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"Let’s go," I said

River looked at me nervously as I led her to the door

There was hardly anything I could say to co of nerves ht of passing by a hu the door open and we stepped outside

To uish, we passed many more humans on the way down than we had on the way up It was early in the evening, and the ship had co up to the deck to participate in the nighttiripped ht through my flesh But thanks to River’s conscientiousness, we made it off the ship and onto the jetty without any bloodshed

Chapter 4: River

As soon as our feet hit the ground, we hurried across the harbor toward a tourist shop We stopped here to buy another, more detailed map of the area, and then we made our way toward the nearest road This time, I didn’t run I allowed Ben to carrypartly on the road, and partly through the desert, he carried ht until we ended up in a harbor in Isht out in the desert when the sun rose without any shelter for Ben, but it also meant that nobody was around, so we’d have no choice but to take another boat

Ben chose a vessel that was er and sturdier than the speedboat we’d found before, and equipped with lots of extra fuel I headed below deck to have a look around while Ben figured out how to start the boat As soon as the engine stuttered and the boat moved forward, I froze

Footsteps sounded outside, and then three guttural voices shouted in Arabic at once

"Hey! Stop!"

I shot back up to the deck to see three uns

Oh, crap Security

I hurried toward Ben, who’d poked his head out of the control roo the men, he looked ready to pounce I stood in front of hi his view of thetoward us

"Just keep the boat ," I called back to Ben "I’ll try to… deal with this"

Even as Ben ra on us

Guns began firing as they continued to yell and deer, they’d catch up with the boat and try to board it And then they’d be directly within Ben’s reach

I rushed down the stairs to the storage room beneath the deck and looked around frantically I was relieved when I found what I’d hoped to see--a weapon A rifle to be precise Grabbing it, Ia gun once before in e, but I didn’t have time to doubt myself As I arrived back on the deck, I ducked down and crawled toward the edge of the boat I sensed them only feet away now

I didn’t want to haret the all the speed that I possessed, I raisedwildly over their heads I was scared that I ht actually hit one of them because my hands were so unsteady, but thankfully,no cover at all, the men had no choice but to fall back and return to shore