Water Rebel

Chapter Four

Food and clothes were all we needed right now. 

I broke through the clearing and right into a marketplace. It appeared to be San Carlos. Vendors of all kinds lined the streets in hopes to make any kind of money. Hate to break it to them, but I wouldn’t be buying anything today. 

“Get what you need. No more.” Jon said then disappeared into the crowd of people. My attention was drawn to a table that had pairs of shorts, and strap on sandals for sale. 

“How much?” I asked, the lady looked at my incredibly tan, but obviously white skin, and turned her head, refusing business with me. 

Fine. When she looked away for that split second I snatched a pair of shoes and shorts then walked behind her wagon. She wouldn’t even notice. 

My next stop was a shirt booth, then food. It was easy to walk by a vendor who was busy with a customer and take a shirt from the table unnoticed. 

I walked back into the trees and stripped from my wetsuit. I noted next time to grab a b*a. And maybe a towel. 

The sandals fit nicely with the straps, I had just finished fastening them up when someone grabbed me from behind and nuzzled my neck. I giggled and turned in Logan’s arms. His lips met mine, I wrapped my arms around his neck and let myself melt into him. He pushed me up back against a tree, his hand slid under my shirt and gripped my hips. Pulling me closer, then slid up the small of my back. Just the feeling of skin on skin with him was enough for me. 

I felt him smile against my lips. I pulled back, “What are you smiling about?” 

    His brown eyes seemed to melt like milk chocolate in the sun. “You’re just so beautiful, I don't know what i would do without you." He smiled sweetly. 

    "Oh, hush up.” I said and pushed him away. He pulled me back harder. 

    “Don’t leave me.” He tried to kiss me again, but I covered his mouth with my hand. 

    “Let’s go get something to eat.” I whispered, then kissed him on the cheek and walked off to find Jon and Yuli.  He caught up and intertwined his fingers with mine.

     "Are you okay?" I asked at his motion. He was never the sentimental type in front of people. He kept his emotions pretty well hidden until we were by ourselves. 

     "I'm fine. Why?" He looked down at me. His head c****d cutely to the side. 

      I held up our hands. "You never do this." I laughed. 

      "Is it a crime to hold hands with my girlfriend now?" He joked with me. 

      "Well no..." I shrugged. "I'm not complaining, it's just not something we ever do." 

       His only reply was a shrug. There was something going on in that pretty head of his. I didn't want to push it now. I got the feeling that holding hands was as much emotion as he was going to let out today. 

    After pushing through the crowd for a few minutes I finally found Jon standing next to a barbecue truck. The aroma coming from it made my mouth water and my stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten all day, and it was around three in the afternoon by now. 

    Jon nodded at me, he looked so casual standing there in line, making a decision on what he wanted to eat. His tan shorts made his legs look even darker than they already were and the hawaiian shirt topped his whole “cool” look off. 

    Food was a little harder to steal when it was from a vendor like this. We would actually have to cough up some money for it. Which would be hard if it was more than about fifteen dollars. This morning I gave Logan the five that I had and asked him to keep it. He had pockets in his suit, I didn’t. The others also put all of their money together. Nothing was ever left behind so we didn’t exactly have much. We would have to go on a raid soon.

    Jon talked to us in a hushed voice, “Looks like you two found each other just fine..” He looked us over. I blushed and looked down at my feet, Logan probably rolled his eyes, “the food here is expensive. But it’s the only thing around, so we can either bounce and find another town somewhere, and just go hungry. Or we can go find more money somewhere. How much do we have all together?” 

Logan pulled a wad of ones out of his pocket and the five, “Seventeen.” 

Jon’s lips formed a tight line. “Yuli is finding more money now.” 

My heart skipped a beat, she was like my little sister and I felt protective over her. Especially since she’s the weakest of us all and not exactly sneaky, I hate to think those things about her, but its proven to be true way too many times. “You sent her alone?” 

Jon nodded, “Why, what’s wrong with that?” 

“You know what’s wrong with that.” I rolled my eyes, my voice was hoarse from having swallowed a gallon of black murky water. I let go of Logan’s hand and walked into the crowd. 

I had to find her before she did something stupid and got caught. I went from vendor to vendor, she wasn’t here. My heart was racing at the thought of something actually being wrong. Damn it, Yulliana. 

I reached the end of the street, where the shops ended. The town 

seemed to have died out here. The buildings were a muckey gray with most of the windows broken out. It was easy to tell that this single street was the only source of income these people had. 

    “Yuli!” I quietly shouted. 

    If she wasn’t in the crowd, she had to be somewhere out here. I walked a little farther into the town, and spotted a man sitting on the curb. He was slumped over and had a hood pulled over his head. The sweatshirt was raggy and covered in holes, as if rats had eaten through it. I didn’t doubt it, looking at the various stains on the thing, some were probably from food. 

    The man looked up at me, a long shaggy gray beard covered the majority of his face. His eyes were sunken in from what looked like too many years drinking and starving. The flesh on his bones was barely hanging on. This town was not a good place to be. My body screamed at me to go back, so I did. I always listened to my instincts. 

    Back in all of the color, music, and happy people, I spotted Yulliana by chance. She was behind a taco wagon, with a bunch of green crumpled in her hands. Opposite of her, a man had a hold of her hands and was pulling her back with him. She was struggling to get away. Panic was set in on her pretty face and I knew she was muttering apologies in Spanish. 

    I walked around the other side of the wagon and grabbed a pretty hefty stick off of the ground to use as a club. I snuck up and with one whack to the back of the head, the man collapsed. It was a good thing not a whole lot of people were around this end of the street and his taco wagon had no customers. 

    “Charlie!” Yuli threw her arms around me. She was probably about three years younger than I was. And I was eighteen. I didn’t like leaving her on her own. I was too protective. 

    “What were you doing Yulliana?” I looked at her tear stained face. 

    “Well everything was going okay, Jon sent me to get money and I had it done, till the man saw me stuffing it into my pockets.” her breathing stuttered. 

    “It’s okay. Now let’s get back to the others. I don’t like it here.” 

    “Me either. Have you seen what’s outside of these streets?” 

    “A dead town.” I muttered. The image of the man still in my head. 

    When we reached Jon again he was at the booth, ready to order. 

    “Hey.” I said and looked at at the menu. Everything was priced higher than $8. “Maybe we should just skip out. We don’t have enough.” I said to him. 

    He nodded, and apologized to the vendor. The vendor shooed us away, no one likes when we waste their time. 

    We were on our way back to the forest when the music stopped. The entire crowd froze and stared to the south end of the street. 

    “Attention.” A voice boomed over an intercom, it was a woman’s voice. Full of authority that didn’t belong to her. “Something has happened. Water Rebels have attacked my ship. This is the nearest town. They had to have run here since I destroyed the boat they used. If you see anything suspicious, speak up. Now.”