They hoisted up their backpacks and took the elevator down to the lobby. Chelsa spoke with the receptionist and returned clutching a slim package. After making sure there weren’t any prying eyes around, Chelsa discreetly handed Jaiden and Kristi their new ID cards.
Kristi’s card name was still Kelly Harrison, but the girl’s picture resembled her this time. They shared the same red-brown hair color, at any rate.
“Let’s go get the droid-horses,” Jaiden said.
The stable, like the rest of the hotel, was grand and extravagant. The stable walls were made out of marble bricks and livery dressed stable-hands patrolled the grounds. They entered through the stable doors, which could’ve fit twenty horses abreast with no problem. Rows upon rows of droid-horses peered at them over their stall doors.
Kristi scanned the horses until she found the one she was looking for. White fur gleaming and intelligent eyes gazing back at her stood Flurry. A little bubble of happiness rose inside her. Tiffany had kept her word and tracked down Flurry.
Kristi walked as fast as she could without looking conspicuous to Flurry’s stall. Flurry nickered affectionately at Kristi and she buried her face into Flurry’s mane, stroking her powerful shoulders.
“I missed you so much.”
Flurry’s warm, chocolate-brown eyes appraised Kristi as if to say, “And I you.”
Tiffany was even nice enough to purchase quality tack for Flurry.
“Troop, you can ride Mist,” said Jaiden. “Mist is the gray droid-horse beside the appaloosa.”
Kristi felt bad for Mist for having to be ridden by a jerk. Troop seemed like the type of person who yanked on the reins too hard or dug his heels into the horse too sharply. She finished tacking up Flurry and waited for Jaiden, Troop and Chelsa to meet her outside.
Oppidum, the town that Finn should be in, was roughly four hundred miles from Charleston if they took Route 56. However, they couldn’t take Route 56 due to landslides. They had to detour around the stretch of Route 56 buried underneath tons of earth and rock. As a result, traveling on South Lane—which added a good fifty miles—was the fastest route to Oppidum.
Jaiden and Chelsa rode in the front, side by side. Troop and Kristi trailed behind them, an awkward wall of silence between them.
Kristi concealed her astonishment; Troop was actually a good rider. He had a gentle but firm hand—not that it would’ve mattered since Mist was a droid and didn’t have feelings. Nevertheless, Kristi always acted as if droid-horses were real horses.
Despite the fact that three days had passed by uneventfully, there was still tangible tension taut between Troop and Kristi. Not that Troop didn’t attempt to relieve some of the tension. Several times. All in vain.
“How did Chelsa get a hold of a real leopard?” Troop asked.
Another attempt to stir up some conversation.
“A friend gave it to her.”
The only travelers they ever saw on the road were merchants with their truckloads of goods, and they always traveled in groups of five or more. Bandit activity was skyrocketing and most people chose to travel by train or plane rather than risk their lives; taking the roads was becoming riskier every day.
So far, their luck had held and they hadn’t encountered any more bandits. Still, that didn’t mean they allowed their guard to drop.
The sun started to sink below the horizon. Within an hour, it would be dark.
“We should stop soon,” Kristi said, projecting her voice loud enough for Chelsa and Jaiden to hear.
“Let’s set the camp at the next patch of clearing we find,” replied Chelsa.
In less than ten minutes, a small field overgrown with prairie grass came into view. It was the ideal place to spend the night. They had a clear view from all four sides of the camp so bandits couldn’t sneak up on them. Of course, that also meant they could be spotted from the road, but they would have enough time to mount the droid-horses and escape if the need came.
Kristi dismounted and allowed Flurry to charge her solar cells with what little sunlight was left in the day.
“Jaiden, want to come with me to find water for tonight’s instant noodle?” Chelsa asked.
He nodded and the two of them left in search of the stream they had passed earlier.
“Do you want to start the fire or put up the tent?” Troop asked Kristi.
“Don’t care.”
He started to gather sticks and stones to make a campfire, so Kristi unceremoniously dumped the tent out from its bag. She had never set up the tent by herself before; either Jaiden or Chelsa had always been beside her to help with the assembling. She now regretted not paying more attention to how to assemble the tent.
The jumbled mess of metal poles and fabric lay on the ground dauntingly.
“Here goes nothing,” Kristi mumbled.
She picked up the longest metal pole she could find and pushed it into a connecter. It locked in with a click. Maybe this isn’t so hard after all. Kristi attached the rest of the tent parts in no particular order.
She surveyed the tent she had put together. To be honest, it wasn’t so much a tent as it was a compilation of metal and fabric. So maybe the tent was harder to put together than I thought. With a groan, Kristi started to disassemble everything. Troop noticed her plight and made a move to take apart the “tent” without a word.
She checked the time. Fifteen minutes had passed and Jaiden and Chelsa still hadn’t returned. A sliver of worry embedded itself in her, but she decided to wait for another ten minutes before looking for them. All of the parts of the tent lay neatly on the ground, sorted into different piles.
“Thanks,” Kristi said to Troop when he began to put together the tent. “But I can do this myself.”
He ignored her and went right on constructing the tent skillfully. She snatched the pole he was sliding through the sleeve of a piece of fabric out of desperation. She wanted to prove she was perfectly capable of completing this task on her own,
“I don’t need or want your help with this. Anyways, aren’t you supposed to be making the fire?”
“I already did.”
A quick look to where Troop gestured towards showed a good-sized campfire blazing away with a pile of twigs and branches to fuel the fire as needed. Kristi watched the flames dance up and down, twisting and writhing. Even though she had seen many campfires ever since she started traveling with Chelsa, she was still mesmerized by the dance of the flames. When Kristi finally tore her gaze away from the fire, Troop was almost done with setting up the tent.
She was ticked off. “I already told you I don’t want help from a jerk.”
“Oh, really?” Troop pounded in the last peg anchoring the tent to the ground and arched an eyebrow. “It sure didn’t seem like it.”
“Don’t always believe what your eyes see.”
“Speak for yourself. You saw me do something I wouldn’t normally do and you decide to judge me by that one action,” he retorted.
“I don’t know how you do it, but everything you say just makes me dislike you even more.”
Troop looked like he was about to argue back, but chose not to do so at the last second. The sound of laughter reached Kristi’s ears. Two figures emerged from the shadows. It was Jaiden and Chelsa.
“Sorry it took so long,” Chelsa said, “but here’s the water.”
The sun had set completely now and the moon and stars hung in the night sky. It was a cloudless night and after dinner, Kristi chose to admire the stars awhile instead going to sleep. Nightmares seemed to be constantly plaguing her the past few nights. She almost always woke up with her heart rate sky-high and covered in a thin sheen of sweat.