Haven

Dedicated to my friends, my fellow fanfiction writers, and to those who call me a great writer, even if they were just telling me that to be nice. This crazy one's for you guys!

Chapter One

A re-adjustment on the 'scope. Checking the angles and finding it off about ten degrees. Finally, seeing if there was anything about...

BLAM!

Smoke rose up about a hundred yards away, and he peered into the 'scope to see if there was anything left. Whatever it had been was now scattered all over the rocks and didn't look like it would be coming back to life any time soon. With that done, he backed away from the 'scope and leaned against the rock his gun was sitting atop to reach into his pocket to see if there was anything to eat.

It was noon, and as there was little trees or brush out there, it was very hot and uncomfortable. Still, he continued to sit under the blazing sun, blasting away anything that looked threatening.

Finding nothing resembling food in his pockets, he settled for a pack of cigarettes he had discovered on his person. He opened it only to find that there were at least half a dozen left. He took one and closed the small box, making a note to himself that he should conserve them as he pocketed them again.

Just before he could light his cigarette, however, his ears picked up the sound of moving rocks. Something was shifting around below.

He twisted his body to that he could peer into the 'scope once more.

Nothing.

Frowning slightly in puzzlement, he adjusted the angle somewhat and peered into it again.

Still nothing.

Growing frustrated, he ignored the dangers and crawled up beside the 'scope, picking up the pair of binoculars on his chest and holding them to his eyes. There wasn't anything that he could see that would have made such a noise. A desert lizard, some cacti...

...wait. There was something. To the Northwest, a pile of rocks was different than how they were minutes before.

Carefully, he crawled back down to his safe position and re-adjusted his 'scope. Carefully he waited for whatever had moved those rocks to come out.

For a long while there wasn't anything.

He chewed on the butt of his cigarette as he felt sweat roll from his forehead down his cheek. He could wait out this thing all day if he had to, he knew.

He didn't have to wait much longer as something blocked his 'scope's view. He looked up to see another man standing there with a hand gun on his grasp. Before the trigger could be pulled though, he twisted around and kicked the man backward, knocking him down the steep hill of rocks.

Swearing to himself, he snatched his gun from its resting place and went after the man, easily making it down the steep side by sliding down a narrow path. He was met, however, by a bullet barely missing his left cheek. Undeterred by this, he ducked behind a large rock and quickly returned fire, blindly aiming for his opponent, waiting for a sign of where he was at.

When he ceased fire, he quietly waited for the other man to make his move.

Again, the wait was short as a bullet ricocheted off of his natural shield. At once, he rose his gun above the rock and fired in the direction the bullet had been fired from. He was rewarded with the sound of the other man being hit and quickly retreated, climbing back up the steep hill, keeping large rocks as his cover. He'd have to take cover at the Haven for the moment, as there would obviously be more men later on.

They were getting too close.

Swearing again to himself, he ducked behind his newest shield as bullets were fired at him. Gritting his teeth, he once again twisted his body and blindly returned fire, hitting his target judging from the sound that came.

When he turned to look for another rock to go behind on his journey to the top of the hill, he realized that it was no longer a fight but a race. Either he would be hit by bullets in the open area or he would make it to the other side and would be able to make it back to the Haven in one piece.

Either way, he would win.

So the race was on.

As he started off, the bullets were barely behind him, nipping at his hills as a dog would. He would return fire only in short bouts before doubling his efforts on getting to the top. When he returned fire for the fifth time, however, he tripped over something on the ground and fell down, carefully avoiding accidentally setting off his fire arm as he slid down the steep slope slightly as bullets sprayed where he had once lied.

Looking down where he had tripped, he saw a young woman carefully getting up from her back, her head ducked as the fire continued. He quickly trained his rifle on her, not doubting that it would be best if she would be killed quickly rather than be Taken. There didn't seem to be a chance that she would be killed by them right away.

She, however, saw this and shouted up at him, "Are you crazy! Why are you aiming at me! Fire at them! Fire at them!" She hurriedly pointed to the area where the other man had been at, and he saw that instead of just one of them, there were now five.

Swearing once more, he looked from her to the men and, kicking himself mentally the whole time, aimed at the men and fired, hitting three of them in the chest right away. As he fired at them, the woman quickly went to his side and was shouting things at him. He couldn't hear her over the gun-fire, however, and didn't care to know what she was saying. He was ready for whatever would come. After all...

Dead or alive, he would win.

Click! Click!

"Damn!" he shouted, tossing the weapon away. He had just used the last of his ammo.

Ignoring the woman, he pushed himself into a standing position and pulled a knife from his belt, holding it in front of himself as the last two men, accompanied by four others came closer. Two men, four women.

Only himself and the woman behind him to fight them.

He readied the knife for a death blow but was stopped by the woman behind him grabbing his arm, her face quickly coming into his view. Bright green eyes glared at him angrily. "What the hell are you doing! Are you insane! What do you want to kill yourself for!"

"Get away!" he snapped, not wanting to deal with this woman--this girl. She was hardly a woman.

Her face went red and she quickly grabbed the knife and threw it at the men, it's handle being the part hitting, rather than the blade.

"You idiot!" he shouted, suddenly exploding as his last chance was just wasted. "Couldn't you have at least thrown it right!"

"Well, excuse me!" she shouted back, not surprised by his anger but becoming quickly angered herself. "I'm not the one that tried to kill myself!"

He felt like ripping his hair out. "That was my last chance!" he yelled.

Before the girl could say anything, bullets sprayed the ground in front of them and he quickly grabbed her arm and began to run. It was purely instinctual that he did this. He knew it was as he had, just a moment before, wished for her to die very painfully as she had just taken his last chance.

Surprisingly, this time it was much easier to run faster, dragging the girl along by the arm. The top of the hill was just five feet away. Not too far but not close enough.

Beginning to feel tremendously burdened by dragging her along, he pulled her ahead of him and shoved her forward, quickening his pace. Only a few more feet and they would be there...

BLAM! BLAM!

Pain shot up his right leg but he ignored it, pressing the girl onward. They were only trying to disable him and, by whatever deity there was out there, he wouldn't let them get what they wanted.

The girl tripped and would have fallen, but he quickly grabbed her by the back of her shirt and dragged her up to her feet, shoving her at the top of the hill, barely one foot away.

She hadn't been prepared for the amount of strength he had put into the shove and landed roughly at the edge of the flat stop surface. Turning around, she saw that he was just coming up behind her and she reached out a hand to help only to have him ignored it as a bullet hit him in the arm.

She was horrified at the sight of the bullet passing through his arm, allowing blood to freely flow from the wound. He, however, barely even expressed the pain as he hurled himself up onto the top.

"Come on," he gritted out, the only evidence that he was feeling the pain.

Confused, she just stared at him until she felt the land that she was sitting on open up from beneath her. She barely had time to let out a slight scream before she hit bottom, the wounded man landing beside her expertly.

She sat up and brushed herself off, opening her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a bloodied hand being pressed onto her face.

Footsteps came from above but there was nothing else. No one spoke as the footsteps then retreated, leaving the two of them in the cave.

It was then that he lit a flare to brighten the small room-like cave. His dark eyes were narrowed at her, equally dark hair falling into his face. She winced at the sight. He almost looked demonic in the pale lighting.

"You," he said lowly, his voice strained slightly, "could have gotten us Taken."

She didn't say anything as the bloodied hand was still firmly on her mouth.

He continued angrily, ignoring her present position, "I would rather die than be Taken. You're lucky we managed to make it up here."

With that he pushed her away. She wiped her face over her long sleeve before looking to him again, still seeing not a man but a demon sitting across from her. She shuddered at the thought before quietly daring to ask, "What do we do now?"

"We wait."

* * *

When he had said they would wait, she hadn't expected for the wait to be so long. So far, she had fallen asleep twice, thought very reluctantly. He, however, didn't seemed to need sleep as he carefully dressed his wounds and fiddled around with other equipment. Once, she had even tried to start conversation with him.

"Um..." she had said uncertainly, hoping to get his attention, but failed to do so as he pulled another object from his pocket. "My name's Alexa Jonston--"

"I don't give a damn about your name," he had simply said, interrupting her.

Alexa's face had flushed and she had forced herself not to lose her temper. "Well, I thought it would be better to know each other's names rather than call each other 'hey, you.'"

"I don't call you that," he had muttered, surprising her as she expected something kind. All hope of that was dashed away when he then added, "I call you 'that stupid girl.'"

She had then refused to speak to him again. How rude was that of him! She certainly wasn't a 'stupid girl' by any means! She was very intelligent and believed that she looked certainly feminine enough to be considered a woman. That man, however...

She forced herself not to think about him and to think about her plans. Everything would happen as she had planned. It would work. She would find them again and they would be fine and they would be a family again. She just knew it.

The one she was sharing the small space with, however, wasn't thinking of anything really. He had learned a long time ago from a friend of what a clear mind could do in times of need. They didn't have any food in the cave, so even though the girl would become hungry, it would be a while before he felt the pangs of hunger. It was the same with sleep. She had drifted off once or twice while he had remained awake, trying to find a radio he had had.

He finally found it the third time she started to drift off and swore loudly, startling her awake.

"What is it?" she asked drowsily.

He didn't answer as he studied the object. It had been damaged when he had fallen over the girl but it could easily be fixed and he would be rescued in no time. The girl though...

He had long decided to just leave her in the cave. If she was smart enough, she would find that there was a way out.

It took a little time, but soon the radio was fixed and he was sending out the signal that let his friend know where he was. After it was sent twice, he paused the transmission to listen for a reply. It came and he nodded in satisfaction. Only a little while more.

When she woke up for the third time, Alexa was surprised to see that the man was resting comfortably against his side of the cave. He almost seemed dead, his face was so pale and he was so still. She would have nudged him just to see if he was, indeed, alive but instead felt the first pangs of hunger.

She frowned, knowing there wasn't anything to eat and was beginning to wander when the last time she ate was.

As she thought about this, footsteps came from above and she held her breath, fearfully looking up to the trapdoor. She expected the footsteps to keep going, but after a while of silence, she began to believe they knew about the cave.

"H-hey," she whispered over to the man who still seemed to be asleep, though now she was really believing he had died some time during his nap. "Hey." She nudged his booted foot only to have it go back to where it had been before, the man not waking.

Whoever was above them was now tapping the trapdoor carefully.

She crawled over to the man, watching him carefully before taking his shoulder and shaking. "Hey. Hey, get up. There's someone up there."

He still didn't react.

She bit her lower lip and shook harder before abandoning that approach and started to tap his face lightly. This seemed to get him to stir a bit but he still wasn't quite awake, and since the tapping was becoming louder, she became more frightened and quickly said, "Wake up!" before preparing to give him a large slap.

She hadn't expected him to catch her hand inches from his face and was slightly startled when she saw that his eyes were open.

"What were you doing?" he asked lowly, not quite curiously.

She swallowed and pointed to the ceiling with her free hand. His eyes followed her finger's direction and he shook his head, letting her hand go. He stood up slowly, feeling slightly dizzy from the loss of blood and lack of food and water, and carefully went to the middle of the cave.

"What are you doing?" he heard the girl ask nervously, but didn't respond and he called upward, "Still here, Bliekc!"

The tapping halted for a moment and then the trapdoor came open, letting sunlight pour into the small room. "You arrre lucky that you hcad thiz thing herrre, my frrriend."

"Don't remind me," he muttered, squinting upward to see his friend peering into the small cave.

Alexa had also noticed the figure bent over the trapdoor's opening and had to bite back a scream of surprise. That thing was certainly not human!

The almost human figure turned its head in her direction and asked, "Thiz ah new frrriend of yourz?"

"Hardly," said the man and Alexa looked to him in disbelief. He was friends with this thing?

"Hm..." said the creature thoughtfully. "Ahnd you hcave been injurrred. Muzt you do thiz conztantly?"

His face burned slightly with that statement and he was glad for a moment that the girl couldn't see. "It wasn't my fault this time! Do you have any rope?"

"Yez, I rrrmemberrred the rrrope." And so he had as a long section of rope was lowered into the save.

It was as he began to tie the rope around this waist that the girl came away from the wall. "So we're getting out now?" she asked hopefully.

"I don't know about you, but I am," he simply said, tugging on the rope when he was finished. He was slowly being raised as his statement was finally processed by the girl.

"You're leaving me down here!" she shouted angrily, far too late to grab a hold of him and be taken up with him.

He snorted. "If you're smart enough, you'll find the way out of here," he told her before being pulled to the top.

"You can't just leave me here!" she yelled, stamping a foot in anger.

For a moment, she thought he had left already but he soon reappeared over the trapdoor's hole and unceremoniously dropped a bag down into the cave. "You've got some food, water, and light in there," he announced. "If you're smart enough and strong enough, you'll make it out alive."

"You--!"

She didn't get to finish as the trapdoor closed, leaving her in darkness. She listened futilely for the footsteps to not come, but they came and soon went. The creature and the man were gone.

"DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!" she screamed, racing to the wall that was in the direction the two had left in. "DON'T LEAVE ME IN HERE!"

"Zhce haz a powerrrful zet of lungz," said Bliekc to his companion when they were some yards away from the trapdoor.

"Is she still yelling?" asked the man exasperatedly.

"Well" --Bliekc chuckled-- "zhce doez not know therrr iz anotherrr pazzage in therrre." When he did not get a response, he turned to his friend with a light frown. "Whcy iz it that you left hcerrr down therrr, Leon, my frrriend?"

Leon snorted not answering and merely requested, "Let's just get out of here, Bliekc."