* TwO * Where to Go

A Chapter by Allison

Every little thing gives evidence.

The next day, we sat at the fountain. I showed Tai what I took from the old man.
"A cellphone?! Really? What are you going to do call up one of his stupid old friends-" at that time I whacked Tai on the head with the phone.
"No, stupid, I'm gonna look at all his contacts and figure out which one's the Ruler leader!" I shouted with obvious annoyance.
"Oh, that's a good idea."
"No duh, Sherlock," with that, I scrolled through the contacts, while he watched.
"He has a lot of buddies. It will take a while to find the leader with all these names," he said, looking around already bored.
"Not really," I said calmly.
"'Not really'?! What do you mean?" after that I shoved the cellphone in his face.
"Look!"
On the screen was a contact by the name "Ruler."
"Wow! That old man was an idiot!" Tai said through laughter. "Who would put straight out on his contacts 'Ruler'?"
"Well he did say he didn't know their names," I answered his question and started calling the contact.
A voice answered, but not an older man's voice, "Hello?"
"Are you a leader?" I asked with all seriousness.
"Huh? No, I'm just a kid answering some random phone," answered the voice that sounded oddly familiar to me.
"Random phone? What do you mean random phone?"
"This is a pay phone," he said with a bit of chuckling.
"Pay-wait, Kei is that you?" I asked with curiosity .
"Huh? Oh, snap! I'm caught! Wait, are you Taryn?" Kei said with a confused voice.
"Augh! Not Kei!" Tai said, grabbing his head in frustration.
"Where are you, Kei?" I asked, hoping for some help finding the Rulers.
"Uh...I'm in the Coby Region."
"Okay! Stay there, I'm going to meet you!"
"Could you-" was all I heard before I hung up.
"Sis, I still don't like him!" Tai started with his rant.
"Shut up! Maybe he could help us. He's good with the weapons he has," I said to end the complaints I really did not want to hear right now. "Now let's go!

We went into the bar and went straight to Steve.
"Steve, we're leaving to the Coby Region," I said calmly.
"Why's that? Information you found?" he asked, leaning his chin on his perch hands.
"Yes, kind of," Tai said.
"I'll give you a call if we're coming back here or if we need your help. Bye," I said, turned to the door, and motioned for Tai to follow.
"Okay, bye, Steve!" he said and caught up with me.
Steve waved at us with a smile, and we got on bus to the Coby Region.

It was a one day trip, and we made it there with empty stomachs. So our first stop was a restaurant. Once inside, we witness the start of a fight between the manager and a rough customer.
"How dare you charge me that much for a sandwich that small!" the customer said, holding the manager by the collar.
During this, Tai walked over to another customer and asked her a silent question. He came back telling me the sandwich the rough customer ate was good size. So I walk up behind the rough customer, poke my gun's barrel to his back, and say, "Hey, old man, my brother and I are hungry, and I really don't want to spill blood in this nice restaurant. That sandwich probably seemed small to you, because you're such a huge guy."
"Huh? A little child with a toy gun?" the rough customer said, dropping the manager and turning around to face me. "You think you will spill blood on me?"
"I will if I have to. I don't have time for useless fights so I suggest you leave, sir," I said, putting a new clip of ammo in.
He stared at me with disbelief and finally decided to head to the door with hurried steps.
The manager came over to me and said with a glad voice, "Thank you so much! Please order anything you'd like, and I will let you go without paying."
"Thank you, sir," I said with a kind smile. "I'd like two orders of the special, please."
"Yes, right away! Please have a seat anywhere," the manager said and hurried to the kitchen.
We sat down at the last table open, and all the customers stared at us with surprise. A teenage boy came over with a grin, ignored his mother's whispered orders, and asked, "That was awesome! Are you guys even old enough to have guns?"
"Technically no, but we are allowed to have them anyways," I answered, then took a bite of meat.
The boy sat down at an empty chair and said, "How old are you two?"
"Sixteen," Tai and I said in unison.
"Cool! I wish I could have my own gun. Well, I got to go now. Hopefully I will see you two again! Bye!" and then he was off with his mom.
After they walked away from the restaurant, someone came in with a "bam!" from the door. I did not turn my head to see, I just kept eating. But the person had hurried steps toward our table and sat where the other boy sat. Then I looked up and saw Kei right there with his goofy smile.
"Heard you scared some big guy out of here," he said glancing from me to Tai with Tai glaring at him.
"Mhm, no big deal. We were just really hungry," I said after a sip of my water.
"So why exactly did you want to meet me?"
"We are trying to find the Rulers. They killed our parents and they want to rule the world. Does that mission sound hard to you?" I asked calmly.
"Without me? Yes, it does sound hard. But if I came with you, it would be a lot easier."
"That's what I wanted to hear," I said, grinning. "The Rulers are either here or used to be here, so that's one lead."
"Did you maybe see them, Kei?" Tai finally asked.
"See them? I don't know. I could have, but I probably wouldn't have noticed they were Rulers. It's not like they have shirts saying 'I'm a Ruler' on it," Kei answered, waiting for Tai's reaction.
"Ugh, look, Taryn, he's useless!" Tai said, turning to Kei with anger in his eyes.
"Not entirely, we'll just have to continue on somehow by looking for more clues. We could ask people if they've noticed many people on the payphone," I said thoughtfully and stood up.

We finished our meals and went out of the restaurant. We stretched our arms and looked around. "Hey, I have an idea! We could look at the abandoned town that's down south of here," Kei said and pointed to the direction. "Perfect for a evil person's hideout!"
"Dude, that's logical and all, but-really?! Do you have to act like a child?!" Tai said outraged.
"Like you don't act like a child," I mumbled softly.
"Well, it's better than acting scared," Kei replied and started heading toward the town. I caught up with him and Tai had no other choice but to follow.

We made it to the entrance of the town and there was complete silence. The town was surround by a huge circular dome-like wall. Kei frowned and looked at a sign near gun lockers.
"I forgot, this town isn't fully abandoned. Some people still live here, and apparently they don't allow guns."
The sign had written, "Lock up all of your weapons in the lockers, please."
"Well, we have no choice. We are just investigating not here to fight," I said, thinking through ideas.
"Okay, then," Tai said calmly, pulling out his weapons.
We removed all weapons, placed them in a locker, and used our own lock to secure them. Then we discussed our plan.
"Okay, we have to split up to investigate. I'll go to the far south of the town, Tai you go to the center, and Taryn you look around the other entrance," Kei said strategically.
"Sounds good, if anything happens try to meet up with each other," I said calmly.
"Okay, I'm off," Tai said, then headed into the middle of the rusted town.
"Remember use your girly scream, if you ever get into trouble. I'll come running," Kei said, smiling and backing toward a staircase.
"Yeah, okay. Like I'd need to scream," I said with a smirk. Then I head toward the other exit.

After about twenty minutes, I heard some movement of a door. I looked over to see a person staggering toward me. "Are you all right?" The person didn't answer, but kept walking toward me. I walked closer to him and waved my hand in his face, "Hello?" Suddenly he grabbed me with what seemed like super speed. It scared me so bad, I let out a high-pitched scream I never knew I had. I quickly pushed the man off me, who said, "I'll get you and take you to him first."
"Take me to who?" I ordered, but he flung himself toward me again. This time, I kicked him in the face, knocking him out. I looked up at the sound of my brother's scream of anger and of running footsteps. Then I see Kei running with that huge man from the restaurant running right after him.
"Kay, Run!" Kei shouted.
I joined right with his pace, and we ran through the exit and down a dirt path with railings.

"I told you I'd come running," he said smirking but gasping for air.
"No time for that," I said through breaths. "I'll jump over the side to see who he's really after."
"Wait-Taryn!" was all I heard from him, when I jumped over the railing and rolled down the hill.
I ended up rolling over a short cement wall and landed on my feet in a muddy hill. The muddy hill led to a river bank. I started losing my balance and grabbed a hold of a small branch, but thorns pricked at my skin. I let go quickly and gripped the wall hard. Then I peeked over it to see if the big man followed me. I saw him standing and looking over the area I fell down. His eyes met my spot and he jumped down. As fast as I could, I jumped over the wall and ran up the hill toward the distance I thought Kei would be in. The man stumbled a few times and gave me more time. Eventually, I found the railing and jumped over it and looked down the path to see Kei somewhat ahead. I yelled his name and he slowed to my pace. The man was obviously struggling, so we took the time to keep running down the path. Soon we found a small box of a building with boxes behind it. We checked the door but it was locked. We went behind it and climbed the boxes to see no roof on the building. We jumped in and sat on the floor out of breath. We looked at each other to assure we were both fine. I lifted my hand and looked at the damage to see four big heavy gashes in it. Kei took it and looked at it. He looked at me with a questioned face. "Thorns of a bush," I whispered as quietly as possible.

We sat there for another minute in dark silence for the sun was setting behind the trees. We started to hear the man's heavy footsteps, and both of us tensed and held our breath. The footsteps came closer and closer. They stopped. Then the man banged on the locked door, making us flinch. We heard a few more steps, but they stopped again. Then we heard the sound of a knock on wood and remembered the boxes. We both looked up in fear, and there was the man looking down at us with his scarred face. He reached in and grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out, while Kei shouted, "No!" I grabbed at his hand to pull it off, but he only gripped tighter. I cried in pain, and he threw me onto the dirt of the path with huge force. I watched as he stomped toward me, and Kei popped out of the building and yelled "Stop!" The man stopped and turned his head to look behind at Kei. I shouted to Kei, "Just run!" Kei looked at me with surprise, and the man whipped his head toward me. He walked closer and I watched Kei watch with shock. The man said, "I'll get you boy." Then the man lifted his arm, and I saw Kei start running. Then I felt a strong harsh pain to my head, and my sight faded to black.

It felt like two days when I woke up. I woke up to Tai looking down at me with concern.
"Thank God! You're up!" he said, hugging me.
"Where's Kei?" I managed to ask.
"I don't know," he answered, looking upset. "I got trapped by weird people, but I got out after about twenty minutes. Once I was out, I ran to the entrance we came to and grabbed all our weapons. Then I ran to the exit you were supposed to be at and saw footprints on the path. So I rushed my butt down the path and finally found you on the ground. But there was no sign of Kei besides more footprints." He looked down the path, that I remember Kei running down.
"I hope he didn't get captured," I said, sitting up and rubbing my head.
"Someone was chasing you?" Tai asked with shock.
"Yeah, remember that big guy that I scared off at the restaurant?"
Tai's eyes were really wide now, "He was chasing you two?! Holy snap! I can't believe this!"
"We have to go find Kei," I said, looking into Tai's eyes with frightened seriousness.

prev chapter