four and a half miles."
"So we keep walking in a straight line, right? Eventually we'll have to emerge from the woods," Cindy said.
"Right," Jimmy agreed. He looked up at the sky. "It's almost too dark to see. There's no way we can make any more progress tonight. We can't walk through the woods with flashlights or fire. It will attract attention. We might as well set up camp," Jimmy said while laying down on the ground, using his backpack as a pillow.
"But the cops are probably still looking for us! We're sitting ducks for eight hours!" Cindy told him.
Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, we are. I had hoped we'd be out of the woods by now. But there's nothing we can do. Walking through these woods in the dark, it's almost a sure thing one of us will get hurt or worse. Better to make camp."
"Fine," Cindy said. "But we should at least keep a lookout."
Jimmy nodded. "Alright. Take the first shift. Then Libby. I'll take third, then Sheen and Carl will take the last one.. Two hour shifts."
Sheen and Carl popped their heads up. "Hey! How come we have to do it together? Do you guys not trust us to handle it alone?" Sheen angrily asked.
"Yeah," Libby, Cindy, and Jimmy said.
"And I don't think you guys should handle the gun," Jimmy told them.
"Why not? I have great reflexes!" Sheen shouted.
Jimmy picked up a pinecone and lightly tossed it at Sheen's head. It hit him in the face. Two seconds later he lashed out in front of him. "No you don't. You do not handle the gun. Got it?"
"Got it," Sheen sadly said.
"If I'm keeping first watch, can I have the gun?" Cindy asked. Jimmy carefully handed it to her. "Thanks," she said while putting it in the back of her pants.
Everyone started to lay down and go to sleep as Cindy sat on a log twenty feet away, beside a small campfire. It barely illuminated her face. Any larger and it might attract attention. Jimmy got up and took a seat beside her.
"Hey," he whispered.
"Hey," she said while grabbing a long stick. She moved around the few logs in the fire. "You should get some sleep."
Jimmy smiled a little. "Couldn't if I wanted to." He paused a moment while staring at the fire. "Why were you running so fast back there?"
Cindy gave him an odd look. "Because a whole swarm of cops was after us."
Jimmy nodded. "It's more than that. I saw the fear in your eyes. You're never afraid."
Cindy smiled back and grabbed his hand. "Well, I guess there's a first time for everything."
Jimmy became serious. "What will they do to us? If they find us?"
Cindy's eyes hardened as she squeezed Jimmy's hand. "You don't know she's capable of," she said while sliding her hand down her back towards the butt of her gun. She squeezed it.
Twenty feet away, Libby, Carl, and Sheen were lying down on the ground, propping their heads up with their hands. "Think they know we're watching?" Carl asked.
"Nah," Sheen said.
"Well, looks like they finally got together," Libby told them. "That's great," she said with a hint of sadness.
"That's right, I remembered. You owe me twenty bucks," Sheen said with a grin. "Pay up."