Capítulo 93: 92: Star Child: A Keepers Past XVIII
"You okay Chase?" Grandma Lulu asked. Her and Haws were several steps ahead of me and moving a lot faster than I was. Thanks to the beat down I got earlier from the deputies I was moving really slow. With every step I took my body was screaming in agony and it took all the restraint I had to not scream as we trudged through the forest.
"I'm fine." I replied. Haws and Grandma Lulu stopped walking and looked back at me.
"No he's not." Haws said then turned and walked over to me. "You need a break?"
"I'm fine." I replied again then tried to push past him and keep going but Haws just moved in front of me and stopped me in my tracks.
"Chase…" Haws said, his deep voice echoed viciously in the dark.
"A little pain isn't worth stopping over. Once we're across the river and not in ascended thrad territory I'll rest." I said then pushed past Haws and kept walking after Grandma.
"We should have had him rode on the back of Magnus. I don't know why you sent him running into town." Haws said looking towards Grandma.
"Because once the sun comes up all the evos inside town will be chasing that steed instead of following us." Grandma replied. She suddenly stopped and ducked behind a nearby tree. Haws and I followed suit and hid behind trees and held our guns to the ready.
I suddenly heard what had sent my grandmother on edge. The sound of a branch snapping on the dark. Judging by the sound of whatever was out there wasn't too far away. I focused on where I heard the sound and realized there were a lot of little sounds of leaves and grass being stepped on. A group of something was headed right for us.
I looked to Grandma on what to do but the look in her eyes told me that she only had one plan in mind. Haws and I aimed our guns towards the sound of footsteps and waited until they got close enough to aim correctly. About ten yards in front of us a figure stepped over a fallen tree branch and into the moonlight. The figure was a human male, dressed in military greens and carrying a rifle. He stopped eight yards from us and scanned the woods then held a closed fist up. The footsteps behind him suddenly silenced.
I looked over go Grandma Lulu and expected her to be more relaxed now that she knew the footsteps were human and military soldiers but her expression turned even more worried. She glanced back at me and then down to my right hand, the very hand that had my crystal covered by my leather gloves.
'Oh fuck! That's why…' I realized. Haws must have realized it the second he saw the soldier cause he didn't lower his gun even slightly.
"I know someone's out there!" The soldier called out towards our general direction. He let his rifle fall to his side to look less threatening and held his hands up. "I'm a soldier with the United States Army. You don't need to hide. We won't hurt you."
The three of us stayed silent. I pressed tighter into the tree hoping that he couldn't see me. The soldier was visibly confused by our silence, he made a quick hand sign and I heard the soft movement of feet. So soft I could barely make it out.
A loud gunshot ran out and struck a tree a few feet away from the soldier, he quickly scurried to cover and drew his weapon.
"Tell the others not another step or the next one goes through that man's head!" Grandma Lulu called out.
"Hold your fire!" The soldier ordered.
"Grandma Lulu what the hell?!" I barked in Torapos. She ignored me and kept her eyes trained on the soldier in her sights.
"There is no need to fire on us! We are on your side!" The soldier said. "We're soldier stationed in Fort Vaultworth sent to investigate claims from some scientists that St. Louis has been over run by evos."
"Well it was. The factory in town was totally destroyed." Grandma Lulu said.
"Well ma'am I don't understand why you fired on us but if you and whoever is with you drop your weapons and come out where I can see you me we will forget that ever happened." The soldier said.
"My grandson is hurt. People in town attacked him. I'm not exactly trusting of people or evos right now." Grandma Lulu said. Those words gave the soldier pause, he looked to his flanks then let slung his rifle over his shoulder and stood out from behind the tree with his hands up.
"Ma'am I am not a danger to you or your grandson, neither are my men."
"Of course you aren't, I have you and all the other men with you in my sights." Grandma Lulu said.
"Mrs. Lulu, I'm worried about Chase as well but we're not going to make it across the river of we get into a fire fight with the US military." Haws said. Grandma Lulu sighed then lowered her weapon and stepped out from behind the tree she was hiding behind.
"Oh for Thor's sake, it's just a old lady!" A voice said from the shadows. Five soldiers stepped out of the shadows of the trees, and formed a semi-circle around Grandma Lulu. Grandma Lulu scowled at the one that made the comment and before he could react raised her gun and shot the rifle out of the soldier's hand. The other five aimed their guns at Grandma Lulu. Haws and I moved form behind our hiding places with our guns aimed at the soldiers.
"Grandma!" I snapped.
"Oh don't grandma me child! I aimed for his gun not him! Since I'm such a old lady, he shouldn't have felt threatened." Grandma Lulu replied with a devilish smirk then lowered her weapon.
"Lower your weapons." The first soldier said. The others all turned and looked at him questioningly.
"Sarge she shot at me! Twice!" The solider Grandma Lulu shot at snapped.
"And if she wanted to kill you Seeger you would be dead, we all would have been before we knew what hit us." The soldier replied. Seeger scowled and the other soldiers all lowered their weapons. Haws and I did the same.
Haws and I hurried over to Grandma Lulu, though not as quick as I would have liked thanks to my injuries. When I stood next to Grandma Lulu all the soldiers winced when they saw my face and the bandages.
"Sorry about my Grandmother, she's protective…" I said. The first soldier shook his head.
"A lot can be said about the measure of a man by which the lengths those around him will go to protect him." He said. "I'm sergeant Reagan, the poor soul who's been shot at is Seeger, that's Lindal, Abraham, Mitchell, and Sooty."
I looked at each man respectively as Reagan pointed them out, they all looked like grizzled combat veterans. The fact they were strolling through evo infested woods at night without fear or a flashlight showed courage and common sense. The light would just attract evos.
"By the sound of things you three know more about what's going on in town. Would you mind explaining what's going on?" Reagan asked.
"Well you see…" Haws started. He explained everything that gad happened and even gave a colorful story of how he managed to escape the factory using Magnus. He left out anything that would give away that I was a splicer but impressed on the soldiers that there was a ascended evo on the loose and it wasn't affected by the night time slump like the other thrads.
"Shit!" Reagan cursed then looked at the rest of his squad. "The scientists that made it to Vaultworth said it was bad. I was hoping they were exaggerating."
"You guys didn't have to fight a horde of evos to get across the bridge?" I asked. Reagan shook his head.
"We didn't take the main road. Crossed the river up north at Herculaneum then worked our way down here, at the scientist's insistence minded you. When we neared the town and saw the smoke our group split up. There should be another squad making their way through town towards us." Reagan explained.
"The town is crawling with thrads. Even still they're probably safer than us…" I said
"We'll be safe once we make it across the river and to the military base." Grandma Lulu insisted then switched to Torapos. "If that other squad finds someone from town and they see you it will be very bad starlight."
Her sudden switch to a foreign language caught all the soldiers attention. They eyed Grandma and me very closely. Reagan looked like he was about to say something when gunshot started ringing out in the distance towards town.
"On me! Move!" Reagan said to his squad and they raced towards the sound of gunshots.
"And we're going this way!" Haws exclaimed as he started running in the opposite direction. Grandma and I ran after him. The sounds of gunshot getting dimmer and dimmer the farther we ran until they were just faint pops in the distance.
Haws skidded to a stop as we broke past the tree line and the river came into view from the bright light of the moon. My heart soared at the sight of until I saw dozens of golden orbs floating on the water and realized what they were.
"Fuck a duck! Thrads!" I groaned. Their bodies were obscured by the water and only their eyes were visible like the alligator part of their DNA told them too be. They were laying in wait for either pray to swim by or the morning sun to warm their bites enough to move at full speed. While the cold blooded reptilian DNA made then sluggish at night or out of sunlight, the warm blooded primate half kept them from dying from cooler temperatures.
"That fallen tree shouldn't be that far from here, a little ways up the river and we'll be safe" Grandma Lulu said then started walking along the river up stream. Haws and I followed suit, keeping our guns at the ready and eyes on a swivel.
"So Chase, gave you given much thought about what you want to do after you graduate?" Grandma Lulu asked suddenly. My head snapped around to look at her so fast I'm surprised it didn't snapped off.
"I don't think now is the time to have the 'you should be thinking about your future' talk Grandma." I said.
"Now is precisely the time. Though I guess graduation is out of the picture for now." Grandma Lulu said softly. She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled sadly. "You staying in town and working at the factory with your parents is not a goal you can reach anymore. Even if the government admits that this wasn't splicer related people will blame you and splicers like you...it might be best for you to…leave the country as soon as possible."
"I can't leave the country!" I snapped and stopped letting Gaws and Grandma get a few steps ahead of me. "This is my home! Where my family is!"
"Where ninety-nine percent of the population now wants you dead because they think you unleased a horde of evos on the town." Haws added. He and Grandma bother turned to look at me. "Splicers have been killed in this country for a lot less Chase."
"I am not losing you Chase. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." Grandma Lulu said. I grumbled to myself and stomped past Grandma and Haws and continued upriver. They both followed after me as I followed the bend of the river.
"I'm not running Grandma!" I snapped.
"You wouldn't be running Chase. You could easily get into a splicing college with your grades, you could be around people like you, not have to worry about hiding your crystal all the time." Grandma Lulu said. I froze mid-step and looked back at Grandma.
"What about mom and dad? The factory is toast, they'll need my help." I said.
"They are adults! They can look after themselves!" Granma snapped. "I never liked the idea of you working at that factory, especially so young. Not only is it against the law, it was dangerous to you. I love my daughter and son-in-law but they relied on your powers too much to help them with their job. A child so young shouldn't have had the weight of a factory on his shoulders."
"But I was good at it…" I muttered. Grandma walked over to me and pulled me into a tight hug.
"I know, you are your mother's son alright. Of course you're good at it. But you're a bright and talented boy, who'll one day have the world at your fingertips. Don't limit yourself to being a stable boy at a factory when one day you could council kings and queens." Grandma said softly. "When all this is over your grandfather Seamus has a brochure for a college he wanted you to look at, Andromeda Collage. Promise me you'll look at it."
"….okay Grandma…" I muttered softly.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
Hutexa_The_Djinn
Hutexa_The_Djinn Splicer Fact: Members of the Tolapo tribe who undergo the waloiki ritual aren't just seeing the most traumatic events but reliving those events and feeling everything that they felt in the moment.
[HUTEXA_THE_DJINN here! Another Chapter coming at you! Hope you're enjoying the chapters and know there are more on the way. I have some more things in the works for the novel that I hope I can revel soon! Please help me out and leave a comment or a review, Thanks!
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