Breaking Their Hold

"What the hell was that? I thought I saw somethin' moving up ahead there."

Jimmy and Matt stood as still as they possibly could, each of them hiding between two large trees that were positioned in the middle of the forest that they were trying to find a path through. They had no idea where they were at the moment; all they knew was that they were close to the border between Colorado and Wyoming, and that they needed to pass over into the next state as soon as possible. That plan had been temporarily sidelined, however, when they discovered that they'd been being tracked since about an hour before. They were standing behind two trees now; two trees that they'd finally found when they'd gotten far ahead enough of the two Trackers that were on their trail.

"You didn't see nothing. Whatever we were following is long gone by now. For all we know, it was some kind of animal," another voice said. Jimmy swallowed hard and felt his foot slip, snapping a small twig in half. His heart skipped a few beats when the two Trackers stopped talking before their footsteps started moving even closer to the trees they were hiding behind.

"You hear that, Edmond?"

"Yeah, I heard it. It came from this--" The man started before he cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. "It was a goddamn rabbit, Jamison."

If that rabbit hadn't just saved their lives, Matt and Jimmy would have thought that it was funny. But as it turned out, they weren't laughing. They both doubted that either of them woudl be laughing for a long time. They knew that right now, their lives were in very dire circumstances. It would only take one more slip up; one more small, almost inaudible sound, for their lives to be ended in a split second. It was terrifying, but neither of them had time to be scared. All they could do right now was make sure that they didn't die.

Jimmy was especially determined to keep himself alive. He'd do anything to make sure he got to Canada so that he could meet Mel when she got there with Pierre. Her heart would be shattered if he wasn't there waiting for her, and she'd already been through far too much pain in her lifetime. He'd be damned if he was the one to cause her a heartbreak she wouldn't be able to get over.

Matt also wanted to come out of this thing alive, though for different reasons than Jimmy. Love wasn't the thing that was keeping Matt going; it was revenge. He had sworn to himself that at the end of this shebang, he was going to be the one to take Schlagger's life. He didn't care if it got him life in some maximum security prison or if INTERPOL arrested him. The man had fucked with too many of his friends' lives; he'd destroyed Matt's life. His sister Amy was dead because of Schlagger, and Matt knew there was no chance that his parents were alive, either. He was the last alive in the line he'd come from and he was going to make damn sure he avenged his family's name.

"Alright, let's get back to camp. It's starting to get dark out here. If there's anyone out there in the woods, they ain't gonna last until morning. We'll find some mutilated corpses if they're there," one of the trackers said, his voice clearly audible to both Matt and Jimmy. They didn't let his words strike fear in their hearts.

They both knew that he was only trying to sniff them out to see if they were there. Neither Jimmy nor Matt was a professional spy like Pierre, but they both had enough common sense to know that if they'd made it this far away from California, there was no way in hell anything out here in this forest could kill them before they killed it first.

The next few moments seemed to take forever for the pair. The Trackers seemed to want to just stand there, almost as though they knew Matt and Jimmy were both still within shooting range. But finally, they heard footsteps start crunching over the fallen leaves moving further and further away from them. It was only when the footsteps were completely inaudible that Matt and Jimmy allowed themselves to breathe before they stepped out from behind the trees.

"That was way too close for fucking comfort," Matt groaned before he wiped his hand over his face. "How the hell did they get on our trail anyway?

"No clue," Jimmy shook his head, shrugging.

The truth was, it didn't really matter to him how the Trackers had found them or why they'd started following them like they were prey. They'd gotten away unscathed, and now it was time to hit the road again so that they could get closer to Canada. It was becoming dark outside and even if Jimmy wasn't afraid of whatever wild animals were out here in the wild, he knew that they needed to find someplace to bed down and rest.

"We can keep going until we find somewhere a little further away from here," Matt said, as though he were reading Jimmy's thoughts. There was a frown on his face, and Jimmy noticed that Matt's face seemed to have aged greatly over the last few months.

He knew that this experience was aging all of them. They were no longer the naive teenagers they once had been. Life was no longer just a daily routine for them. Mel was the chosen savior for the American people, and Jimmy and Matt's lives were in jeopardy. Zack was most likely already either dead or quickly becoming that way, and God only knew what else had happened to all of the other friends they'd left behind at Haverly Hospital.

"How long do you think it should take us to get to Canada?" Jimmy asked, unable to stop himself from voicing the question. If he were being honest with himself, he was almost afraid of the answer. He knew that they could only walk so fast and he knew that the entire time, they would be facing situations similar to the one they'd faced tonight. He had no doubt that there would be other run-ins with more Trackers and Government officials, just the same way he knew that Pierre and Mel would probably be facing the same challenges.

He could only pray that Mel never found herself this close to any of the Trackers. He knew that they could sense fear; it wasn't something tangible to them, but they could feel it in the air nonetheless, and when they caught hold of that fear, they didn't let go of it until they found the source of it. If Mel was caught before she got to Canada, there was nothing left worth fighting for. They'd torture and kill her, and then they'd kill everyone she'd been cloes to.

"You know, I'm not sure," Matt muttered. "We can't take too long, though. We have to make sure we move as fast as we can. Pierre and Mel will probably get there sooner because he has people and connections he can use to get motor help from. We'll be stuck walking the entire way."

Jimmy nodded, his heart breaking a little although he knew that he couldn't let himself get too upset over the fact that Mel would probably be reaching the Canadian border before they did. That only meant that she'd be safe and right now that was truly the only thing that Jimmy really wanted. He didn't care if he died; so long as he got to see Mel one last time before he went, he'd be okay. And as long as her life was saved, he could live with the fact that he might not be able to survive this whole thing and come out with a steady heartbeat.

"Come on, man. We're not gonna get there if we wait until dark and we're too close to where those Trackers were at. For all we know, they'll come back and check the area for those corpses," he heard Matt mutter under his breath. Jimmy sighed and then pushed his hand back through his hair as he started walking again, not wanting to let Matt down.

This journey was starting to wear on him in more ways than Jimmy had ever thought that it would. He was tired and exhausted, but more than that, he was worried. What had become of Mel now that he wasn't with her? Was she even still alive? Had Pierre remained loyal to their cause, or had he turned her in? He could only hope that hadn't happened. He needed to believe that she was okay, but with what had just happened tonight, he didn't honestly know if he could believe that anymore.