Rim of the world with you

-8-

^her outfit exempt no purse, her backpack  and Converse's^

Walking down from the camp and onto the road down the hill was the easy part. Teaching Alex how to ride a bike was the hard part.
"All right, you get on one side of Alex and you get the other, and we'll get him up to speed," Gabriel states pointing to Zhen and Dariush. 
"It's alright ginger, I believe in you" I said smiling at Alex. In the corner of my eye I saw Zhen put her hand onto Alex's arm and said
"I won't let you fall." Seeing this I couldn't help but hop over to Gabriel and whispered with a big smile,
"Did you see Alex and Zhen? They're so cute!" Gabriel looked over to me and responded with,
"Yeah, just adorable" and then smiled back at me.

Reaching a fork in the road I read the signs,
"Los Angeles or high desert?" I immediately started walking towards Los Angeles with Gabriel, Zhen and Alex. Dariush hesitated, but reluctantly followed us anyways. Putting on my motorcycle helmet and getting on my bike, I rode beside Gabriel while Zhen and Dariush each put a hand on Alex's shoulder to keep him steady.

"You got this, put your feet back on the pedal." And that's where I blocked them out. I began riding a little bit ahead of the rest and trying to see if we could spot LA from where we were right now, but mainly I was admiring the view. My thoughts were cut off by the cheering and high-fiving of my fellow campers. I looked over and saw that Alex was riding the bike on his own! What? It took me a week to even learn to balance my bike, that's not fair!

Anyways, I slowed down and allowed them to catch back up to me.
"Good job, ginger!" I cheered.
"Oh my god, oh my god you guys, I'm doing it!" After Alex said that, we all started cheering and doing our own tricks. Gabriel started swinging his legs into the air and Dariush was riding without his hands. Me deciding to show off, I stood up onto the pedals of my bike and shot my arms up into the air and cheered,
"Woo-hoo!"

I suddenly heard Alex's voice,
"This is so much fun you-!" He was cut off by the sound of a bike crashing and him falling to the ground, "Alex!" "Oh!" "Ginger!" "Are you okay?" We dropped our bikes and ran to him. He was not moving.
"Yo, is he dead?"
"No, he just fell off his bike, he should be fine." Crouching beside him to help him up, I looked at the opening in the trees and found what I was looking for the entire time- Los Angeles.

I stood up and walked over to the edge of the hill,
"Um... guys? You might want to see this"
"Holy shit"
"Yeah, like holy... shit." Los Angeles was in ruins, the only things bigger than the city itself were the smoke piles and sounds of explosions ringing around. We could also see the fighter jets and unknown aircrafts flying around, shooting at each other. It was like a war zone.
"You alright?"
"Is that where we're going?" Yes, yes it is Dariush.

Continuing down the mountain on our bikes, the atmosphere was a lot different than before.  Instead of happy, it was tense and unnerving.
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When we got down to LA, the city was wrecked. There was debris everywhere, and even the nose of an airplane was laying on the ground. Most cars were ripped to bits. Walking through all this I couldn't help but think about how many people died and what would happen if we couldn't get the key to an adult.
"There!" The sheriff station! Yes! Walking over to the sheriff station, I noticed that Gabriel was lagging behind us and that he seemed reluctant to enter the station.

Gabriel stopped outside the station.
"Guys,I don't... Nobody's uhh..." what is he doing? "What?"
"You guys go ahead, I'll just stay back and watch our bikes." However, Dariush did not like that idea.
"What? Oh yeah, because the aliens wanna jack our mountain bikes," he said sarcastically. Looking at Gabriel, I saw that he was staring at the floor like he was ashamed of something.
"Yeah, looters could take them. Someone should stay and watch." Alex added,
"I'll stay too," I said leaning on my bike. That statement got me a surprised look from everyone,
"What? If looters come along, no matter how strong Gabriel is, he won't be able to fight them all by himself." I said. That earned me a grateful look from Gabriel,
"Whatever man." Dariush, Zhen and Alex dropped their bikes and walked inside.

When the door closed behind Alex, Gabriel asked me the question I was wondering myself,
"Why'd you stay out here with me?" He looked  over giving me all of his attention which was quite overwhelming since we were in the middle of an alien invasion. I hesitated before responding.
"No one deserves to be alone at a time like this, especially outside with aliens on the loose." There was a pause, I looked at the ground and kept talking.
"Do you trust me enough to tell me why you don't want to go in there?" When I looked up he was already looking at me.
"I do trust you... but I don't want you to hate me" he said quietly looking like a kicked puppy. I stood up from my bike and walked over to him.

I took his hand into mine and looked into his eyes,
"I can never hate you Gabe, we've been through so much already." He looked at me with a hint of a smile on his face, then he looked at our hands and intertwined our fingers.
"I'll tell you eventually but not right now, alright?" Yeah I get that, it's not like I would spill about him either yet, so I understood. So right now I just smiled at him and nodded.
"Also 'Gabe'? I never knew we were on a nickname basis, Rowan" he said with a teasing smile. I just flushed and looked down at our hands with a smile on my face,
"What? I like it."
"No no, I do too it's cute" I just groaned and shoved my face into his shoulder while he laughed.

A/N
MY BABIES ARE SO CUTE. We need a ship name, go crazy guys.
Like, comment and have a good day!