Chapter 9: The Rumor
"Hey!" Loz slammed the little building's front door open. "Do you have first aid, bandages, or whatever?"
A big man, taller than Loz, turned around. He stood behind the counters, giving Loz an angry look. The man had dark brown hair with blue eyes. He wore dull loose clothes and seemed to be in his forties.
Entering the building, Loz walked up to the man. "Can't you use a nicer tone?" the man asked, chewing on a straw. He was in the middle of rearranging his clean bowls.
Stepping through the door, Kadaj looked around the room. There were other doors that lead to this small room. The dusty air made it look humid.
It had been hours since they rescued Theris. She was outside with Yazoo while he and Loz were trying to find something to help her legs. Right now, they were in the south of the Firefly Forest.
The green sky had darkened. Outside of the small old building, Theris was sitting on Loz's motorcycle. Yazoo leaned against his, cleaning his gun with a small white cloth and reloading it. Theris looked up at the sign that read: Daddy's Boats.
"Where the hell are we?" she asked, giving the sign a disgust look.
"It's what it looks like," Yazoo replied. "We can't cross the ocean without a boat."
"Huh," she narrowed her eyes. She looked around. The ocean probably was miles from here. "So… if we get a boat from this poor place, does that mean you three boys will have to push the boat towards the ocean while I'm riding on it? You know, since I can't walk."
He stopped cleaning his gun, staring at the building. He'd never thought about it. Where should they put the motorcycles? He couldn't trust leaving them here. What if some group of morons stole them? What if the thieves couldn't bring it with them and trashed their motorcycles? Yazoo's face darkened from the thought.
"We'll just bring a bigger boat," Loz said. He walked out of the building with medicine bottles and bandages.
"How much do we have on us?" Yazoo asked, cleaning his gun again.
Loz knelt down in front of Theris and lifted her left leg. "The old man in there said he'll give us a discount since we got an injured woman here."
The redhead pushed Loz's head away with her hand. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, moving her legs from his reach. Her legs ached when she did though and she moaned in pain.
He grabbed her left leg again. "I'm just going to help them so they won't hurt you so much," he growled angrily.
"…" She pouted.
He took off her boots and rolled her bloodstained pants up. Her legs were blue-purple, dried blood around her knees. Loz mumbled angrily at the sight, opening the bottles and getting the strips of bandages ready.
She slightly blushed, feeling uncomfortable about a man touching her. This was her first time ever having the opposite sex touching her bare legs. But what kind of man would do that? Although her legs were not in their best shape, it only made it more embarrassing for her. She looked away, closing her eyes. She did not want to see Loz touching her legs.
"Did that hurt?" Loz asked.
She opened her eyes and glanced at him. "…Yes, now stop touching me," she said, pulling her leg away.
He sighed, gently grabbing it again without hurting her. "You'll just have to get use to it. I will be changing the bandages from time to time," he told her. "Yazoo, let me borrow that cloth you're using."
"Clean it neatly when you're done using it," Yazoo said with a sigh. He threw it over to Loz and he caught it. Loz had begun wiping off some of the dried blood on Theris's legs.
"Why are you even helping, Loz?" she asked, leaning her upper body forward. "Why do you even care?"
He looked up at her. It did not really cross his mind why he would do it. "…Shut your mouth," he said, going back bandaging her. He was not going to even think about why.
Yazoo and Kadaj looked at the two of them, silent.
"So," Yazoo turned to Kadaj. "Did you call Zack for tips for crossing the ocean? We could get lost out there."
"I'm not calling that father wannabe," Kadaj said, glaring. He crossed his arms and quickly turned away, smiling now. "We'll survive on our own, with or without him."
"We already got information from the old man inside," Loz said. "We don't need to call Zack about it. We'll be fine on our own from here."
Yazoo eyed Kadaj's back, giving him a blank look.
Loz carefully finished wrapping her legs and pulled Theris's pants back down, throwing the bottles to the side. He helped her put her boots back on and turned to Kadaj and Yazoo.
"Don't litter," Theris said, in a mother's tone. "Pick the bottles up and throw them away properly."
He sighed heavily, glaring at her. He did as he was told, picking them up and entered the building to find a wastebasket. He might as well go wash Yazoo's cloth too.
"He's getting softer," Kadaj grinned.
Yazoo chuckled. "That's just because this woman is injured. He probably doesn't want to anger her since she's already in pain."
Theris gave the two boys a look. "My name is Theris, not 'girl'," she said.
Yazoo put his gun away. "You keep calling us 'boys' so I'm calling you 'girl'."
"Are you looking for a fight?"
"Of course not. You're not in the condition to."
She glared at Yazoo who grinned back at her.
Loz walked back outside with a grumpy expression. "The old man said that he will drive us to the shore where a bigger boat is…" he said, slowly trailing off in his sentence. "But what are we supposed to do with our motorcycles? We can't bring them along with us."
"Why not leave it with the man?" Theris suggested.
Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz were silent. Anything could happen to their beloved bikes if they left them here.
"That's what I said," the man's voice said. An old rusted pale blue truck drove slowly from the right side of the building. "I can't let you guys use a bigger, bigger boat. This is business, you know? I have a cellar down the basement. No one come here nowadays so it should be safe."
The three guys were silent again, thinking.
"What, you think I can't protect them?" the man asked, glaring at them. "Fine, leave them out here."
Yazoo looked at Kadaj. "I say we leave it in the cellar," he said.
"Ugh, fine," Kadaj nodded. "But if anything happens to them…"
"It'll be fine," the man assured. "Now hurry up. It will take about three to four weeks to reach the Dark Mist Town with my boats since the ocean's tides are pretty strong. A storm will be coming soon too. It happens once a month in the middle of the ocean. You guys said you're going there, right? You guys in a hurry?"
"Yeah," Loz replied.
"Then I suggest we leave now," the man said. Then he looked at Yazoo's gun. "Maybe you should leave that behind too."
Yazoo looked at his gun. "You mean this?"
The man nodded. "There's this rumor about a bitch running around in the Dark Mist Town, destroying every gun she sees and beating up the owner of the weapon. It has been going on for a year now and ever since then, guns aren't allowed there because of the damage she causes. Although, it ain't against any rules to bring a gun along…"
Theris laughed, "What? There's no one to stop her? Who's the mayor there?"
"Nobody," the man said. "It's a town where you can do anything you want… if you can, that is."
Yazoo smirked, pointing his gun in the air. "I would like to meet this bitch," he said. "I want to see just how she can destroy this while I'm holding it."
"Why is she doing that kind of thing for?" Loz asked, curious.
The man shrugged. "I heard from a person, who lived there once and came over to this side across the ocean. He said she is dressed somewhat like a samurai."
"Heh, samurai?" Kadaj grinned. "That can be why. She's brainwashed by her samurai-ness and thinks that her duty is to get rid of the guns."
Yazoo and Loz chuckled.
Theris sighed, rolling her eyes. "Men these days…" She just did not find Kadaj's statement very funny.
The man got out of the truck and grinned. "The name's Bennett," he introduced himself. "Okay, let's start putting those bikes away and start our little journey across the ocean, shall we?"