“Can we stop off and see the others before we leave?”
“Sure, no problem.” he said, "Are you hungry?”
“So very hungry!”
We got into Silence’s car, it was a nice sports car, I had never seen anything like it before in my life, when he turned the key there was no noise. We left the house and headed for the field where the others were practicing.
I looked over at Silence as he drove, eyes on the road, “Ok, I have to know, what is your real name?”
“I don’t know.” An over menacing grin stretched across his face, “I wonder if I can trust you?”
“Can you trust me?” I was outraged at his distrust. “I’m not the one who sneaks up on people in the middle of the night.”
“Point taken.” He said but went no further.
“Well?” I prodded.
“My name is Ryder Alexander. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to continue to call me Silence.”
“Ryder, huh, I like it. I would have pegged you for a Curtis.”
“I don’t really like it.” He stopped before he turned into the dirt road that led to the field. When I got out I could see why. His car was so low that it wouldn’t have made it over the curb.
I could see several explosions, energy blasts, and other things that were signs of the fight going on. We walked down the dirt road, and when the others saw us they stopped what they were doing, and met us at the tent.
“Hey, Grace.” Ronnie waved.
“Hey, guys.”
Vanish looked like death, she had black bags under her eyes, and the look of stress on her face. She leaned on Hothead who didn’t seem to mind.
“How do you feel today?” Rachel asked.
“Fine.” I said, “But more importantly how do you feel Vanish?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I feel great now, I know I look like hell, but looks can be deceiving.” Vanish smiled.
“I was going to take Grace into the city so that she can get do some shopping.” Silence smiled. It seemed like he was specifically trying to get a rise out of Ronnie.
“Unless you guys would rather me stay here and hang out.” I said. I wanted to go into the city with Silence, I liked hanging out with him, but I didn’t want anyone to think that I was ditching them.
“You go on ahead.” Kenny patted me on the shoulder, “Don’t worry we’ll be just fine here. When you get better I’ll take you on myself.” He joked.
“Yeah, I’ll fill you in later on what’s going on.” Ronnie slid Silence a dark look, but he didn’t say anything.
We said goodbye and left the practice field. The others didn’t take long to get back to blowing stuff up. I could only imagine how much fun it was and what I was missing.
We got into Silence’s car and headed out of town. The small town was bustling with plenty of activity; it reminded me of the last town that we had lived in, Greencrest. We actually passed a few cars as we drove through the downtown area.
“What do you think so far?” Silence asked, “I mean I know you haven’t been here that long, but I’m sure that you have some kind of feel.”
“I really like this place, everyone seems to be nice. I actually feel accepted here.” I kept my attention on the scenery outside of the car.
A few miles out of town I saw a sign next to a road that wound into the woods back towards the opposite side of the mountain. It read Madison Lake House one mile, and the word Madison took me for a moment. I had heard it before or seen it somewhere. Silence was going on in the background, but I wasn’t listening.
“So there is a lake too?”
“Yeah, it belonged to the Madison family.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the small dirt road. It twisted and weaved through a wooded area.
“The whole lake?” I turned back to the road in front of us.
“Umm, yeah, they owned the mountain and the observatory as well but they had to sell because some of the funding was revoked for his company. I don’t know much about it.”
I thought about the name Madison, but after a while I pushed it out of my head, and returned my attention to Silence. He talked about all the things that went on in Eastcroft and some of the things that The Last Line had done in the past.
We took a short trip over an interstate and then he exited into the city. We arrived around midday, the sun was high, and my stomach was growling. Silence heard it finally.
“I guess your stomach has decided where we go first. Where would you like to eat?”
“I don’t know. Where is good?”
“I know a little place.” He turned off the main road and got me lost with all of the turns on the back roads.
We pulled into the parking lot of a small diner that had outdoor seating overlooking a manmade pond. Fountains sprayed in all directions from the center. We got out of the car and walked towards the diner but before we got to the door, he motioned for me to go sit down at one of the outdoor tables.
“You don’t know what I want to eat.”
“Trust me.” He walked away without giving me a chance to retaliate.
I walked over to the table closes to the water. The sun came down just perfect not to get into my eyes, but to give a perfect back drop for the ducks swimming in the water. Silence returned shortly with a couple of baskets of food.
“I used to come here all the time. I don’t get to come to the city much anymore.” He took a fry and dipped it into his ketchup.
“Why don’t you come here anymore?” I knew as soon as the words were out what he was going to say.
“I haven’t been back since Fade disappeared.” He tossed a fry into the water so that the ducks could fight over it.
The basket of food contained a few Buffalo wings and some fries. I dipped one of the wings in ranch and took a bite, “not bad.”
“Yeah the food is good but I came for the memories.” He played with a fry.
He told me a few stories about when he was younger and I had the feeling that he was doing all of the talking, but I really didn’t have anything to talk about. I grew up in a handful of orphanages, end of story. Although that name was bugging me again. I seem to remember it from when I was younger.
We went to a mall next, things were slow; the halls were empty and so were the shops. It was the middle of the day and most people our age were in class somewhere. We went to several shops. I purchased a wardrobe that was more my taste. We went to a computer store and I got the exact computer that I wanted.
I asked Silence about a cell phone but he told me not to worry about it, Sam would give us all one. We found a store where I could get an IPod and that is where I decided to quit spending the money. I had already burnt through half of it.
We put everything into the car and left Denver. The road to Eastcroft was empty. The sun was on its way down by the time we were back on the interstate.
By the time we got back into town, everyone had long gone to bed. Ryder helped me carry everything up to my bedroom and I felt my face flash red when he got close as he went to leave. He must have noticed it because he smiled but he didn’t say anything.
I grabbed my new pajamas and went down to the bathroom. I took a shower and sat in the living room trying to watch TV. There wasn’t anything that I wanted to watch, so after a few minutes of mindless cartoons I switched off the TV, and went to bed.
I wasn’t really tired but I figured I would force myself to sleep so that I wouldn’t waste most of the next day sleeping. Even though I couldn’t use my abilities, I wanted to be out with the others while they trained.
Chapter 14: Truth
I was able to tag along for combat training whenever I wanted to or I could stay at the house. I really enjoyed just hanging out at the field while everyone got more fluent with their abilities. After everyone mastered taking down the wooden targets, several last line agents volunteered to spare with the others.