Nice Guys Don't Grow On Trees

Chapter 1

By the time the overcrowded boat reached land, the remaining Mallrats were parched and starving. What little water and even less food that had been on board the boat had been rationed out as severely and as fairly as possible, but it still hadn't lasted the journey. In fact it had done little more than keep them all alive.

The sheltered cove they found to moor the boat in could be described in two ways: protected on three sides by tall, rocky cliffs, if you were Amber; a corner to get trapped in, if you were Ebony. It was land, anyway, and that meant the possibility of fresh water and perhaps food. Even as Lex and Jay dragged the inflatable life raft carrying the first group of them to shore, Jack was scanning the cliffs with the boat's binoculars to find some clue to help them.

"You don't need binoculars to see there's no raging torrent falling over that cliff, Jack," Ellie grumbled by his side.

"You're missing the point!" Jack snapped impatiently. "A-anyone can see that rock face is damp. There are green patches too. In a line, if you'd bother to look. That means there's water getting through. I-I know where it starts at the top, I just don't know where... where it... stops..."

Jack's sentence petered out like the trickle of water he was trying so hard to follow and he elapsed into concentrated silence. Ellie looked up to find his gaze was now off to one side of the cove, his brow wrinkled as he peered through the binoculars. She knew him well enough by now to know he had stopped talking because he'd seen something but, without the aid of lenses to magnify her own view, she had no idea what had caught his attention.

"What is it?"

"Noth-nothing," Jack stuttered, still distracted, taking the binoculars away from his eyes and passing them to Ellie. "H-here, keep an eye on Lex as he brings the raft back. I've just got to go check something."

"Wh...?" Ellie's question died on her lips as she watched the bright blue and orange jacket hurrying away from her in the direction of May. Caught between keeping an eye on Lex as she'd been asked and wondering what Jack was up to, Ellie's attention flitted back and forth like a spectator at the world's fastest game of tennis.

When Lex finally arrived back with the life raft, Jack was still deep in discussion with May. The furrowed brow and wildly gesticulating hands told Ellie that whatever he was talking about was serious, to him at least. May's expression was more difficult to read, but spoke either of disbelief, disgust or possibly just sheer confusion!

Lex's arrival, and departure with more of the Mallrats and what few belongings they had left, gave Ellie the excuse to interrupt Jack and May mid whisper.

"Will somebody tell me what all this is about?" Ellie demanded. "And don't say it's nothing, because you're a terrible liar, Jack."

Jack opened his mouth to say something then shook his head and turned away. In the seconds before his face was hidden from her view, Ellie spotted another well known expression: the one he usually wore when he was trying not to say something. Much of their lives before her return to the mall were still a blur, but that was an expression she had become exceedingly familiar with since then and no loss of memory was able to cloud her judgement when it came to reading him in that mood. So she had lied to him once. Just once? No, probably more. He still had his back to her. That meant whatever it was had hurt him. Enough for him to try and hide it from her. But why now? The comment about lying? Or something he had seen in the cove? She looked to May. May's nonchalant eyebrows raised at Ellie's unspoken question.

"Jack thinks he saw some caves," she said, shrugging. "He wanted to know if my guy knew this area or anyone in it. I think Jack's been spending too much time with Ebony: seeing ambushes in opportunities!"

It took another two trips with the life raft for Lex to ferry everyone to the shore, but it turned out Jack had seen some caves in the cliff face. Whether or not that was all he had seen, he wouldn't say. In fact, he said very little for the rest of that day, to Ellie at least.

The cave provided a source of fresh water seeping through from the ceiling down a long stalactite in the centre of a wide cavern. The sides of the cavern were high enough to provide a dry resting place and there was enough driftwood washed up on the shoreline to build a small fire to boil the water and make it safer to drink.

"Can't believe we're back to living in caves!" Lex sighed, prodding at the fire with a stick of driftwood.

"I should have through it would suit you, Lex!" Amber quipped, trying to lighten the mood. "You always were our resident caveman!"

Lex pulled a face and stared into the fire, his thoughts lost to the others around him. Amber watched him for a moment, then cast her gaze around the tired and bedraggled group. Nineteen of them in all had left the city, including the babies. Nineteen people sat around the small fire. Amber knew where her own mind was and she was fairly sure she could make a good guess at Bray and Brady's, but that left sixteen minds that were beyond her reach. Some she knew well enough to make guesses at, others she didn't.

Jay sat behind her, his expression out of her sight, but she chose to believe that he would be planning their next move. The general in him taking charge when they reached the shore and then again when they found the caves had convinced her that his mind was fixed on survival. On her right was Trudy, cradling a sleeping Brady. The tribe's first mother was gazing down at her daughter in a mixture of joy and sadness. Sad to leave her home and the safety of the mall, Amber thought, but relieved that she and her daughter had made it so far. That at least was something she herself could relate to.

Amber cast a glance down to her son, asleep in her own arms. She had come so close to never seeing him again, but he was still far too young to understand what they had all gone through. Raising her eyes to her left, Amber saw Ebony, leaning back against Slade. Their expressions were both distant and unreadable. Slade's because Amber didn't know him well enough. Ebony's because nobody ever knew Ebony well enough!

Lex sat beyond Ebony, his gaze still on the fire. Perhaps he was thinking of Siva, or Tai San. Perhaps he was going over in his head the secrets that Mega had told him and that Ram had teased him about. Would he ever tell them everything? Ellie sat on his other side, hugging her knees to her chest and staring across the fire in the direction of their mediocre woodpile. She was watching Jack, sitting with his back to the pile of misshapen logs, one leg straight, the other bent so that his hand rested on his knee and obscured part of his face from Amber's view. She didn't need to see his face to know something was bothering him, though. His distance from Ellie told her that. Between Jack and Trudy sat May, her arms folded round her and her eyes on the fire. She too was a mystery to Amber. Perhaps she always would be.

Opposite May sat Salene, one arm around Ruby, who was curled up in a ball with her head on Salene's lap, sound asleep. She wasn't the only one. Gel, Sammy and Lottie were curled up close together under one blanket, their minds exhausted by the journey. Never one to be outdone by children, Darryl was also asleep, as was their begrudging host for the journey. That left Ram, sitting between the two sleeping men on one side and Jack on the other. Sometimes Amber wondered if Ram ever lost his cool. He was sitting there, whittling the end of a straight piece of driftwood into a sharp point. Typical Ram, always the first to think about weapons! Well, it would catch a fish at least, Amber thought, if he knew how to use it properly.

Getting back round the group to Jack, Amber frowned. His head was down, hidden by his arm and hand, but his breathing was slow and even. She wondered if he had fallen asleep there, too exhausted by the day's efforts to move or lie down. Only Ellie, sitting directly opposite Jack and watching him with an expression of mingled fear and worry, would be able to tell if that were the case, but Amber found it impossible to catch her eye and gave up. Behind her she felt Jay lean down and whisper that she should get some sleep. She nodded and lay down, letting him wrap a blanket around her and her son before getting up and walking over to Lex. A moment later, as she watched Jay whisper something in Lex's ear and, at a nod from Lex, walk off towards the entrance to the cave, Amber felt someone join her under the blanket and looked round to see Trudy.

"Mind if we join you?" Trudy whispered in her best friend's ear, settling her daughter beneath the blanket.

"Not at all," Amber replied, keeping her voice low. "I think we're all going to need our sleep tonight!"