Rebel Red Hope

21

     Tyler taps me on the shoulder causing me to spin around, breaking my gaze away from the shadow thing smiling wildly at me. Tyler and Clancy give me a look, probably concerned before we start moving again. We make our way to another tent with a large circular table in the middle,

     "Hello there, kids," Nigel smiles at us from the head of the table,

     "Hello Nigel," I smile at him as Zeik and Athem echo hellos to the old Bandito,

     "So," Josh starts with a sigh as he takes his place at the table, "a couple of things," he starts, "we have a carnation problem," he looks at me.

     "It seems so," Nigel nods,

     "What are you looking at me for?" I ask, slightly taken back, "I'm pretty sure it's not me,"

     "No, but you did leave your bag last time you were here," he gestures to the bag I forgot is still slung over my shoulders,

     "It was at the foot of my bed when I came back in Dema..." my head starts spinning as the shadow grins behind my eyes again,

     "But we also have a problem from within the city," Josh looks to me again,

     "I don't know why you keep looking at me, I can't help, I don't know shit," I defend while waving my hand around,

     Josh pulls out a few papers from a pile in front of him and places them in front of the group, "Something big is about to happen,"

     Reading over the papers of terribly scribbled decoded versions of the messages, the only things that are legible are the words "war" and "pawns", more specifically "glorious pawns", but the fully legible messages don't read right, there's something off about them,

     "These weren't for you guys, were they," moving closer to better examine the notes, the almost familiar shift of Tyler, Clancy, and Josh all looking at each other catches my attention, "these are worded to someone else," I conclude,

     "What uh," Tyler pauses for a second, seemingly processing what I'd told them, "what do you mean?"

     "The wording," turning the paper around to face Josh and Tyler, my finger points to a few sections of the coded bit, "Its a kind of cipher that can have 2 translations," Tyler and Josh look at each other again, and then to Clancy as Nigel stands up to look at it as well, "And don't ask me how I know, I have no fucking idea how I know that-"

     In a single movement, Nigel snatches up the papers and pours over them for a moment in silence before holding out his hand. Clancy grabs a pen off the table and hands it to Nigel who very quickly starts scribbling something down before shoving everything into Josh's chest,

     "Excuse me a moment," he says walking out.

     We all watch frozen as Nigel walks out before Josh quickly fumbles with the papers and reads over them before looking up at us, jaw tight,

     "Can you all excuse us, Tyler and I need to talk in private," his tone rushed and stern but in an almost worried way,

     "Yeah," athem nods and grabs Zeik by the back of his jacket, "you too Arlyn, we need to talk about what the fuck just happened," she says grabbing me as well.

     Moving out of the tent athem drags us over to an area near the burning car before spinning me around to face her,

     "What the fuck was that in there?" she asks lowering both her head and tone,