We crossed our yard over to the house next to ours. We rang the doorbell and a tall 25 year old girl opened the door.
"Is James here?" Kleo asked.
"Yeah, I'll get him. 1 sec." She says. "JAMES!" I hear her yell up the stairs. 30 seconds later James is running down the stairs. James is tall, tan, and muscular, Kleo was right. He is hot. He also has messy brown hair and brown eyes.
"Hey Kleo. Who's that?" He says gesturing to me. His eyes lock on me, and I look away.
"I'm Astrid." I say, his eyes are still locked on me.
"Cool name." He says. I nod and we walk over to their fountain and sit down.
"So, James, are your parents in S.C.A.T.?" I ask him.
"Yeah. So are my twin brother and sister. I also have an younger brother, but he is with my Aunt. Are your parents in S.C.A.T.?" He asks me.
"My parents died." I say while looking at my feet. Kleo and James are both shocked.
"I'm sorry. So did you come here with a brother or sister?" He asks me.
"No. I came here with Johnny." I say.
"I've heard a lot of things about Johnny since I have gotten here." He tells me.
"Good things?" I ask.
"Yeah." He says. His gaze is still on me. I look up at him, then quickly away again.
"So, Kleo, when are we starting to search?" I ask Kleo.
"Um, I think we are starting as soon as possible, so probably like tomorrow. Oh! And come to my room tomorrow morning if you want to borrow some of my clothes." She says with a wink.
"Ok." I say. Just then we hear a voice from our house.
"KLLLEEEOOOOOO! AAASTRIDDDDDD!" It's Noah.
"Well nice meeting you." I say to James.
"You too." He tells me as we walk away.
"Oooooooooo! Astrid! He LIKES youuuuuuuuu!" Kleo said in a sing song voice.
"Shut up Kleo." I say with a smile. "I WISH he liked me." I say.
"Well your wish came trueeeeee!" She says.
"Nooooooo!" I say, mimicking her voice.
"Whatever. You'll see soon enough."
I woke up to the sound of Kleo running in my room clapping and saying, "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" So I through a blue pillow at her. I hit her in the face. Yay. Kleo pulls back my comfroter, and pushes me out of bed.
"Heyyyyy!" I say.
"Well, come on! We are searching at noon!" I look over at the clock. I am not used to the time difference at all, but apperiantly Kleo is. It's 6 in the morning.
"Then why did you wake me up so early?" I yell at her.
"This isn't early! Most of the time you will be waking up at 4! But since it's the first day, we dicided to start a little later. Come on. Let's go to my room, we can pick out your clothes there."
"It's okay. I have clothes." I say.
She sighs and says, "Fine let's see what you have." She opens the duffle and pulls out mostly jeans and t-shirts. "Just as I thought. These arn't good enough to work in." Excuse me? My clothes arn't GOOD ENOUGH. Well, I bet-
"COME ON!" Kleo yelled, interupting my thinking. I jumped up and followed her out the door. We did the same routine as yesterday. First the eyeliner, and mascara then the clothes. But this time she put my hair in a long braid down my back. She shuffled through her clothes and picked out a pair of surfer shorts and a tank top. "It's hot out there." She assures me. I pull on the clothes and we head down stairs to the breakfast area.
"Whoa, Astrid, you look good!" Johnny says. I blush. Me and and Kleo sit down next to each other and eat our pancakes.
"It looks like you two are friends now!" Noah says.
"Yep!" I say while shoving my mouth with strawberries and whipped cream. I look up at the clock when I finish eating, it is already 8 o'clock.
"Come on you guys. Let's pack up the car." Noah says gesturing outside. We follow Noah to a shed filled with tools and weapons. I was a little surprised to see the weapons, but I guess if Jose can be violent, we need to be ready. "Just put everything in those bins in the car. And take a knive or something for yourself." I walk over and start putting the bins into the car. This time it's not a Ferrari, it's a Jeep. Much more my style. I dig through the bins and find a good knife to use. I look around for some sort of carrier, and Johnny hands me a belt to put my knife in. I slip it in one of the loops and put the rest of the bins in the car.
I sit down in the jeep and I look behind the car. 6 more jeeps are following us. They must be the other members of S.C.A.T.
"We think that The Garden has to be somewhere baren, somewhere that has been unexplored for ages. Otherwise someone would've found it by now." Noah says. We drive for about 2 hours, then stop in the middle of a desert. "Here we are. At the Negev desert." Noah says as he pulls to a stop. When he stops, everyone stops. And everyone piles out. Most of the people in S.C.A.T. Are between the ages of 20-40. Except, me, Kleo, and James. When James gets out of the car, he runs over to us.
"Hey." He says.
"Hey." Me and Kleo say in unison. Instead of knifes and me and Kleo have, James has a spear that is hanging off his back. We follow Noah until we get to the middle of nowhere. Kleo was right. It is hot, so I take a sip of my water.
"Ok. Everybody, we are going to start searching. If you see Jose, or any of his followers, don't attack them. Only attack them, if they attack you. As you also know, I have news on Eden, and I wanted to tell you when we got here. So, here it is. As you know, the biblical patriarch Jacob was given a blessing by God, and renamed Israel, because he had striven with God and with men, and have prevailed. I have not told any of you this yet, but I went to , Keukenhof Gardens, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Butchart Gardens, Shalimar Garden and Versailles. In each of those gardens I found letters carved somewhere in the gardens. I put the together and they spelled Jacob. And Jacob was later named Israel. So that is why I'm almost certain that it is here."
"Did you know about this?" I whisper to Kleo.
"No. He told me that he was visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Spain."
"So. Start searching." Noah said. I had no idea what to do, and I guess Kleo could see that. She told me to grab some tools and dig, knock down anything that stands in your way, and most importantly, explore.
I went back to our jeep and pulled a shovel and a pick axe out of a box. Everyone was getting to work. I took another sip of water, then relized that my water bottle was empty, and we were in the desert.
"Need some more water?" A vioce said behind me. I jumped, to only find that it was just James.
"Sure. Thanks." I said as he poured a little water from his water bottle into mine. "Thanks again." I say.
"No problem." He says. "Do you need any help with the tools?"
"Sure." I say as I hand him the pick axe. He also goes back and gets another shovel. He carries them like they are 2 feathers. We start walking farther into the desert, and I knew the exploring has begun.
