Chapter 14: "Off to Join the World"

If my memory serves me correctly, and if I didn't suffer from a concussion

because of Crusher accidently knocking me upside the head, the Hiwatari twins were

getting on the bus to take them to a far away place that they knew nothing about.

As the two climbed on, they saw two empty seats in the back, between Buster and

Jenna. When they hadscrambled around bunches of legs and feet and had finally plopped down in theirseats, Jenna said, "We don't have far to go

now." She was holding a road map of the south western states.

"Well, where exactly are we going, if you know?" Kaia asked her.

"Thelittle destination lightsays we're headed to Las Vegas."A girl with black hair piped up

unexpectedly as the bus began to move once again. "How long will that take us, Jenna?"

She turned to look at her.

Jenna looked at the watch she had on her wrist and at the map. "Well, if we don't stop it'll take

us about 20 hours. If we do, it depends on how long we stop and how often. I'll bet that

we'll be there by either tomorrow or the next day."

"Then we have a long way to go," Dakota replied before pulling his hat over his

eyes and dozing off.

"So how are you guys?" Nyra asked his twin.

"We're good...well, sort of," Kaia answered. "Our parents wouldn't tell us wherewe were

going. All they gave us were these pieces of paper." She heldout the folded scrap of paper

her father had given her. "He said to give it to ared-headed man."

"That's what our father said," piped in the black-haired girl. "Do your pieces

have letters on them?"

"Um, yeah. Pardon me for asking, but what is your name and do you mind budding out?" Kaia said to her with a bit of annoyance.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. Name's Zulee," she said proudly. "Zulee

Chang. I'm Jenna's cousin. Yep. Cool, huh?"

"Er, yeah, it's real cool. Do—" Zulee cut her off.

"And that's Kenwari," she told Kaia. She pointed to a kid with green hair.

"And that's T. J." She indicated a large kid beside him. Both were asleep. "What were

you going to say?"

"I need to talk to Jenna, okay? So do you mind talking to someone else?"

"Okeydoke." She turned around to talk to two girls in front of her.

"Wow. Talkative, isn't she?" Kaia asked Zulee's cousin.

"She's got a mouth all right," Jenna said. "She hasn't stop talking since we got on

the bus, and that was two days ago." She shook her head exasperatedly. "So what did you find out?"

"Well, we know who's after us all," Kaia explained. "And we know that there are

going to be loads of kids there."

"Yeah," Buster put in. "Dad said there's going to be at least 50, if not more. I

don't think I even know that many kids."

"Neither do I, but there must be some that we would recognize. The only ones I

know on here are my cousins and you guys. Did you guys get visited?" Jenna asked her

suddenly.

"Yes, actually, we did. Did yall?"

"Yep, this big guy came," Jenna recollected."I think his name was Crusher or something, I'm not sure.

He was huge though. Not weight wise, but height wise, you know what I mean?"

Kaia nodded. "Three guys came to our house. They had some info they had to

give to Mom and Dad, but we didn't get to hear any of it except who was after us."

"A man with spiky hair came to our house," Nyra said. "He didn't stay long,

though. Just to talk to Daddy, and then he left."

"Do you guys have anything to eat?" Twilight asked. Kaia jumped. "Sorry, Kaia.

Didn't mean to scare ya."

"It's alright. Yeah, we have some, if you like deer meat, of course." She brought out a bag of sandwiches

from her bag.

Twiligh blanched. "Uh…no thanks. I'm not that hungry after all."

"Okay, but you're missing a treat. You want any, Dakota?" she asked her brother.

He shook his head. "I'll save you one then." She put the sandwiches back. "What time is

it?"

"It's…" Jenna looked at her watch. "11 o'clock. We'll be stopping sometime

around 12:30 for lunch."

"Well, then, I think I will steal Dakota's idea and take a nap. Wake me when we

get there, will you please?"

"Sure," Jenna said as she whipped out a crossword puzzle that was written in

Chinese.

Kaia closed her eyes, and after a few minutes was asleep.

"Kaia. Kaia! Wake up. We're here."

Kaia woke up instantly. As she rubbed her eyes, she saw they were at a rest stop. "Okay. Do we have to get our bags?"

"No," Jenna said. "Just get up and come on. I hear they have good food!"

"When you say good food, do you mean Chinese food?" Kaia joked as she and Jenna made their way off the bus.

"No, actually. There's also good American food, and good Italian food, and Japanese, and so on and so on. I like all kinds. Watch it, the step is kind of high." She jumped off the last step.

Also getting down, Kaia looked up at the sign beside the little inn. "Tucumcari Bed & Breakfast" it said. "Where are we exactly?" she asked her friend.

"New Mexico," she replied. "The new Mexico. Come on, I'm hungry." She walked in, and Kaia followed her.

Once inside the inn, Kaia saw that her brother was already sitting somewhere. She went over to join him while being jostled by lots of hyped-up kids. "How long have you been here?" she asked him when she sat down.

"Couple minutes. How much do you think it would cost to get a Budweiser?"

"Dakota, we aren't old enough to drink yet."

"Yeah, but they don't know that."

"You're going to get in trouble," Kaia warned him.

"And if I do, you won't have to be a part of it." He saw a waitress pass him. "Hey," he said. She turned. "A Budweiser, please." He tossed her the quarter, and she caught it, and went to get the drink. "See? Now was that hard?"

"No," his twin said exasperatedly. "But if Ma finds out, you're going to be in a world of trouble."

"Who's says she will? Are you going to tell her?"

"No, but you know how Ma is. She can find out somethin' just by lookin' in your eyes." She gave him that play-evil look that the two had made up over the years.

"Yeah, well…" He seemed to be looking for a good comeback, and apparently he didn't find one. "Well, uh, we won't be seeing them for a while. Thanks," he said to the lady as she put down the bottle. He took a swig, and continued, "But that's not a good thing, and I'm not saying it is." His sister had just given him a dirty look that was not the evil glare.

"Good. Now, I'm going to get us something to eat. What do you want?"

"I don't care. Chili would be good." He handed her a 5 dollar bill.

"Thanks. You know, I should make you my official ATM."

"Ha ha ha. That's for my lunch. I didn't want you to have to pay for two."

"Wow, you actually learned some courtesy at home," she said.

"Yeah, aren't you proud of me?" he asked sarcastically as she walked away. When she had safely gone over to the counter, he looked around the dusty inn, and noticed a dart board over on the wall, on whichwere pictures, posters, saddles, and all sorts of stuff to do with the west. There were lights displaying the kinds of drinks sold, and all around were the kids that had been on the bus. One he recognized as Zulee. She was talking animatedly to Jenna, who looked like she was ready to blow off the top of her head. A few tables away, Twilight and Buster sat with Soren beside his big brother. Instantly Dakota had an urge to whip out his blade and send it straight at Twilight's head, which was right in front of another dart board. He was just about to put his ripcord in his launcher when Kaia came back.

"Here." She handed him his chili, the little bits of cheddar cheese floating at the top. "I hope it goes good with that beer of yours," she said sarcastically.

"Me, too," he said vaguelyas he put away his launcher. "Hey, Kaia," he replied. "How accurate do you think I would be if I launched at that dart board?" he nodded to the board he had just been looking at.

"I don't know, why?" she asked him suspiciously.

"Just wonderin'."He filled a spoon with chili andput it in his mouth."This is good. Needs a bit of salt, though." He sprinkled some on. "There we go. How's yours?"

"Good. How are we going to go to school?"

"You know that was really random, right? And what are you talking about?"

"We'll need to go to school too if we're going to be there 3 months. What month is it?"

"July. Why?"

"That's mean we'll turn 16 while we're there! Dang, I was kinda hopin' to turn 16 somewhere around Texas, but I guess can't all have what we want."

"Yep. Actually I'd rather not have school, but—" He stopped in mid-sentence, for there seemed to be someone standing next to their table.A boy with silver hair had stopped right at their table. His sapphire eyes were unfathomable, but Dakota knew he was trouble almost instantly. There was also a brown-headed kid next to him.

"Do you want to sit with me on the bus? You can if you want, instead of sitting with that loser," the silver one said, having know idea how much trouble had bought himself.

"This loser happens to be my brother," she said angrily, but not nearly as angry as her twin felt, who had whispered, "Oh, heck no.". "So if you don't mind, you and your little friend can mozy your stupid-ass selves out of here."

"No need to get hostile," he drawled. "It was just a question. Come on, Bryson." He and his friend walked off. Just as he reached the door he yelled back at her, "You still didn't answer my question." He turned to go out.

"Dakota, don't!" But it was too late. Dakota had already thrown the knife he was holding at the silver-headed kid. It stuck out of the wooden frame of the door.

"Hey, watch it!" The boy said angrily.

"No, you'd better watch it, cause I won't miss next time!" Dakota hollered back. The boys left, mumbling about crazy hicks from Texas.

Kaia sighed. "Dakota, I swear, you need to work on your anger. Get you some anger management classes.You make more enemies than you do friends."

"Yeah, well, he was asking for it. Man, I'm done." He pushed his bowl of barely-touched chili away from him. "I do hope for his sake he isn't going to the same place we're going."

"I think he is," Kaia said. "He was on the bus when we got on."

"Oh damn. Now I'll have to deal with him for 3 months, not to mention training and other junk."

"You'll feel better in a day or two."

"Yeah, maybe."

A horn honked outside, signaling that is was time to go. "I'll leave the tip," Kaia said.

Over the next day and a half, Dakota did not feel any better. He was already sick and tired of the bus, and he was also sick and tired of seeing nothing but desert for miles and miles. And to top it all off, he was not feeling real enthusiastical about being trapped in a building with that silver-headed kid for 3 months. But there was one good thing he knew would come out of it. He would become a better blader.

On the last half of the day, they finally entered Nevada. As they crossed the border, there was an instant change of scenery. They started seeing more cities with more lights and people than they had seen on the way there. About 10 minutes further, a green sign indicated that there was only 25 miles left until they reached Las Vegas.

"Checkmate," Kaia said. She and Nyra were playing a game of chess. Apparently, Kaia had just whupped Nyra's butt for the 6th time in a row. "That's six games."

"Oh come on, one more game please!" Nyra pleaded.

"No, we've played 6 times already. And besides, we're almost there. See?" Even though it was daylight, you could see the lights from the great city clearly. "Dakota, we're there."

"Yep," he said.

As they entered the city, everyone marveled at the fountains, malls, strips, and amazing hotels and casinos. But just as the everyone thought they'd be going down the main street, the bus insteadturned onto a dark alley and stop halfway down. The bus driver picked up his little walkie-talkie thing and spoke into it. Dakota and Kaia couldn't hear what he was saying. A minute later they realized that he called the people in the building to tell them they were there. The bus driver switched his walkie-talkie thing to make it a microphone. "We are at our destination. Please leave your bags and enter the building. Thank you." He got off.

"Well, I guess we better do what he said," Jenna said.

"What a marvelous idea," Twilight said sarcastically. "What great ideas are you going to come up with next, o smart one?"

"Well, aren't you the funniest," Kaia retorted, and she and Jenna walked off together.

"What's their problem?" Twilight asked. "Can't even take a joke." He and Buster and Dakota got off and looked up at the building. It looked most dilapidated. The windows were cracked and shattered and broken, some of the bricks on the building were crumbling, and the walls were covered with graffiti and mixed-matched paint. The door looked as if it had seen better days.

"Were going to be training in this dump?" Dakota said.

"Why are we—" Buster was going to ask, but was unintentionally cut off by a frantic Kaia.

"Dakota, I found him!" She said excitedly. "I found the red-haired man! Come on!" She pulled on his arm until he came. When he did, they both walked over to where a man was sitting.

His hair was indeed intensea bright-bright orange color. When they reached him, he looked up and smiled, to reveal teal-green eyes. "Well, well. I would know those two faces anywhere. Welcome to your new temporary home, Dakota and Kaia Hiwatari."

This is the end of chapter 14: "Off to Join the World". I hope you liked it, and please read the next chapter! Will update as soon as possible! Squirrel