Chapter
8
Only Peter, Nana and Blaike
identified us. Peter was dead, but Nana and Blaike had reached here already.
They were firing from all sides. All the night risers wore our masks which Arya
had bought so that at least their men couldn’t see us. Most of Arya’s men were
either dead or unconscious; some of them came with us. We formed a circle, back-to-back,
and Nana and Blaike along with their men surrounded us from all sides at a
distance. “It’s useless to run away or fight”, Nana yelled in his rough cruel
voice. I hated him the most. “Surrender yourselves this minute. We were this
close to our project but you” He pointed towards Arya, “You came in with your
gang and ruined it all! And now it turns out to be that you’re one more night
riser. Good! Guards, take them. Now.”
This was a deadly fight. They
outnumbered us. They had guns bigger than Arya’s. We had made sharp weapons out
of the stones we got in the jungle. It was time to use them. The firing started from both sides. It was
night time and we were stronger than the humans. We took down many of them but
they had the benefit of numbers. No matter how many we defeated, there were
more in the line. I saw Abhi and Marsella fighting together. They made a great
team. Abhi was not an experienced fighter like me or Marsella, but he had his
strength. Marsella would bring the people to him, and he would bang their heads
to the ground with our weapons. It was a good trick. I was glad that Marsella
and I decided to complete our Karate training. But at the same time, grandma
and Fiddle were our weak points. Their age had weakened their strength. But
they were defending themselves well with Arya’s weapons. Without Arya’s help it
would have been impossible for any of us to survive.
In one moment, Blaike had grandma
on his gunpoint and the game turned into their hands. We lowered our weapons
and everything was silent. “One more move from your side, and this old lady
will be dead” he said in his flat voice. It was over. I could see Arya planning
for some move but so did Blaike. He almost pressed his trigger when Fiddle came
in between “Grandpa!” I screamt. He was shot on his right shoulder. No. this
shouldn’t have happened. We were in a vulnerable state and Nana and Blaiketied
us with ropes. Grandpa was writhing in pain. And we couldn’t do anything. If we
even spoke, Nana threatened to aim grandpa’s heart. Grandma was the most
vulnerable. She’d just got her husband back. If he wasn’t taken to the
hospital, he would die. Arya’s remaining men were either shot dead, or they ran
away. Out of their army, only seven men along with Nana and Blaike remained. We
couldn’t speak with both of them around. They were humans and their night
vision was very much inferior to ours. They decided to wait until morning to
take us out. We had until dawn to make a move. I wish the connection was strong.
I keptrepeating this several times in my mind, stronger and stronger each time.
That’s when Arya replied, “I wish so too”.
Thankfully, no one outside our
group heard it. Everyone looked at him, wondering what his response was about.
We only looked at each other, and we both repeated the process. We started
singing the anthem in our minds, both of us. We prayed for the connection to be
between all of us. We kept on repeating it unless we could feel the others in
our mind. One by one, a member kept adding. It was the same tingly feeling
again. There was some energy running through us. The feeling was similar to a
group chat, with everyone speaking at once. Everyone except grandpa.
Now that our minds were linked, we
could plan our strategy. And we did. I had a knife in my back pocket. I
couldn’t reach it but Marsella could. I couldn’t tell her this aloud with the
men in our earshot. But now we had the power. Marsella slowly got the knife
without letting anyone notice, and cut my rope. We had to be careful. We
couldn’t let them know. Abhi and Yen were tied to a distant tree. Why weren’t
they killed? What was their motive? We would free them soon too. Once we all
were free, we were ready for the confrontation. We had the element of surprise
this time.
