A/N: And so it continues. I've been waiting for years to get to this point and I'm so excited it's finally happening. I want to dedicate this first chapter to Fleur Rouge, your review really meant a lot to me. I'm sad about Gel too, she was actually one of my favourites. I hope you'll like this season as much as the others.
Episode 1 – A Storm is Coming
Darryl was standing in the doorway of the warehouse, watching on as the wind blew garbage across the yard. Over the course of the day the wind had really picked up and dark clouds were chasing over the sky. It was probably going to be one hell of a storm. Gel had always been afraid of thunder. During the last storm, she had hidden under their covers the whole day. Even though he couldn't understand how a bit of thunder could be so frightening, he had found it endearing. And he was never one to complain about spending a whole day under the covers with his beautiful girlfriend. He pushed his hands into his pockets and brushed his fingers over the eyepatch that he was carrying around with him everywhere now. It was all he had left of her.
Ruby joined him in the door and looked out at the weather. "It's gotten worse. I really hope the others are going to be back before this thing goes down." Kayla, Paul, Ty, Lottie and Sammy had been gone to look for Cara for almost a week now. It was about time for them to get back with Cara or without her.
He felt her hand on his shoulder. In Liberty Darryl had thought Ruby to be the prettiest and toughest girl he knew, but when he had figured out he had no chance with her, he had stopped paying attention to her. These days everyone paid attention to him. He always felt their gaze and heard their whispers, but not many people tried to talk to him.
"How are you holding up, Darryl?"
He shrugged. How should he answer that? When Gel was taken all he thought about was getting her back. Every day he woke up thinking of some plan to free her from the Chosen, but ever since he found out she was dead, everything had stopped. He kept thinking he would wake up and turn around to see her smiling at him, that it was all just a bad dream. Nothing felt real anymore.
"It'll get better", Ruby said, squeezing his shoulder. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will." Darryl found that hard to believe, but he didn't know much about death. After his parents he had never been close enough to anyone to be affected by their deaths. Slade's death had been a shock to him, but this was different. He had planned his whole future around Gel and now he was left all alone.
When Ruby went back inside, Darryl followed her. The warehouses were divided into small rooms, but the Mall Rats had a bigger area to themselves in the back. Since their stay had only been supposed to be temporary, they'd thought it would be better to stay together. It had been two weeks since the defeat of the Chosen, but nobody had raised the question of going back to the hospital in a while. It seemed no one was very keen on going back to living there. Cloe, Patsy and KC were playing cards on one of the beds, while Ram, Tai-San, Lex, Ellie and Jack were having a conversation a bit further away. Their tribe had shrunk in the past couple of days, it almost seemed broken. Darryl sat down next to KC, being careful not to nudge his injured ankle.
Ruby stood between the beds. "I've just looked at the weather and it's gotten worse. There's definitely something big coming."
Lex snorted. "Are you a weather lady now?"
"It's called a meteorologist, Lex", Ram said.
Ruby ignored the comment and went on: "I'm getting worried about Lottie and the others. I think we should go look for them before they get caught in the storm."
"Don't you think they've noticed the change in the weather too? How does going after them help in any way?", Ram asked.
"It's been a long time since they went out. Maybe someone got injured and they can only move at a slow pace", Ruby said. "And I'm getting really tired of just waiting around here."
"I second that", Ellie agreed.
"Where do you suggest we look, if we do this?", Jack asked. "They could be anywhere."
"We could split up", Cloe said. "We'd cover more ground that way."
Ruby smiled at her. "So you're in?"
Cloe nodded, shaking her dark and blonde hair.
After Cloe had agreed to go out to look for the others, Patsy had felt obligated to go too. Mostly she wanted to look out for her friend. You'd never know when she'd have another episode and she was still the best to calm her down when that happened. It would be good to get out again, but she wasn't looking forward to taking a walk in this weather.
She sat in the dining hall, tying her boots and waiting for the others to get ready, when Cloe found her. "You don't have to come just because I'm going."
Technically that was true, but Patsy still felt that she needed to look out for her. Cloe's health and grasp on reality had improved tremendously since she found her years ago, but Patsy couldn't help but think of her as vulnerable. Cloe didn't like it, she knew. "Maybe that's not the reason I'm going."
"Really?" Cloe cocked an eyebrow. "It's definitely not because of Cara and you don't really know Sammy, Lottie and Kayla and… Ty and Paul, have your feelings changed about them?"
"No", she admitted. Patsy knew her brother was happy now and she also knew that Ty was happier now than he could have ever been with her, but it didn't change how she felt about them. Even if they were meant to be together, that was no reason to betray her like that. They had been two of the people she loved and trusted the most and they hadn't cared about her feelings at all. She knew that she should be worried about Paul, but she just wasn't. She wouldn't exactly be happy if she never saw him or Ty again, but she wouldn't be sad either.
"So you are only coming because of me", Cloe said.
"I also need to get out of here. KC is so needy it's driving me crazy."
Cloe laughed. "That ankle can't heal fast enough. He's making everyone insane."
The rest of their little group trickled into the dining hall one by one. Patsy was especially surprised to see Ellie join them. In the past she had preferred to stay back with Wylla, but apparently that was Jack's job now.
"Ellie, you're coming too?", Cloe said, voicing Patsy's thoughts exactly.
The older girl nodded, smiling. "I need to hone my skills, don't I? If I stay back too much, I'll forget all about investigating, adventuring and fighting. And it's good for Jack and Wylla to spend some time alone."
When Ruby, Ram and Darryl arrived, they headed out. The wind had picked up again, whipping their hair into their faces and tugging at their clothes. It was hard to see, with all the dirt and rubbish whirling up around them and Patsy whished, she had a pair of goggles. She had seen some nice green ones on a girl of the warehouse tribe that would go great with her outfit. Well, she probably wouldn't have lent them to her anyway.
"I know they took the way out of the city past the hospital", Darryl shouted over the wind.
"From there on the most obvious routes are the beach, the woods or to follow the road into the countryside", Ellie said. "We should split up, when we get there."
"Ram and I will go into the woods", Ruby said.
"Will we now? Do I get a say in this?" Ram asked, but his voice was playful, not the way he was talking to her, when Patsy and Cloe first arrived at the hospital. Patsy still didn't like him much, but she had to admit that he was useful. He was still creepy and how anyone could like to spend time with him was just beyond her.
"Patsy and I will take the beach", Cloe offered, ignoring Ram's banter. How she was able to be so calm around him still made Patsy wonder. Maybe that was why Cloe was always bringing Paul and Ty up. Maybe she couldn't understand how Patsy could hold onto her grudge, if she had decided to be civil with Ram. Cloe had always been the nicer of them and even Ram's brainwashing hadn't been able to change that.
"Guess that leaves Darryl and me with the road then", Ellie said.
"We only go for three hours tops", Ruby said. "And by that I mean, you're back at the warehouses in three hours. If you feel the weather gets too dangerous before that, you head back earlier."
Patsy doubted the storm would hold off for that long, but they might get lucky. They were all due for some luck now. Fighting the Chosen had taken everything out of the Mall Rats, it was time fate cut them some slack.
She was glad when they reached the city limits and split up like decided earlier. At least that meant she didn't have to see Ram's ugly face for a while. The wind was blowing in their faces as they made their way towards the beach and made it hard to keep the eyes open or even breathe.
"This is no ordinary storm", she shouted, even though Cloe was right beside her. "Maybe we should get back already."
"We haven't even been to the beach yet, Patsy", Cloe disagreed. "We'll make it back safely."
"Glad you're so optimistic, but we're already struggling and it hasn't even really started yet."
"More walking, less talking then."
Patsy rolled her eyes at her. There was no point in talking anyway. Most of their words got lost in the wind and all she had to say were complaints about the weather, which she was sure, Cloe wasn't interested in hearing.
Just as they reached the beach, it started raining. At first it was only a few droplets, enough to be annoying but no reason to seek shelter immediately. Patsy looked out at the sea and the huge, dark waves rolling to the shore. The water was pressing into the land, making the beach much narrower than it usually was. Imagine being in the water now, there would be no escape. It was terrifying. Just when she thought about drowning, the sky opened up above them and it started to pour down. Within seconds they were drenched from head to toe. The rain fell so densely it was hard to see only a few metres ahead of them.
"Cloe!", Patsy shouted. She could only see her silhouette to the right and reached out to grab her hand. "Cloe!" Her voice didn't even reach her own ears before the name was ripped away by the wind. When she finally found Cloe's hand it was cold and wet. She could see her lips moving, but didn't hear anything over the storm.
"What?"
Cloe clearly didn't hear her either. Instead of losing time by shouting at each other, the girls started to run towards the cliffs. Patsy was sure she had seen some caves in there right before the rain started. Running was hard in the sand and with their wet clothes weighing them down, not to speak of the horrible visibility conditions. She felt Cloe fall behind, her fingers slipping out of her grip. Come on, Clo, keep up! She willed herself forward, damning the rain for making their grip so slippery. In front of her, she could see the opening of a cave now. Just a little bit further. Once inside the cave they could wait out the storm. That was when she lost hold of Cloe completely and then she clearly heard a scream over the howling of the storm.
Shivering Patsy stood in the storm looking around for her friend. It took a while to spot the dark figure lying in the sand only a few steps away from her. Cloe was lying face down in the sand and seemed not to move.
"Cloe! Come on, no time for a nap now!", she shouted as she knelt down next to her. When Cloe didn't respond, she turned her over. Cloe looked to be peacefully sleeping, if one ignored the sand sticking to half of her face, where she was bleeding heavily from a head wound. She must have fallen on something or gotten hit by something the wind picked up. "Shit!"
Patsy looped her arms under Cloe's shoulder and started dragging her to the cave. The rain was washing the blood and sand from Cloe's face, but the blood just kept coming. This was not good. They should never have split up. If anyone could help her now, it was Ruby and there was no way of getting to her while the storm was raging on.
She was exhausted as she reached the cave and only dragged Cloe far enough inside to shield her from the elements. Panting she sat down next to Cloe's head and started unbuttoning her jacket with shaky fingers. It was sopping wet, but it would still do for a pillow. Carefully she lifted Cloe's head and pushed it underneath, then set it back done.
"Cloe! Cloe, wake up!" She pushed back Cloe's wet hair to take a better look at the wound. She had to somehow stop the bleeding, but how? She knew nothing about first-aid or medicine at all. Already the cold was starting to creep into her body, sending shivers down her spine, making her teeth chatter. "Come on, Clo, don't leave me hanging like this."
There was not a worse place to be than the woods in the middle of a storm. Even the trees couldn't protect them from the pouring rain and the wind was breaking branches of the trees, flinging them through the air. One was flying right at them and ha grabbed Ruby to pull her to the ground. He liked to think he was over his paranoia of germs, but he still hated to lie in the mud like this. His work on the farm had not hardened him in that aspect. He could already feel his skin crawling with tiny bugs invisible to the human eye.
"This was the worst idea, you've ever had", he grumbled as they got back to his feet.
"Worse than breaking up with you?"
Ram frowned at her. Wasn't it one of those silent agreements between them that they wouldn't bring that up? It would make it easier to be just friends with her. By now he had let go of his anger towards her for just throwing him away when things got hard, but it hadn't changed that he still loved her. Something he would never admit to anyone. He knew perfectly well that at least part of her regretted the breakup, she had only intended it as a break. Ram hadn't liked the idea at all. He wasn't some toy she could put on the shelf, whenever she grew bored of it. He wouldn't let anyone treat him like that, even if it meant, they would only ever be friends again. There were other fish in the sea, right? At some point even those annoying emotions go away or find another person to stick to. At least Ram hoped that would be the case.
"We should find shelter", he said.
"Too soon?", Ruby asked. "Yeah, I guess, too soon. Sorry."
"I hope you didn't drag me out here in the middle of a storm to talk about that. That's not a conversation I intend to die for."
He quickened his pace, to get away from Ruby, but mostly to find somewhere for them to wait out the worst of the storm and not get hit by flying branches. It was harder to move now. The rain had turned the ground into slippery mud and the wind kept blowing water and leaves into their eyes. He shouldn't have agreed to come, but the prospect of staying behind with the nagging KC, lovesick Lex and stay-at-home-dad Jack hadn't been much better. And there was a very teeny tiny part of him that felt responsible for Sammy. He reminded him a bit of a younger Ved just with a much nicer attitude about him, well if you ignored the occasional suicidal and depressive thoughts.
"Ram, over there!" A bit of warmth seeped through his wet clothes into his arm, where Ruby had grabbed him. She pointed in between some trees, where Ram could see treehouses. He wasn't sure treehouses was the safest option right now, but it was better than staying out in the rain.
When they climbed up into the nearest treehouse they realized the place only had holes for windows and the door was broken, but at least the roof was still intact and could keep the rain out. What wouldn't he give for a nice fire now or just a set of clean and dry clothes.
Ruby was studying the wall, when she waved him over. Since he had nothing else to do, he joined her. Her fingers were shaking as she traced some carvings in the wall, birds, letters, different kind of leaves. "I think this is where the Harpies used to live", she said through chattering teeth.
"Guess so. They had the right idea to leave after the Consilium."
"You think so? I mean, the Anarchists and Chosen were bad, but it's our home. We can't just leave it."
"Looks like most of the tribe disagrees." He moved to the window to watch the storm outside. The rain was now so dense he could hardly see the treehouse on the opposite side of the clearing. "If the storm doesn't kill us, hypothermia definitely will."
"Always the optimist", Ruby said, sarcastically.
"I'm freezing and so are you. It's a simple fact."
"You're right." She looked down herself, then started to unzip her jeans jacket. "We should get out of these wet clothes." Without hesitation she lifted her shirt over her head and threw it on the floor just like her jacket. Ram just gaped at her. Was she for real right now? Apparently so, because it only took her a few more seconds until she was only wearing her underwear. He hadn't exactly forgotten how great she looked, but he had forbidden himself to think about it… much.
"Come on! You're the one worried about hypothermia", she said, pulling at the zipper of his jacket. She had almost taken it off him, when his brain function kicked back in and he swatted her hands away.
"Stop that! I can do it myself." But he didn't actually follow through on his words. It wasn't that he didn't want her to see him, because she had seen him naked plenty of times, but it was different now, wasn't it?
"We need body warmth and a blanket maybe, but we don't have one of those, so get on it", she said, then grinned at him. "And I thought you were a genius."
"This is all very convenient", he muttered while he pulled his wet shirt off. "I'm starting to think you did actually plan this."
Ruby laughed. "So I could get you out of your clothes? Yes, I practiced my rain dance for months now."
"Funny."
He felt awkward, when his trousers fell to the floor and he was standing in front of her half-naked and shivering, especially when he could see her checking him out. "Body warmth, eh?", he said almost a bit too defensively and opened his arms.
The smile on her face was almost shy, almost. He could see the familiar glint in her eyes right before she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder. At first he didn't feel much of her body warmth, which probably was due to them both being human icicles at this point, but slowly he started to feel a little warmer. Her idea hadn't been that bad, and he would be lying, if he said he didn't like holding her like that again.
"Maybe we should sit down", she said softly. That would be best, he didn't fancy standing like this for the next few hours. Shuffling around a bit, because neither of them wanted to let go of their only source of warmth, they finally found a spot to huddle together.
Neither of them said a word for a while. Ram was feeling too awkward, too overwhelmed with how much he still cared for her. It had been easy to ignore, when he had ignored her existence all together or there had been Chosen to fight and people to make fun of. There wasn't really anything in this place to take his mind of her and she was everywhere right now.
"I'm sorry", she whispered.
"You didn't make me come out here", he said. It was easier to talk normally to her, when he didn't have to look at her. "And despite all your practice, I don't think your rain dance caused this downpour."
"No, I meant… You know… I'm sorry for what happened to us."
"Do you really think this is the best place to talk about that?" Half-naked in the middle of nowhere, when both of them might freeze to death or get hit by lightning.
"I think it's the perfect place. At least here you can't avoid me."
He turned his head to look out of the window, where it was still pouring down. Thunder was rumbling now too and every now and then the otherwise dark treehouse was lit up by lightning outside. He could try. Having this conversation would be about as fun as being hit in the head by a tree, but Ruby would probably just run after him.
"I've missed you so much and… I know that I might screw everything up again by bringing it up now, but…" When she sighed, Ram could feel her hot breath on his chest. "Maybe I'm just too stubborn to give up on us yet. We're both pretty pig-headed, so it's almost surprising we lasted as long as we did."
"You were the one to call it quits in the first place, Ruby. That was all you", he reminded her.
"I wanted a break, because we were fighting all the time, not because I didn't love you anymore."
"And instead of working on that, you decided it was best to just abandon the sinking ship, I remember." He regretted the bitterness in his tone, not wanting Ruby to hear it, although she probably knew him well enough to know how he felt about that anyway.
"I know I hurt you that day, Ram, and that was never my intention. I wasn't happy anymore and I don't think you were either."
"But did you ask? You just assumed and you assumed wrong, because back then you were the only thing that made me happy. Everyone else hated me, probably still do, I wouldn't be surprised." He shrugged. The others in the tribe meant nothing to him. He had found a new appreciation for Ellie, Jack and Sammy, but all in all he only cared for Ruby's opinion of him. "And you chose that time to leave me too. It was really classy, Ruby."
"It's not my fault you used to hurt people everywhere you went and what you did to Cloe was disgusting. Just because I cared about you, didn't give you the right to treat me the way you did. You were always accusing me", she said. Ram had imagined her to be angry, but instead her voice broke. Had he really treated her so badly? He couldn't remember, most of the time he just felt ostracized by the others and that he didn't trust Ruby to stay with him. Well he had been right about that, he hadn't known that he had apparently driven her to that point.
He could pretend all he wanted, but knowing how vulnerable she was right now, Ram wanted nothing more than to protect her and make it all go away. Ignoring the stiffness in his fingers, he started to gently caress her back.
"I didn't know, I was doing that", he admitted. "I mean, I knew we were fighting, but to me it was never really about us. I was venting and you were the only one there to listen."
"You accused me of cheating on you. How is that not about us?"
"I… well… I was afraid of losing you."
"You could've handled that better." He felt her hand move up his spine until it rested in his neck, rubbing small circles. She always knew how tense he got there. "I didn't want to bring up the old issues again though. It's been a while and I think we've both learned some things about ourselves."
"Oh yeah?", he asked. "What do you think I've learned?"
"That you do need people. I know you like to seem blasé about everything, but you did stop Sammy from killing himself and have looked out for him ever since. You've helped him."
Looking back on that Ram couldn't explain why he had done it. At that point Sammy was nothing to him but a mopey teenager who hated his life and still he couldn't just let him blow his brains out. Maybe all that fear in Sammy's life had reminded him of himself prior to becoming Lord Ram of the Technos, maybe all the goodness of the Mall Rats had rubbed off on him.
"And what have you learned about yourself?", he asked, genuinely curious. Ruby hadn't changed at all in their time apart, not that he could tell.
"I realized that I could have good life without you, but I don't want that. I want you."
He looked down at her, unable to hide his smile. Her bluntness was one of the things he loved about her, even more so now. His heartbeat increased, when he saw the determination on her face. If he shot her down now, she wouldn't accept it and that was exactly what he had wanted from her all those months ago. Not that he wanted to tell her no at all.
"I still love you", she said, her words barely audible over the storm raging outside.
He cupped her face with his hands and brought her closer, telling her he did too with his eyes alone, before they slid shut and he kissed her. Her lips sparked a fire in his chest that warmed his whole body and even returned the feeling to his numb fingers. He had missed her, but he hadn't known how much until now. Suddenly he was glad about the storm trapping them here for what might be hours, because he never wanted to let go of her again.
The bad news was they were stuck in the middle of nowhere with a thunderstorm raging on and they were only protected by an old bus stop. The good news was it was one of those old fashioned ones with walls on each side and just a small opening to get in and out, so they weren't completely drenched. He and Ellie were sitting opposite each other on the bench and it was kind of awkward. Darryl couldn't remember ever having spent time alone with her. When they were still on the road and looking for the others it was different. At least there was the weather and their surroundings to comment on, but both of them had pointed out the terrible weather several times now and wondered when it would stop even more often.
"I bet you'd rather have gone with Ruby, right?", Ellie asked after a while.
Darryl shrugged. He didn't really care about his company these days and the only reason he was uncomfortable with Ellie was, because he could sense that she felt the silence was awkward. Out of everyone in their group Cloe would probably have been most the pleasant, she seemed like someone who would hang out with you in silence and not care. Ruby would just have wanted to talk about Gel and he didn't hate that, but there was only so much talking he could do. None of his memories or words would bring her back, so he was getting a bit tired of it all.
"It's not you", he told Ellie eventually. "I'm just not very good company at the moment."
"I didn't expect you to be, Darryl. I was a complete mess when Alice died, I know how hard it is to lose someone you love so much." She smiled a lopsided smile, then looked away. "I just don't feel like I'm the best person to be stuck with in this situation. I would offer to listen if you wanted to talk, but… I don't think I'm the person you want to talk to."
"That's okay. I don't really want to talk about anything if that's alright."
"Yeah, yeah, of course. We'll just wait out the storm", she said quickly.
He pulled Gel's eyepatch out of his pocket again, remembering how happy she had been, when they had given it to her. Losing an eye had seemed like the worst thing that could happen to her at the time, but Gel had adjusted to it quite fast. She had been worried about him not being attracted to her anymore, but Darryl had never looked at her differently. Whenever he caught a glimpse of the empty eye socket, it had always just reminded him how close he'd been to losing her and he was even happier that he hadn't. Now the eyepatch was all he had left.
When he felt Ellie watching him, he looked up again. He didn't mind the pity on her face, he pitied himself too.
"She always looked like a glamorous pirate to me", Ellie said. "When she first joined us, she was such a pain. Always loud, always needing to be the centre of attention especially with the guys. Now it's really quiet."
"It is", he agreed. "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Of course. I won't tell anyone."
He hesitated for a moment. He hadn't even told Kayla or KC, not even Ruby when she pressured him to talk about his feelings. Now that she was gone, it wasn't even important, was it? "I was going to ask her to marry me", he said, quietly. "I had it all planned out already. Well, the speech, not where and when. It had to be something big, you know Gel."
"Oh, Darryl…"
"I was going to tell her that I'd want to spent my life by her side and never want to be separated again. That I'd protect her and love her, because being with her had made me the happiest man on earth." He was unable to cry now, having shed all his tears in the past days. He wasn't all that sad anymore, just… He didn't really feel anything at all.
There were tears in Ellie's eyes though and it made Darryl feel strange to know that she cared so much about him. Maybe being a mother had made her emotional or maybe she had always been and he'd just never known.
"Why aren't you and Jack married? Haven't you been together for years?"
"Well… we've been separated a lot of the time. I don't know why. If he asked, I'd say yes, but honestly I don't see either of us as the marrying-type. We don't need a ring and a party to know, we love each other."
Darryl could understand that, but he had always wanted to get married and have kids at some point and even though the world had changed, he wanted to keep that custom alive. Maybe he was old-fashioned. The constant noise of the rain, wind and thunder quieted down to a low rustle and eventually he could only hear a few scattered drops hitting the roof over them.
"I think it stopped."
Both of them jumped off the bench to look. They had been sitting inside the little bus stop for ages, so long, that the prospect of getting out and moving was more than exciting. Laughing Ellie jumped outside, when they discovered it really had stopped.
"Should we head back now? Or go on looking for the others?" Darryl asked. If she wanted to get back to Wylla and Jack, he would understand, but he wouldn't mind going a bit further. He loved being out in the countryside again, it felt a bit like home.
"After that storm they might be hurt. I think we should keep looking. We can head back tomorrow morning if that's alright with you", Ellie suggested.
"That sounds good."
Looking up at the wooden ceiling, Ram couldn't help but think that maybe everything would fall into place now after all. Things had felt up in the air after the defeat of the Chosen, but now he felt like anything was possible. It was cheesy and of course, he'd never say it out loud, but he truly believed tons of options had just opened up to him.
They had been so caught up in each other that they had barely noticed the storm outside moving on, but when they heard someone climb the ladder to their treehouse, they were fully alert. They rushed to quickly pull their wet clothes on again, but hadn't covered themselves enough to be considered decent, when Sammy and Lottie barged in.
"Ruby! Ram! We saw you heading up here after the storm started, but we didn't want to get soaked so we w-…" Lottie's cheerful words drained from her lips, when they saw them. Their jaws fell open and then Lottie quickly turned her back on them. "Oh my god! Eww!"
Sammy didn't have the same decency. He stared at them, well, mostly Ruby, until Lottie noticed and gave his arm a sharp pull and he turned around as well. Ram took his time putting on the rest of his clothes, he wasn't too excited about it, considering how cold and wet they were and the whole situation amused him more than anything else. Ruby seemed to be slightly embarrassed, at least she did hurry into her clothes and the deep blush on her cheeks gave it away.
"You can turn around now", Ruby said, but the younger Mall Rats took their time to do so, not trusting her word.
"What are you doing out here anyway?", Sammy asked.
"Looking for you. Ideally we would've found you before the storm", Ruby answered, while running a hand through her knotted hair. "Where's the rest of you?"
"We split up to look for Cara", Lottie said. "Kayla headed into the countryside, she wanted to ask around at Shane's farm and Ty and Paul wanted to look along the coast."
"Seems to be the obvious solution", Ram said. "Let's hope the others all found shelter as well."
"We should check. Cloe, Patsy, Darryl and Ellie can't haven gotten far before it started. We can find them and then go back to the warehouses", Ruby said.
"Kayla, Paul and Ty should be on their way back too. We agreed only to go for a couple of days. I hope they had more luck finding Cara." Lottie seemed worried, which Ram found amusing. If any of the little ones could look out for themselves, it was Cara. That girl was mean. She'd probably clock a guy just for looking at her weird. That was one person he wouldn't miss having around.
"I'm sure they have", Ruby said comfortingly.
Sammy, who had been looking out the window during the short conversation, quickly turned around and held a finger against his lips. Immediately alarmed Ruby rushed to him, to get a look at what he had seen. Ram followed a little slower. There probably wasn't anything out there right after the storm that required such a big reaction, but Sammy was jumpy.
"What is it?", Lottie whispered.
"I saw some people outside. Maybe three. They didn't look friendly."
"Well, good thing, I brought this." With a wide grin he pulled his zapper out of his pocket and strapped it to his wrist. Now that he had it back in working condition, he had gotten used to carrying it around, usually concealed, because he didn't want to unnerve anyone in the city, but right now, he was glad that he had taken up the habit.
Ruby grabbed his arm, looking at him sternly. "Don't go after them!"
"Not after them. I can easily lead them away from here and take them out with this baby. Then we can head back to the city without worrying about them following us", he explained. "They've probably tracked us here. We left plenty of footprints out there."
They couldn't know if the people out there were dangerous or not, but Ram would rather not risk it. There was definitely a chance of them attacking them from behind on their way back and in that case his zapper wouldn't do them any good and Lottie and Sammy weren't the most skilled fighters.
"That's a great idea", Sammy said with the usual enthusiasm he had for all of Ram's ideas. It was nice to have a fan of his work again.
"I don't know." Ruby still hadn't let go of his arm.
He smiled at her. "Come on, Ruby, let me do it. It'll only take a few minutes and then we can find the other and get back. Put on some dry clothes, get food, sleep in a real bed." He could see the resolve dwindle with every argument he made and in the end her grip loosened. "I'll be back in no time." Sealing the promise with a quick peck to her lips, he rushed out of the treehouse.
