by Tina Chan
Mist nickered at Kristi from above. Jaiden came over to the edge of the pit, alarm written all over his face. “I’m going to try to pull just one of you out at a time.”
“Get Kristi out first,” Chelsa said. “I think she injured herself pretty bad.”
Chelsa removed the rope around her droid and tied it around Kristi’s waist. Jaiden and his droid-horse were able to tug her out in a matter of seconds. Then he hoisted Kristi a safe distance away from the trough before re-attempting to free Chelsa’s droid-horse.
It took several tries, but Chelsa’s horse finally crawled out of the ditch. Chelsa clambered out with the help of the ropes. In the meantime, the storm had weakened a bit. Together, they shambled their way to the clump of willow trees.
The trees blocked out some of the wind, which allowed Jaiden and Chelsa to set up the tent while Kristi tended the droid-horses by rubbing antifreeze on their metal joints. Task completed, Kristi shoved the sleeping bags inside of the tent. The cozy, dry sleeping bags lured her to fall asleep and escape the biting cold.
“Change out of your clothes,” Chelsa said. “You don’t want to catch hypothermia in this weather.”
“You should change first since you’re the wettest,” said Jaiden.
“I think we’re all equally soaked.” Nevertheless, Chelsa entered the tent, leaving the task of starting a fire to Jaiden and Kristi.
They tried to start a fire to no avail. The wind blew it out every time they drew a single spark to alight on the tinder. In the end, they turned on the solar lamp, which provided some light but not much heat. Chelsa exited the tent and let Kristi enter.
Kristi stripped away her sopping clothes as fast as possible. Then she examined her ribs, which still throbbed painfully. The discomfort had receded some, but breathing still hurt. A mean, purple-green bruise was starting to form. Her wrist was definitely sprained, if not broken; it was becoming a swollen, tender lump.
Kristi grabbed the first aid kit and hustled out, not wanting Jaiden to catch hyperthermia.
“Chelsa, can you bind my wrist?” she asked.
“I think your wrist is broken,” Chelsa said, “which is lucky. A broken wrist will heal faster than a sprained one if we can obtain bone-growth supplement tablets.”
She unraveled some self-adhesive gauze and prodded at the puffy joint. Kristi winced at Chelsa’s gentle touch.
“Was I too rough?” Chelsa asked.
“No. Go ahead and bind it.”
Kristi forced herself to not twitch a muscle while Chelsa wound the wrapping several times about her wrist. Chelsa gave the bindings a soft tug, causing Kristi to bite down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Chelsa pressed down on the self-adhesive gauze, making sure they were secure.
“That’s all I can do for now,” Chelsa said. “There’s nothing much you can do to speed up your healing until we get some bone-growth supplements.”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
Jaiden popped his head outside of the tent flap to let them know they could go in. Kristi inched into her sleeping bag, taking care not to put pressure on her injured wrist and ribs. At long last, she waited for sleep to take her away from the cold and misery.
chapter twenty
[ Troop ]
Someone’s following me. Troop knew it without a doubt. He just didn’t know who. Or what. What if it’s my father tailing me? Nah, that’s not possible. There’s no way he could’ve survived a sixty-story fall out the window.
Students set free from school packed the streets. Troop had a private lesson with Vikens this afternoon. If he didn’t lose his stalker soon, he would be late for it, which was not good. A perfect Perfect was never late for anything.
The bakery awaited Troop three blocks away. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid. Maybe I’m imagining that someone’s following me. However, Troop couldn’t convince himself otherwise.
A piece of red fabric flashed by from across the street. Troop blinked. The person in the red shirt was gone—however, Troop was positive red-shirt-person was the person tracking him. Troop racked his brain, trying to think of a brilliant scheme to lose the guy.
He scuffled down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for anyone wearing red. Although a few pedestrians had on red clothing, none were his suspected stalker.
Troop pushed open the door to the bakery and caught another glimpse of red. He shot back outside. Too slow. Red-shirt-person had disappeared once more.
Layla looked up from the fudge pops she was decorating and said, “What would you like?”
“Strawberry muffins.” He remembered the password this time.
“Vikens is already waiting for you.”
He thanked Layla and went downstairs. Something red danced at the edge of his vision right before Troop started downstairs. He spun around, almost losing his balance at the brink of the cellar stairs.
No one. That’s it. I’m hallucinating. Troop drifted downstairs and entered the study room.
A look of displeasure creased over Mr. Vikens face; he tapped his smart-watch. Troop swallowed hard.
“You’re two minutes late, Troop.”
“Sorry, sir. I met some unforeseen troubles on the way here.”
“You should’ve given yourself extra time to come here. Better early than late.”
And better late than never, thought Troop.
As if reading Troop’s thoughts, Mr. Vikens said, “And it’s better to be on time than early or late.” Vikens walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a hardcover book with the tips of his fingers. “We’ll be reading then analyzing a few stories from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
The man peeled open the tome, flipping through the pages until he reached the page with the words “Little Red-Cap” on it. Then he flattened the book against the smart-desk and slid it over to Troop.
“Let me know when you’re done reading this story. Be sure to note figurative language, themes and the author’s message to readers.”
“Alright.”
Troop turned the book around so that the words weren’t upside down. Vikens buried his nose in Hamlet, leaving Troop to start his assignment.
Two hours later, Troop replaced Grimm’s Fairy Tales back on the shelf and left the bakery.
A hand slammed into his windpipe, shoving Troop against a wall. Troop kicked his attacker in the gut and slithered out from the chokehold.
Red-shirt-person had trapped Troop alone and unaware while walking home. The attacker swung a punch at Troop, forcing him to skitter backwards.
There was a hood drawn over the face of the stalker, but the way the person moved about reminded Troop of someone from school. Bruno, he thought.
Person-that-might-be-Bruno aimed another punch at Troop’s jaw, but Troop ducked beneath the meaty fist and stepped close enough to whip back the red hoodie. The figure turned and landed a kick to his shins, distracting Troop for a moment. Person-that-might-be-Bruno jammed his hoodie back on.
“What’s wrong with you?” Troop demanded.
His attacker didn’t reply. Instead, he aimed another punch at Troop’s face. Troop sidestepped the brunt of the punch; the knuckles of person-that-might-be-Bruno grazed his ears. Troop returned the punch with a low kick beneath the knees. Cheap move—but it worked.
The attacker let out a groan and collapsed onto his knees. Troop took this chance to yank back the hood once more, this time revealing a recognizable face. It was Mason.
“What the hell?” Troop exclaimed.
He sidestepped a poor attempt made by Mason to grab him. Mason growled.
“Why do you always mess everything up?” Mason, having recovered from Troop’s kick, sprung onto his feet. “Don’t answer that. That was a rhetorical question.”
“Did Bruno send you to follow me?”
“No.” Mason wrinkled his nose in disgust, as if the idea of doing Bruno’s bidding offended him.
Troop couldn’t think of any other reason why Mason would try to corner him if Bruno hadn’t o
rdered him to do so. Mason never caused any trouble in his gang, so why would he start now?
They circled each other, neither willing to retaliate.
“You looking for trouble or what?” demanded Troop.
“No. I’m trying to stop trouble from happening.”
Mason faked a blow to Troop’s face and swept his leg out, hitting Troop behind the knees. Troop lurched forwards, the backs of his legs throbbing. There’s no way I can outfight Mason—he outweighs me by at least fifty pounds.
Troop ignored his pains and pushed himself up. He spun around and backhanded Mason hard enough to send him backwards a few feet. However, he barely had the time to blink before Mason knocked him onto his back. Troop rolled over, popped up and then landed a square punch into Mason’s gut. Mason elbowed Troop hard and the two of them landed on the ground with enough force to knock over a solar-car.
Clump. Clump. Clump.
They hastily detangled themselves when a patrol of three law enforcers peered into the alley. Mason pierced Troop with a look that could have skewered steel. Nevertheless, he remained at a distance away from Troop.
“Fighting is a public crime,” said a uniformed officer.
“Any idiot knows that,” Mason muttered.
The officer shot Mason a dark look. “I am issuing both of you a warning and a fifty point fine. Names?”
When neither Troop nor Mason offered their names, the officer rumbled impatiently then said, “I will increase your fine to a hundred points each if you don’t hurry up and tell me your names. I have better things to do than waste my time on this.”
“Troop Mendax.”
An officer typed something into his electro-slate and said, “ID.”
Troop passed his ID card to the closest officer. The officer entered more information into his electro-slate, and then returned the card back to Troop.
“Fifty points has been deducted from your account. A warning has been added to your records as well. If you are caught fighting again, there will be harsher consequences than a fine and warning. Am I clear?”
Troop nodded.
The officer turned to Mason expectantly.
“Mason Fusran.” He passed his ID card to the officer.
The officer entered Mason’s information to his slate. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He pulled another law enforcer to his side and pointed to something on the electro-slate.
Troop craved to know what was so interesting about Mason’s ID.
The officer holding the electro-slate stammered, “Ah, Mason, we’re terribly sorry about this misunderstanding. We didn’t know—”
Mason seized the man by the throat and hissed, “Are you stupid? Don’t. Say. Anything.”
Then he released his grip. The officer slumped down, rubbing his throat. Mason stalked out of the alley.
An officer motioned for Troop to get out of there. So he did.
chapter twenty-one
[ Kristi ]
Kristi woke to a dull pain blossoming in the center of her chest. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night because the solar lamp’s brightness never permitted her to fully sink into sleep’s embrace. If anything, Kristi felt more exhausted than before.
Jaiden and Chelsa were still fast asleep, so she took great care not to wake them up when she crawled outside.
The storm had left an additional foot of snow on top of the three feet from previous days. Kristi stood up in the knee-deep snow and accidently bumped her head against the branches of the willow tree, causing the snow that had accumulated on the branches to plop onto the tent.
“What the heck!” came a muffled shout from inside the tent.
So much for trying not to wake Chelsa and Jaiden up.
A red-cheeked Chelsa poked her head out of the snow-flattened tent to see what had happened, then re-emerged when she got her boots on.
“What’s going on?” Jaiden asked, still inside the tent.
Chelsa, who was outside, answered, “Kristi tried to squash us beneath a ton of snow.”
“Hm,” said Jaiden. “Murder by Snow. That would make a great murder mystery.”
Ghost crept into the camp, carrying a dead bird in his mouth. He dropped the bird by Chelsa’s feet, giving Kristi a clear view of the prey. It was a flashy, colorful creature with bright green plumages and a striking blue head. Ghost finished washing his paws and picked apart his meal.
Kristi looked away, not wanting to see the beautiful animal become a bloody mess of bones and entrails.
“Can you pass me the tent bag?” Jaiden asked.
Kristi stooped down, picked up the canvas sack and passed it off to Jaiden. He and Chelsa efficiently packed away the tent and they were ready to set off. Kristi grabbed the front of Mist’s saddle and stuck her left foot into the stirrup.
“Ow!” she gasped. She lifted her foot out of the stirrup and stood still, massaging her aching ribs.
“I forgot you got hurt last night,” Chelsa said. “Why didn’t you remind me? I could’ve rebound your wrist if only you had asked.”
“The cold partially numbs the pain snd my wrist should be fine; it’s just my ribs that hurt really bad when I tried to mount Mist.”
“Do you need a leg up?” Jaiden asked.
“That’ll be great.” She accepted Jaiden’s boost into the saddle, gritting her teeth. Once she was remotely comfortable in the saddle, the pain lessened and she relaxed.
Chelsa navigated her horse onto the road and determined the direction where New Amsterdam lay. Kristi bit her tongue every time Mist took a step; her upper ribcage complained at the jarring movement. She made sure Jaiden and Chelsa were in front of her, so they wouldn’t notice her grimacing every time Mist took an extra bumpy stride; both of them had enough to worry about without Kristi adding to their list.
After an hour, her tongue was a bloody mess.
The droid-horses picked up the pace, sensing their rider’s eagerness to arrive at New Amsterdam. The town of New Amsterdam greeted Kristi’s eyes. It wasn’t a big town, probably a mile wide at most. Either way, she was heartened to see plowed roads, coffee shops and an inn advertising vacant rooms.
“Let’s check into an inn first,” she said. “I need to get out of the saddle and stretch my legs.”
“Same,” said Chelsa. Her eyes lit upon an inn. “Let’s go check out Country Inn.”
The deeper they rode into New Amsterdam, the more wanted posters of Jaiden and Kristi appeared. The posters were taped to the windows of many shops, posted on public bulletin boards and nailed onto trees. Thankfully, the pictures were the same ones Kristi saw in Oxfield, which meant the government hadn’t realized Jaiden and she had changed their looks yet.
New Amsterdam wasn’t like the city she used to live in; this place was obviously accustomed to the old way of living. Although such civilizations weren’t unheard of, they certainly weren’t common. There were no public news-screens, street cameras or droid-pets roaming the streets. The houses were built out of wood—real wood, not synthetic wood.
Kristi dismounted with care, not wanting to jar her ribs too much. They tied their horses to the hitching post and entered Country Inn.
“Are you looking to lodge here for the night?” a pleasant looking woman greeted the trio from behind a solid oak desk.
The interior of the reception room was painted a warm red and an electric fireplace cast a cheery glow.
“Yes,” Chelsa said.
“Room for three?”
Chelsa nodded and added, “Do you have a stable for our droid-horses as well?”
“Country Inn doesn’t have a stable, but if you go down Cherry Lane you can lodge your horses at Blossom Barns.”
“Thanks,” Chelsa said. “How many points will it cost to spend a night here?”
“150 points.” The woman waited until Chelsa had transferred the points to her account then showed them to their room.
Like the rest of the inn, the room had a rustic feel to it. The walls were painted a soft
yellow and there were two twin cots and one futon in the room. A soft, braided rug lay in the center of the hardwood-floored room to keep out the chill.
“Stay here,” Chelsa ordered Kristi. “Jaiden and I will retrieve our bags and get the horses settled in at Blossom Barn. Aside from the bone-growth supplement tablets, is there anything else you want me to buy at the drug store?”
“No, I think I’m all set here.”
Chelsa and Jaiden left the room then returned shortly, dropping off their backpacks before leaving again to buy the needed supplies.
First things first, Kristi thought. What I need is a soak in the tub. She filled the bathtub with scalding water and dumped in two capfuls of grapefruit-scented bubble bath. Once the water had cooled down enough so that she wouldn’t burn herself upon contacting it, Kristi sank into a blissful state of mind.
She re-examined her ribs and was horrified to find the bruise covered about a third of her chest. It was a patchwork of colors ranging from a sickly green to a deep purple. In short, the bruise was not a pretty sight.
After the soak, Kristi moved all of the filthy laundry into a bag. She heaved the sack over her shoulder and stumbled into the laundry room.
No one occupied the laundry room except for a well-dressed man. He didn’t look threatening or particularly noticeable. Rather, it was the fact that the man seemed to be so unnoticeable and mundane that caught Kristi’s attention; if she hadn’t almost run into him upon entering the room, Kristi highly doubted she would’ve noticed him at all.
“Sorry,” she apologized to the man, taking a step back before colliding into him. “Are you using the washer and dryer?”
“I’m just about done with my laundry,” he said in a bland tone. “Go right ahead and use the washing machine. I’ll be gone once I collect my stuff from the dryer.”
She loaded the clothes into the washer, feeling the man’s eyes on her back the whole time. When the dryer beeped to announce it was done, the man gathered up his clothes into a satchel and left without a sound.