The Uprisen

Chapter 21

“Yeah, we haven’t found anything yet either.  Houston was a dead end, so we’re heading into San Antonio now.  I’ll let you know if I find anything...Yeah, no word around town either.  I’m starting to think that no one else knows anything about these stupid books Riley and James keep talking about.  Anyway, we’ll talk later.  Good luck in Jefferson City.”  Max his call with Devin and looks at Victoria sitting next to him.

“They haven’t found anything?” she asks from the driver’s seat of their minivan.

“Nah.  Devin said he ran into some trouble with a few families, but they didn’t find anything.”

Victoria sighs.  She, Max, and Noah have been traveling throughout the South for the last two weeks, and she wants nothing more but for it to end.  Sharing a car with two teenage boys makes her feel like a babysitter, and she hates kids.  

“Let’s just try to get through this city faster than the last one.  I don’t want to have to wait a week before I get noticed by some elemental who knows nothing.”

“Well, we’d be done with the bigger cities if James had sent us off with more people, and if Baxter wasn’t killed, we’d have more people to send into the shelters,” Victoria says emotionless.

Baxter’s death was difficult on the boys, but Victoria simply sees it as a loss in productivity.  Without another teenager, they can only send two people into the shelters since no one is going to take in a thirty-one year-old.

“Well, maybe they’ll send someone else,” Noah says hopefully.

“Doubt it.  He’d rather help his precious prodigy than us.”

Max watches Victoria warily.  He knows that she doesn’t want to be on the road, but the way she talks gives Max the impression that she’s not exactly loyal to The Seekers anymore.  Frankly, he's surprised James put her on this trip in the first place.

"Lets just try to get through this as best as we can," Max suggests.

"Genius idea.  I hope you're ready then, because I'm going to drop you off here.  GPS says there's a shelter within five blocks.  Start walking."

Max regards the bitter woman with distaste, but he decides not to question her.  He simply waits for the car to stop, and he gets out.

"See you in a few days, man," Noah says sadly.

"What do you mean?  You're going too.  There's another shelter not too far from his.  Keep each other company. Send a text when you've got a bite," Victoria orders.

Noah silently gets out of the car and grabs his jacket just before Victoria starts driving off.

"I hate her," he says.

Max nods.  "Yeah, me too.  Come on, we don't want to be out here for too long."

Noah looks around the neighborhood Victoria left them in.  Although they're in San Antonio, Noah notices that the rough parts of every town basically look the same.  Worn down houses and hooded strangers creep on every corner.  The only difference is the way that the houses are almost always higher than two stories and right next to each other in Boston.

“So, how long do you think this one will take?” Noah asks for small talk.

Max shrugs.  “I don’t know, but I will say that we shouldn’t wait for an elemental to walk up to us.  We need to talk to them, and even if they’re not taking people in, we need to follow them home.”

“That’s not how Devin--”

“Devin doesn’t know what he’s doing.  He never had to live in a shelter, let alone learn how to talk to these people.  Besides, he’s all the way in Missouri, it’s not like he’s going to come down here and yell at us himself.”