“We’re going to go over in groups.”
“I’m not going over.”
“Bethany…”
“No Aiden, I am notcrossing that bridge. It’s suicide to do so.”
“It’s suicide to stay here.”
“Crossing that bridge is instantaneoussuicide and you know that. Why would you even want to try it? We still have a chance over here; we can come up with a different plan if we just think about it reasonably.”
“The aliens might not have considered the bridges.”
The sheer stupidity of that statement caused my mouth to drop as I gaped at him. They somehow had the technology to navigate galaxies with ease, and freeze a good chunk of the population, but they wouldn’t have the foresight to monitor the only two ways off of Cape Cod? I had no idea what anyone was thinking, but they sure as hell weren’t using their brains to do so. “Aiden…”
“We can’t stay here Bethany.”
“There has to be another way.”
“What way?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. The canal was known for its dangerous currents, and to swim it would be almost as obvious as running across the bridge, but even that seemed a better option to me than this. And then I knew. I knew exactly how we could get to the other side. “What if I have a better plan Aiden?” I asked softly.
He stared at me for a long moment. “What is it?”
“We can swim across. If we find some diving gear, we could use it to swim across. We could stay under water, stay out of sight. It could work.”
He was silent for a moment; Abby stared up at me in wide eyed awe, while Cade seemed to be thinking it over. “None of us know how to use scuba gear, and where would we even get it?”
I didn’t care if none of us could scuba dive. I was far more willing to take my chances with it than I was with the bridge. “Someone here might know how, and there’s a rental place a few miles away. They have all kinds of beach supplies in there; they may have something that we could use.”
The other group had moved closer to us, but none of them spoke out when I mentioned scuba diving. “We can figure it out,” I whispered.
“It’s not something you just figure out Bethany.”
I glared fiercely at him. “I would rather take my chances with that instead of running across something over a hundred feet in the freaking air Aiden!” I snapped, unsure why he was so stubbornly clinging to this crazy notion. He was one of the smartest people I knew, but he was being adamantly stupid right now. My idea wasn’t without risk, and possibly death, but it was still better than this absoluteinsanity. Yet I could tell that few people even wanted to consider what I had to say.
“She has a point,” Cade said softly. “We can swim around the canal, avoiding the currents, and come up somewhere more sheltered on the other side.”
“We don’t know how to use scuba gear,” one of the other group insisted firmly. “We would never be able to do it.”
“And we are never going to be able to do this!” I insisted.
“I know how to scuba dive.” My attention was drawn to a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. Her long reddish hair, so dark that it was nearly brown, hung in thick curls to the middle of her back. Her cat green eyes were bright as she surveyed the group. “My father and I used to go lobster diving. I’m not an expert, but I do well enough with it. I could help.”
Hope sprang through me, I looked eagerly to Aiden, but his jaw was clenched and I could tell he was still against it. “We don’t know for sure that the store will have rental gear.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Abby said softly.
“There may not even be enough for all of us, and then what?” another woman in the group inquired.
I sighed loudly, growing impatient and frustrated. “Then we come back here tomorrow night, but at least we would have tried,” I said sharply.
“You can stand here and debate this all you want. I’m not waiting any longer. The closer it gets to dawn, the less likely our chances of getting across are going to become,” a man amongst the group insisted. “And we may not have another night. This may be our onlychance to escape, and I am not going to blow it.”
“But this isn’t a chance, this is death!” I insisted angrily. “Please don’t do this. It’s foolish.”
I didn’t understand their absolute instance upon this course of action. Was it because it was the only plan they believed in? Was it because they believed the other side of the bridge was magically better? Or was it simply because they finally had something to do, something to cling to and hope for other than fear and uncertainty? Because they finally had a firm plan, and a course of action?
Whatever it was, I knew that I was not going to be able to stop them, and I was terrified that I would not be able to talk sense into Aiden either. Would he leave Abby and I here just to do this? Just to prove a point?
“You’ll see Bethy, when we get to the other side, you can join us.”
“No Aiden, please no.”
My heart was hammering. Abby was shaking even more, her fingers dug painfully into my arm. “Aiden don’t,” she pleaded.
He looked at her in surprise; apparently he’d thought that she would be eager to go across too. “Why don’t we just think over what Bethany is saying,” Cade said softly.
“What is there to think about?” The burly man shoved his way through the group to us. He hoisted his spear higher as he swung his pack onto his back. “This is the plan.”
My heart was hammering, my mouth was completely dry. There didn’t seem to be any way to stop this. They were fixed on their course. “At least stay with us,” I urged Aiden. “If they make it to the other side then maybe we’ll consider going.”
Aiden looked torn; he glanced back at the group of four that was starting to gather near the road. “We are in the third group, we’ll go then.”
Apparently I had already been divided without my knowledge, or approval. “Why are we even splitting up?” Abby asked softly.
“Smaller groups will be harder to notice.”
“Yeah, that’s gonna help,” I retorted angrily.
“You know I love you Bethy, but optimism has never been one of your stronger qualities,” Aiden said quietly.
I glared at him, fighting to keep control of my rising temper as my hands fisted at my sides. He may be my brother, and one of my best friends, but there were times when our personalities completely clashed. Unfortunately this was one of those times, and his stubborn insistence may very well get us killed. No matter how much I did not want to cross that bridge, I knew that I would not let him go alone. I couldn’t. “Realism is not the same as pessimism. You’re being foolish Aiden; you’re not even listening to reason.”
“This is a good plan.”
I bit my lip, arguing with him was getting me nowhere. He wasn’t listening; he wouldn’t listen, not until something bad happened. I looked toward Cade, but his attention was focused upon the people already leaving the woods. I closed my eyes, made a silent plea for their safety, and then forced myself to watch. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed against this; I had to know what was going to happen no matter how awful it might be. I couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t going to happen.
“No, it’s not,” I whispered.