In The Desert Part 1:
Kali:
Pushing up from where I had been left with only the backpack he had given me and my cell phone in my front pants pocket, I headed to what I assumed was a road but couldn't really tell. I now knew that I was in the Mojave Dessert. Zoran couldn't have dumped me in the worst possible place. I also knew that he had shot me in the shoulder and figured the buzzards would pick me apart. But what he didn't know was that I had grown up with a father who had been a survivalist. My father would take me out to some of the harshest places on Earth and teach me how to survive if I ever needed to. It was the only way my father and I had been close.
My mind raced back to the first time I had ever met Zoran. He had been waiting for me when my shift was over one night at work. He had come into the restaurant when I was sixteen-years-old and my life was never the same after that. He had wanted to get to know me, had wanted to date me, but I had denied him, telling him that he was way to old for me, that I didn't like him that way, that we could only be friends. He immediately got pissed and had stormed off. I had shrugged it off and headed home like nothing had happened. I shouldn't have shrugged it off that's for sure. After that night, for the next two years, he made it his priority to make my life a living hell. He followed me home from school, work and even followed me when I started dating a boy I liked at school. On our first date together, the boy [not going to say his name] and I went to the movies and then to dinner. We were having fun. Zoran didn't make his presence known to us on that date but on the following dates, he was constantly around, telling the boy that if he broke my heart he'd kill him. The boy asked me about him one day and I told him that he had been a customer at a job that I had worked when I was sixteen. The boy is the one that had told me to go to the cops and said that he would be there with me when I told them about Zoran. So we went to the cops and Zoran was arrested the next day and charged with being a serial stalker.
My mind drifted back to the dessert and the current predicament that I was in at the moment. I kept walking, not knowing where I was headed, just kept walking. My cell was fully charged, having charged it all last night, so I could keep it on and they could find me faster. Zoran hadn't left me anything that I could use as a reflector of any kind so I had ended up taking the back off my cell phone and attaching it to my jeans, knowing the reflection would get someone's attention. Continuing to walk, I headed to what I thought was North, but didn't know if it was North or not. The pain, the heat and the fact that I had been left in the middle of nowhere were starting to take a toll on me and I hadn't even gone ten feet.
I felt my phone vibrating and stopped. Pulling it out, I saw Colby's number flashing on the screen. I sank to the ground and answered the phone. I could barely hear Colby and I knew he could barely hear me. My mouth was already parched dry from not drinking any water and I was starting to become dehydrated. I listened to Colby tell me to hang on, that they were coming for me. I told Colby to tell Charlie to triangulate my cell signal to see if he could find me faster, then before my phone cut us off, said one word: dessert.
Not knowing if they had heard the word dessert, I pushed myself up and headed for a few rocks to try to get some shade from the sun. It was going to be a long night out here and I wasn't in the mood to try to comfort myself until I was near someone I knew. Rocks would protect me better then a tree would. Rocks would keep me warm and out of the wind and possibly keep the smell of me away from the wild animals that roamed the dessert at night. A tree would keep me exposed to the cold wind and air and would most likely draw the wild animals that roamed the dessert at night straight toward me and I wouldn't be able to stay alive long enough for Don and the team to find me.
Please, Charlie, listen to Colby and find me as fast as you can. I don't know how much longer I can hold on; God let them find me and let Zoran be found for what he has done. Let Zoran be not only found but killed as well.