the long lost lover

part 13, a fire in the darkness

After we exit the main entrance, we start to head to the New Capital. Johnson decided to stay at the trading post, but Sky convinced Ace to come with us. It's pitch black but we can see only a few yards in front of us. Since Ace had the map, he was leading the way. The New Capital is a city away, so we must go on a highway. While walking past old destroyed cars and trucks, we loot a few of them to see what they had. While walking along the highway we see a light in the distance, and it seems to be a fire. Ace stops us and we grab out our weapons just in case if we must defend ourselves. As we are getting closer, we can see someone sitting down looking gloomy. It takes me a minute to realize who it is, it's the guy from the gas station who let me escape. “Stay behind the cars, I'm going to go ahead to see who it is.” I say pointing at Ace and Sky. She comes up to me and whispers into my ear “be safe and don’t get hurt.” I put my bat away and start to walk up to him. I tap on the car beside him, and he jolts his head to see what made that noise. He sighs in defeat and just stays there. “Hey, thanks again for letting me escape” I say sitting next to him. “No problem, it's just I don’t how much time I have until they find me” he says looking up at the star filled night sky. I look up with him and we sit for a minute before he starts another conversation. “So why are you heading this way?” he asks pulling out an old Rubik's Cube. I take a deep breath and I say, “I'm looking for an old friend, I think he's at the New Capital, but I hope he is.” He looks at me and he nods his head. “that's fair, hope you find him but who knows why he went there, it’s only a weapons, cloths, armor, and jewelry there that’s different from the trading outpost” he says trying to figure out the cube. I look back at Sky and Ace and motion them to come here. “I have some friends with me, and they didn’t know who you was” I say pointing at them walking to us. As they are walking, they stop in fear after seeing the guy. He looks at them and he has a face of guilt and fear. “I know I did something wrong in the past and I'm so sorry for what I did and what I should have done instead.” he says putting the cude down and looks at the floor. Ace walks up and sits down on the other side of him and picks up the Rubik's Cube and after a minute solves it. “I know you didn’t do it, but it still hurts, and I forgive you for what your friend did to me.” Ace says giving the solved Rubik's Cube back to him. Sky is still sitting next to me away from him and stays close to me. “I don’t trust him” Sky whispers into my ear. I look at her and ask her why. She looks down and says that “My psycho ex pays his eyepatch friend money to find me.” I look at her with surprise. After a minute of chatting, I bring up the other guy. “hey I got a question, what happened to the other dude with the eyepatch?” The guy looks at me and then looks away and explains. “He went boss and snitched on me with letting you escape, now he wants me dead over some money, great.” Ace looks up from dozing off and says “we should probably get some rest, I'll set up my bed and get some rest.” He pulls out a blanket and lays it in the bed of an old Ford truck. I pull out my blanket and lay it next to the fire and doze off to sleep.