Lucas's question about why she had walked into the portal had brought a lot of questions in Alexandra's mind. Lucas was not from this age. He was from somewhere else, another time. She cursed herself for her stupidity. Of course Lucas had not grown up here. His knowledge, his gun, his attitude, he was not from any time she had heard about. Maybe he was from a future she couldn't know. And in 2012, there was no time travelling machine or something similar.
"Why did you walk into the portal?"
"Because," he stopped and turned to face her. "Because I'm a scientist," his face hardened. "I was needed here."
"A scientist? Aren't you too young to be a scientist?" She asked in disbelief.
"Well, in case you haven't noticed yet, I'm a kind of a genius," he chuckled.
"Why were you alone in the jungle when we met?"
"Because I needed some fresh air to think, "he sighed.
"To think about what?"
"That is none of your business," he replied harshly. His green eyes were most of the time soft and kind, dazzling. But sometimes, they could reflect fury, anger, a dark feeling kept deep inside which was waiting to burst out whenever it could.
"Where are we going?" She asked, unsure.
"To another place," he answered simply, annoyed at her. She stopped walking and waited for him to stop and look at her.
"No, I mean, where are we headed? There must be a final place to go, a home where somebody is waiting for you."
"I have no home and there's no one waiting for me anywhere," he said sadly. "But there is a camp where I live with other people. We should be there tomorrow night. If you stop asking me to stop all the time, of course."
His answer bewildered her. She felt sad for him. However, he kept repeating that she annoyed him. She didn't have to show him she was sad for him. They kept walking for an hour until Alexandra realized she had to stop.
"We need to stop," she suddenly said.
"No, we are far away from where I want us to go, carry on."
"Ok, uh, I have to stop," she said, urgency in her voice.
He turned to see her face.
"You know… private things…" She gulped, gesturing with her hands at the same time, trying to explain she had to stop to wee.
"Oh," he just said as he eventually understood her. "Ok. Be quick. Don't go too far."
She didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, she was already gone.
Lucas exhaled loudly. Girls… He had forgotten how they could be annoying. Actually, Alexandra didn't really annoy him. What annoyed him was how easily she had moved his world upside down with all of her questions and expressions. Lucas put their bags next to a tree and sat on a log. Five minutes had passed and Lucas began to grow impatient. Suddenly he felt the earth tremble. He heard a scream and saw Alexandra running in his direction.
"RUN!" She screamed. A herd of a dozen triceratops were racing onto them. Lucas stood up quickly and ran with her. He reached her, grabbed her arm and pushed her with him on a side. He pushed her against a tree trunk, pressing his body against hers, protecting her. They stood against each other, hearts pounding, waiting for the dinosaurs to go, praying that they did not deviate from their path towards their direction.
"Alex?"
Alexandra hadn't noticed she had shut her eyes and hid her head in Lucas's chest. Lucas tilted his head to see her face. He lifted her chin up with his hand. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," she answered, her voice shaking.
"What happened?"
"I saw one of them and suddenly there were many of them." Her whole body was shaking. Lucas tried to calm her down, gently caressing her shoulders.
"Can you walk?" She nodded in agreement. "Let's go then." He put his arm around her waist and kept it like that the whole way. She was really grateful he did it. She felt weak, but she had needed his help, as her legs had refused to walk properly.
An hour after, they arrived at another shelter, just before dark. A tree house, like the previous shelter. But the place was better than the other one. It was next to a waterfall with a sort of pool. The vegetation was green. The colors were vibrant. The waterfall came out of nowhere. It looked like paradise to Alexandra. Lucas went to the pool and collected some water. He brought it in the tree and lit a fire as the air got cooler.
"Where are the bags?" he suddenly asked, looking everywhere.
"I don't know," she honestly answered.
"You had them."
"No I hadn't."
"Damn. They stayed behind us."
"Is it a problem?"
"A problem? Our food was in there, my stuff was in there," he yelled. "My notes were in there!'
"It doesn't matter. We probably can do without it." She regretted her words the second she had said them.
"It does matter! Are you utterly stupid?"
"Hey don't be mad at me!"
"I will have to go back and find it now. Just because you had to stop."
"It's not my fault! I had to stop. Physically I had to stop!"
"Oh please just shut up now. I need to think about how to repair your mistake."
"You are the one who forgot them, not me!"
"I said shut up," he coldly spat.
"Don't yell at me, I'm not the one who did it. I can't change that can I ?"
"Alex for once could you just do what I ask and shut your mouth?"
"You are pissing me off, I'm fed up with your attitude, one minute you're kind, the next you're just an arse hole!"
"Don't you dare talking to me like that!"
"I don't care," she snapped "I'm done with you," she said as she turned around and walked away.
"Fine! Go to hell!" he shouted, full of anger.
"Fine!" he heard her say away.
Alexandra didn't know where she was going but she was just fed up. He had got on her nerves. She was a patient person, but he could lose his temper so easily. She couldn't be calm for both of them all the time. He brought out the worst of her. She had to calm down.
Lucas was angry. Angry at himself for forgetting the bags. Angry at Alexandra, for having made him forget the bags. It was used to be alone. The presence of the Alexandra disturbed him to the point of forgetting the simplest things. He took a deep breath, exhaled loudly. He shook his head, sighing. He knew he had to go and find her. Lucas didn't have to walk far before he saw her. She was standing still in the middle of a clearing. He froze.
"Alex?"
She didn't move but he could see she was breathing heavy, her chest moving up and down quickly.
"Alex?" He tried again.
She slowly turned her head to him. Her eyes warned him. Something was wrong. Her eyes suddenly widened. Her mouth opened. She slowly, carefully, show something with her hand, pointing behind him. He slowly reached his gun, his eyes still locked into hers. Then he turned quickly his face and saw a slasher, inches from him. He tried to shot him but the slasher ran into him, biting his shoulder, throwing him away. His head hit a log, making him faint. The slasher approached Lucas as he was unconscious on the ground.
Alexandra didn't think twice and ran to Lucas, punched the slasher as strongly as possible. The slasher turned slowly to her, smelling her as the fear locked her onto the ground. She hadn't thought what she'd do after that and now here she was, in front of a dinosaur who clearly wanted to make her his dinner. She took all the courage she had got left and ran. She didn't go far as her foot hit a root and made her fall. She spun on her back to see the slasher inches away from her. She suppressed a scream and rolled just before the slasher shut his mouth where she had been seconds earlier. She jumped to her feet and ran to Lucas. She grabbed his gun and pointed it at the slasher. She didn't know how to use it but she had seen Lucas using it. That should do. It had to be enough. She took a deep breath and shot the slasher. The power of the gun made her fall back next to Lucas. She glanced quickly and saw the slasher was gone. She reached to Lucas. He was in the middle of a bloody pond, his blood. She put her arms under his shoulders and dragged him to the shelter. They had to hide, his blood was going to attract other slashers. She tried to wake him up. She couldn't carry him in the tree on her own.
"Lucas? Lucas, please, wake up!" Tears were flooding her eyes now. "Lucas, you have to wake up, we need to climb! Come on!" Her voice was higher than she intended, hysterical. When he didn't answer, she slapped him violently. He opened his eyes. "Come on! Stand up and climb!" She helped him to stand up and to climb as quickly as possible to the shelter. Once up there, he collapsed again. She dragged him to the bed and took all her energy left to lay him on it. His wound was not as bad as she had first thought. But it was deep. She searched for medical supplies and found some bandages. "That should do" she told herself out loud, to give her strength. She took off his shirt, cleaned him with the water they had taken earlier and bandaged his shoulder. She looked at his head, he had a bump, but nothing to worry about. Once she had finished, she let her eyes flick to his body. He was muscled, not too much, just enough to make him look sexy. She smiled at the thought. It was really not the moment for this kind of idea. Then she saw his scars. Two wounds around his chest. She couldn't stop her hand from reaching out. She softly touched it with her fingers. He shivered under her touch.
She stayed next to him the whole night, checking every second if he was still breathing. He had to live. Not only for her to not be alone again, but because she couldn't bear to live knowing he'd died because of her. His body was shaking, he probably had fever. She ran to the river many times during the night to keep him cool. Alexandra had spent the whole night starring with anxiety at Lucas. She was so afraid to see him stop breathing; she couldn't take her eyes away from him. He looked like a child, exhausted by the fever, slurring in his sleep. When dawn arrived, she was exhausted, she couldn't fight anymore and fell asleep, next to him.
