by Tina Chan
They traveled in silence for the next half mile until Creepy Guy shattered the quietness. “My friends should be here soon,” he said, raising his voice towards the end of the sentence.
Ambush! Kristi’s brain barely had time to register the thought when several bandits hidden around the bend sprung on them.
A woman with studs glimmering in her eyebrows swung down from an overhead branch, knocking the breath out of Kristi. She landed hard, sprawling on her back. Then she rolled over and jumped to her feet, doubling over and clutching her guts.
“Jaiden—” Kristi wheezed.
Wham!
The same woman backhanded her across her face. Kristi noted her eyes were an alarming shade of crimson.
“Don’t touch my sister,” Jaiden snapped. Creepy Guy wrenched Jaiden’s arms into a lock, but he twisted away.
Meanwhile, Chelsa was kept busy dodging two bandits wearing identical bandanas. Kristi slithered out of the grapple of the crimson-eyed bandit. She only managed to take three steps before another one tackled her to the ground though, ramming her head against a jagged rock. Silver light flashed in her vision. She snapped her eyelids open in time to see a hand reach down, hauling her onto her feet.
“Thanks,” Kristi said, thinking it was Chelsa who had helped her.
An arm wrapped around her neck and arms, immobilizing her. “You’re welcome,” purred a voice that was definitely not Chelsa’s into her ear.
Kristi wheezed for air, like a fish out of water.
“Let her go, Mag,” Creepy Guy’s coarse voice ordered.
Mag gave Kristi one last squeeze then released her from the headlock. Kristi tenderly rubbed her bruised windpipe, flinching at the soreness.
A few passing cars slowed down to see what was happening, but no one came to help them; Kristi didn’t blame them. Making an enemy out of bandits was not a good idea.
“Put your hands in the air and do not move,” Creepy Guy ordered.
They obeyed him without a protest. Being surrounded by twenty bandits was intimidating.
Think, Kristi, think! You’re a smart girl so figure out a way to get out of this mess. She scanned her surroundings for anything that could be useful.
There were eight droid-horses standing beneath an oak tree and no one was watching them. About three of the bandits were engrossed with searching and sorting through their backpacks. Only five bandits were keeping an eye on them.
A car screeched to a stop and a woman stepped out.
“You don’t see anything, lady,” Creepy Guy yelled at her. “Mind your own business and we’ll mind our own.”
She shaded her eyes and yelled something back. The remaining five bandits keeping an eye on Jaiden, Chelsa and Kristi diverted their interest to the woman and Creepy Guy’s conversation being shouted back and forth.
“Jaiden, Chelsa,” Kristi whispered. “Make a run for the droid-horses. We won’t be able to escape on foot, but we can on the horses.”
They both nodded to show they heard, then simultaneously dashed for the droid-horses. The woman and Creepy Guy were yelling so loud and causing such a commotion it took a few seconds for the bandits to realize their captives were making an escape.
“Grab the other horses so they can’t ride them to chase us,” Kristi said to Jaiden and Chelsa before swinging into the saddle of the nearest droid-horse. By the time she snatched the reins of the droid-horse beside her, the bandits were already hot on their trail. Kristi spurred her mount into a gallop.
Eyeing the bandits behind her, Kristi noticed that Jaiden had already thrown off the bandit chasing him and had two other horses in hand. Chelsa was struggling; she held the reins of two horses in her left hand, but a bandit had somehow managed to get astride one of them.
The bandit on the horse brandished a dagger and cut the reins of the horse he was riding.
“Ride to Oxfield,” Kristi said. She wasn’t sure if Jaiden and Chelsa heard her, so she repeated herself.
The lone bandit on the droid-horse was the only bandit Kristi could see pursuing them. They had left the rest behind in their mad gallop. The bandit seemed to realize this and yanked on the broken reins of his horses. The droid screeched to a stop, spraying mud all over her.
“You better hope you never see us again!” the bandit hollered. “I promise you’ll regret it!”
“And I hope I never see your face again either,” Kristi dryly said to herself.
She drove her horse into a faster pace, even though the poor droid was already running close to its top speed. A sign passed by reading: Oxfield 3 miles.
Chelsa pulled her horse next to Kristi’s and said, “Slow down. We’re attracting too much attention at this break-neck speed and the circuits in the horses will burn out at this rate.”
Kristi reduced her droid-horse’s pace to a steady canter. At last, the road leading to Oxfield came into view. She dismounted, thus giving her droid-horse the chance to recover a bit. The warning light located on the shoulder of the droid-horse blinked crazily, warning Kristi that the droid was overheating.
“You guys okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Chelsa said.
“I managed to snag one of our bags in the chaos.” Jaiden dropped a half empty backpack and examined the remaining items. “Good news: we still have the electro-slate. Bad news: most of our supplies and food are gone. The ID cards are gone as well.”
Chelsa let out a sigh. “We should be fine as long as we have an electro-slate. We can buy everything else we need in town, including some fake IDs.”
Kristi surveyed the seven horses they stole. Three were brown, one was gray, one was black and two were dun colored. They all seemed to be in reasonably good shape, especially after a hard run at a speed that could’ve blown their fuses.
“Pick the horse you want.” Kristi patted a droid-horse on its flank. “I call dibs on the gray one.”
The gray horse was the droid she had ridden. He had the same build as Flurry and responded well to commands when Kristi rode him. She stroked his neck and scratched behind his ears, missing Flurry even more now that she was surrounded by droid-horses.
“The small dun horse is mine,” Chelsa said.
Jaiden surveyed the remaining mounts. “I’ll take the brown thoroughbred with the white stockings.”
“Ghost!” Chelsa yelped. “Where is he?”
“He’s probably just hiding nearby,” Jaiden said. “I don’t think he was left behind. He’s a smart leopard.”
“But everything was so chaotic Ghost might’ve missed us leaving on the droid-horses!” Chelsa sounded hysterical. “I can’t lose Ghost—he’s all I have left of Alex.”
“Alex?” Jaiden asked. “Who is he?”
Chelsa didn’t hear him, though, and continued rattling on. “What if the bandits got Ghost? What if Ghost thought we went to Launceston? What if a bear attacked Ghost?”
“Chelsa, get yourself together,” Kristi said, placing a firm hand on the distraught girl’s shoulder. “Ghost is fine. He’s a tough leopard. Don’t worry about him.”
She picked up the reins of three droid-horses from Chelsa’s slack hands and handed them to Jaiden, then grabbed the rest of the horses and started walking to Oxfield.
Chelsa straightened her back. “I don’t know what came over me. Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to freak out.” When neither Jaiden nor Kristi answered her, she said, “Really, I’m done freaking out. Ghost knows how to survive in the wild and I know he can locate us by following our scent.”
“I have never seen you lose your marbles the way you did today,” was all Kristi said.
“Who’s Alex?” Jaiden repeated his question later on that day. They passed underneath the stone arch proclaiming they were now officially in Oxfield.
“He was a friend of mine,” Chelsa said. “A very close friend.”
“He was your friend?” Jaiden asked.
Chelsa closed her eyes. “He died about a month ago.” A single tear leak
ed out from the corner of her eye. “Oh God, I’m losing it again for the second time in a day. This must be some sort of emotional breakdown record for me.”
Jaiden brushed away Chelsa’s halfhearted attempt at a joke. “It’s okay to cry once in a while. Let out your feelings if you want; don’t hold it all inside you.”
Kristi attempted to lighten up the mood, “What are you, Jaiden, a therapist?”
“You don’t understand,” Chelsa said. “I killed Alex.”
chapter sixteen
[ Troop ]
