imperfect (18 page)

Chelsa eased the pace a little, but only
just a little. The warning light hovered between yellow and red. If
they weren’t careful, they may very well end up in the middle of a
blizzard with no working droid-horses and several miles away from
the nearest civilization.

“
How many more miles until
we reach New Amsterdam?” Jaiden shouted. The howling wind stole his
words from his lips as soon as he shouted them.

“
What?” Chelsa
asked.

“
He asked how many more
miles until we reach New Amsterdam,” Kristi hollered.

“
Four miles.”

The storm began in earnest, sending searing
waves of wind slicing through the air. An icy, dagger-like mixture
of sleet and hail pelted anyone crazy enough to be outside in this
kind of weather. Within minutes, Kristi was soaked to the bones and
shivering violently. She cursed herself for not wearing her thermal
sweatshirt and water-wicking jacket.

“
We’re not going to be
able to reach the town in time,” Jaiden shouted to Chelsa. “I say
we stop and wait out the storm instead of plowing onwards. If we
wait much longer, we won’t be able to set up the tent in the strong
wind.”

“
Alright. Let’s pull off
the road and head towards that clump of willow trees ahead.” Chelsa
turned her droid-horse and plunged through three feet of snow and
into a hidden ditch eight feet deep.

Her horse struggled to paw its way out of
the ditch, but its effort was in vain.

The roiling mass of black clouds hovered
directly above them, and they felt the fury of the storm; the wind
picked up speed and pounded ice chunks at them without mercy.

“
Chelsa, tie the rope I’m
going to throw to you around your horse,” Kristi yelled.

She edged Mist to the lip of the ditch. Then
she fumbled about, searching for the ropes in her backpack with
numb fingers. “Jaiden, get behind me.”

Jaiden didn’t hear her though, so she
repeated louder, “Jaiden, get behind me!”

This time he caught her words and guided his
droid-horse a few yards behind Mist. Kristi finally got ahold of
the ropes and threw one end to Chelsa and passed the other end to
Jaiden. She wrapped the rope around her wrist several times then
said to Chelsa, “Did you secure the rope around your horse?”

Chelsa gave her a thumbs-up.

“
We’re going to try to
pull Chelsa and her horse out.” Kristi yelled over her shoulder to
Jaiden.

She urged Mist to back away from the ditch.
Mist’s shoulder quivered from exertion and strain. Kristi tugged on
the rope, easing some of the burden off Mist and Chelsa’s horse
slowly started to free itself from its frosty prison.

Chelsa patted her horse, giving it
encouragement. The droid lunged up in a sudden burst of power and
the upper half of its body became liberated. The droid-horse’s
front legs scrabbled at the rim of the trench while its hind legs
scrambled on thin air, trying to find footholds.

Kristi’s wrist burned, though whether from
the cold or the rope, she couldn’t tell.

“
Watch out!” Chelsa
screamed right before her droid-horse lost footing on solid ground
and crashed back into the ditch, pulling Mist and Kristi towards
the edge.

Mist sat down on her hindquarters to stop
both herself and the rider from plummeting down. They skidded to a
stop less than two inches away from the brim of the trench.
Kristi’s heart thudded wildly in her chest.

Mist stood up and tried to back away from
the snowy trap, but Chelsa’s droid-horse, panicking and wild-eyed,
reared up; this caught Mist by surprise and she reared up onto her
hind legs as well. Kristi was launched off Mist’s back and sailed
through the air before dropping into the ditch, mere inches away
from the failing hooves of Chelsa’s droid-horse.

“
Are you okay?” Chelsa
wrinkled her eyebrows with concern and yanked down the reins of her
horse, forcing the droid to drop back to all four legs. Then she
rushed besides Kristi. “Kristi, can you hear me?”

Kristi groaned. Her entire body throbbed,
her nerves shrieking at her for allowing them to experience such
suffering. She waited for the worst of the agony to subside before
speaking. “I think I sprained my wrist.”

She tried to push herself up into a sitting
position and nearly passed out from the angry waves of pain
radiating from her wrist and ribs. Chelsa grasped Kristi beneath
her arms and, with their combined effort, managed to stand Kristi
on her feet.

Mist nickered at Kristi from above. Jaiden
came over to the edge of the pit, alarm written all over his face.
“I’m going to try to pull just one of you out at a time.”

“
Get Kristi out first,”
Chelsa said. “I think she injured herself pretty bad.”

Chelsa removed the rope around her droid and
tied it around Kristi’s waist. Jaiden and his droid-horse were able
to tug her out in a matter of seconds. Then he hoisted Kristi a
safe distance away from the trough before re-attempting to free
Chelsa’s droid-horse.

It took several tries, but Chelsa’s horse
finally crawled out of the ditch. Chelsa clambered out with the
help of the ropes. In the meantime, the storm had weakened a bit.
Together, they shambled their way to the clump of willow trees.

The trees blocked out some
of the wind, which allowed Jaiden and Chelsa to set up the tent
while Kristi tended the droid-horses by rubbing antifreeze on their
metal joints. Task completed, Kristi shoved the sleeping bags
inside of the tent. The cozy, dry
sleeping
bags lured her to fall asleep and escape the biting
cold.

“
Change out of your
clothes,” Chelsa said. “You don’t want to catch hypothermia in this
weather.”

“
You should change first
since you’re the wettest,” said Jaiden.

“
I think we’re all equally
soaked.” Nevertheless, Chelsa entered the tent, leaving the task of
starting a fire to Jaiden and Kristi.

They tried to start a fire to no avail. The
wind blew it out every time they drew a single spark to alight on
the tinder. In the end, they turned on the solar lamp, which
provided some light but not much heat. Chelsa exited the tent and
let Kristi enter.

Kristi stripped away her sopping clothes as
fast as possible. Then she examined her ribs, which still throbbed
painfully. The discomfort had receded some, but breathing still
hurt. A mean, purple-green bruise was starting to form. Her wrist
was definitely sprained, if not broken; it was becoming a swollen,
tender lump.

Kristi grabbed the first aid kit and hustled
out, not wanting Jaiden to catch hyperthermia.

“
Chelsa, can you bind my
wrist?” she asked.

“
I think your wrist is
broken,” Chelsa said, “which is lucky. A broken wrist will heal
faster than a sprained one if we can obtain bone-growth supplement
tablets.”

She unraveled some self-adhesive gauze and
prodded at the puffy joint. Kristi winced at Chelsa’s gentle
touch.

“
Was I too rough?” Chelsa
asked.

“
No. Go ahead and bind
it.”

Kristi forced herself to not twitch a muscle
while Chelsa wound the wrapping several times about her wrist.
Chelsa gave the bindings a soft tug, causing Kristi to bite down on
her tongue hard enough to draw blood. Chelsa pressed down on the
self-adhesive gauze, making sure they were secure.

“
That’s all I can do for
now,” Chelsa said. “There’s nothing much you can do to speed up
your healing until we get some bone-growth supplements.”

“
Let’s worry about that
tomorrow.”

Jaiden popped his head outside of the tent
flap to let them know they could go in. Kristi inched into her
sleeping bag, taking care not to put pressure on her injured wrist
and ribs. At long last, she waited for sleep to take her away from
the cold and misery.

chapter twenty

[ Troop ]

Someone’s following
me.
Troop knew it without a doubt. He
just
didn’t know who. Or what.
What if it’s my father tailing me? Nah, that’s
not possible. There’s no way he could’ve survived a sixty-story
fall out the window.

Students set free from
school packed the streets. Troop had a private lesson with Vikens
this afternoon. If he didn’t lose his stalker soon, he would be
late for it, which was not good. A perfect Perfect was never late
for anything.

The bakery awaited Troop
three blocks away.
Perhaps I’m just being
paranoid. Maybe I’m imagining that someone’s following me.
However, Troop couldn’t convince himself
otherwise.

A piece of red fabric
flashed by from across the street. Troop blinked. The person in the
red shirt was gone—however, Troop was positive red-shirt-person was
the person tracking him. Troop racked his brain, trying to think of
a brilliant scheme to lose the guy.

He scuffled down the
sidewalk, keeping an eye out for anyone wearing red. Although a few
pedestrians had on red clothing, none were his suspected
stalker.

Troop pushed open the door to the bakery and
caught another glimpse of red. He shot back outside. Too slow.
Red-shirt-person had disappeared once more.

Layla looked up from the fudge pops she was
decorating and said, “What would you like?”

“
Strawberry muffins.” He
remembered the password this time.

“
Vikens is already waiting
for you.”

He thanked Layla and went downstairs.
Something red danced at the edge of his vision right before Troop
started downstairs. He spun around, almost losing his balance at
the brink of the cellar stairs.

No one.
That’s it. I’m hallucinating.
Troop drifted downstairs and entered the study
room.

A look of displeasure creased over Mr.
Vikens face; he tapped his smart-watch. Troop swallowed hard.

“
You’re two minutes late,
Troop.”

“
Sorry, sir. I met some
unforeseen troubles on the way here.”

“
You should’ve given
yourself extra time to come here. Better early than
late.”

And better late than
never,
thought Troop.

As if reading Troop’s
thoughts, Mr. Vikens said, “And it’s better to be on time than
early or late.” Vikens walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a
hardcover book with the tips of his fingers. “We’ll be reading then
analyzing a few stories from
Grimm’s Fairy
Tales
.”

The man peeled open the
tome, flipping through the pages until he reached the page with the
words “Little Red-Cap” on it. Then he flattened the book against
the smart-desk and slid it over to Troop.

“
Let me know when you’re
done reading this story. Be sure to note figurative language,
themes and the author’s message to readers.”

“
Alright.”

Troop turned the book
around so that the words weren’t upside down. Vikens buried his
nose in
Hamlet,
leaving Troop to start his assignment.

Two hours later, Troop
replaced
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
back on the shelf and left the bakery.

A hand slammed into
his
windpipe, shoving Troop against a
wall. Troop kicked his attacker in the gut and slithered out from
the chokehold.

Red-shirt-person had trapped Troop alone and
unaware while walking home. The attacker swung a punch at Troop,
forcing him to skitter backwards.

There was a hood drawn
over the face of the stalker, but the way the person moved about
reminded Troop of someone from school.
Bruno,
he thought.

Person-that-might-be-Bruno
aimed another punch at Troop’s jaw, but Troop ducked beneath the
meaty fist and stepped close enough to whip back the red hoodie.
The figure turned and landed a kick to his shins, distracting Troop
for a moment. Person-that-might-be-Bruno jammed his hoodie back
on.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Troop demanded.

His attacker didn’t reply. Instead, he aimed
another punch at Troop’s face. Troop sidestepped the brunt of the
punch; the knuckles of person-that-might-be-Bruno grazed his ears.
Troop returned the punch with a low kick beneath the knees. Cheap
move—but it worked.

The attacker let out a
groan and collapsed onto his knees. Troop took this chance to yank
back the hood once more, this time revealing a recognizable face.
It was Mason.

“
What the hell?” Troop
exclaimed.

He sidestepped a poor attempt made by Mason
to grab him. Mason growled.

“
Why do you always mess
everything up?” Mason, having recovered from Troop’s kick, sprung
onto his feet. “Don’t answer that. That was a rhetorical
question.”

“
Did Bruno send you to
follow me?”

“
No.” Mason wrinkled his
nose in disgust, as if the idea of doing Bruno’s bidding offended
him.

Troop couldn’t think of
any other reason why Mason would try to corner him if Bruno hadn’t
ordered him to do so. Mason never caused any trouble in his gang,
so why would he start now?

They circled each other,
neither willing to retaliate.