Defender // Rim of the World Gabriel

Mountains

"Come on, if we don't leave now then we'll miss the vans." I called to Alex, who was fiddling with his Rubix cube.

He sighed, but got up and followed. We piled into one of the old vans. I took the seat by ZhenZhen and Alex sat in the row in front of us. I watched as Dariush slammed the door of the van in front of us before stomping back to ours. I rolled my eyes. He had only gotten increasingly worse last night around the campfire, and I was starting to hate him.

"Alright y'all, the king is back." He dropped next to Alex and elbowed him. "Alright, scoot over, man."

Alex shuffled over, uncomfortable.

"Move, man. My nuts is hot."

I rolled my eyes again and Alex mumbled an apology.

"You're making me chafe, scoot over."

"Hey! Leave him alone." I leaned forward, annoyed.

Dariush looked at me over his shoulder. "Oh, you're not gonna tell me that you're friends with Sparky over here, are you?"

"His name's Alex, and he's my brother. So back off." I scowled.

"Hope y'all not afraid of sharks." Logan came around the side of the van and hit it. "Put y'all seat belts on." He got in the van and started it. "'Cause my license is suspended."

Alex looked back at me with wide eyes. I only patted his shoulder.

"Wait, your license is suspended?" Dariush asked.

"Just a little bit."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means let's not get pulled over."

***

"Ah, sorry guys. Some kid shit the canoe while shooting the rapids." The woman in front of the lake spoke.

I sighed and Alex's shoulders dropped.

"Hey Cosmo, we're gonna need the second hose down here!" She shouted. "It'll just be a few more minutes."

"Whatchu mean?" Logan asked from behind us. "Ain't nobody scared of a little poo."

"Okay, I am deathly afraid of a lot of poo. It's more poo than canoe in here." The woman sassed back.

I noticed ZhenZhen pull a paper from her pocket out of the corner of my eye. I looked to see it was a pamphlet for this camp, worn and bent. She stuffed it in her pocket and walked off.

"Two kids shit the van on the way here and we still made it!" Carl exclaimed.

I saw Alex take off after ZhenZhen. I sighed and followed, ignoring the uproar behind me because of something Dariush said.

"Where are you going?" Alex called after ZhenZhen, who kept walking along the riverside.

"Come on, let's go get her." I caught up to him and we broke into a run.

We followed behind through the woods, soon surrounded by tall trees and the river gone. We moved around a small bunch of trees and stopped. We had lost her.

"Where'd she go?" Alex turned to me and I shook my head.

"No clue. ZhenZhen!" I called, hearing the echo in the mountains.

"Hello?" Alex called.

We got nothing. I sighed.

"Let's just keep going. If we can't find her we'll turn back and get Logan." I patted his shoulder.