Freedom & Chrome || Book 1 ENGLISH

How time flies

9 years later

"Hey V, what about this piece here?" shouted Kaden across the junkyard, holding up what looked like the catalytic converter for an exhaust pipe. Blue short hair emerged from behind a pile of crushed cars. The black base of V's natural hair color brought out the blue even more, making the color more intense. His blue eyes narrowed in the glow of the sun, trying to decipher what Kaden was trying to show him.

"And where's the rest of it?" he inquired, stumbling down from the wrecked car he was standing on to look for other parts. Frowning, Kaden looked up at the strange round thing in his hand and pursed his lip in displeasure.

"How am I supposed to know? I don't even know what it is," he grumbled quietly to himself, putting his arm back down for a closer look at the mesh of wire and metal. V appeared next to him a short time later and directly brought the matching counterpart to the catalytic converter. The exhaust was a bit rusty and dented, but V got that fixed. When it came to the technical craft of putting a car together, V was probably the more skilled of the two. Kaden had broken out in despair just looking at an engine, while V had just tinkered away. V's father had tried to teach them something about cars, but Kaden had lost interest in all the technical parts. Instead, V really thrived on it. Ever since the younger of the two had started assembling his own ride a year ago, it had become a hobby of the two to make the local junkyards unsafe. Most of them were free to walk around, since a lot of garbage was carelessly dumped somewhere, but even fences didn't intimidate the two nomads. Usually they simply climbed over the meter-high fences, but there were still people who tried to protect their worthless junk by weaving barbed wire into the fences as well. For these cases, V always carried a bolt cutter.

He reached out to inspect the piece in Kaden's hand more closely. "Not bad at all, it won't make very long, but it'll do for a start," he grinned, looking at Kaden. "Good find," Kade still looked pissed, though there was no reason to be. "What's up?" laughed V, holding his exhaust at eye level. "I even found the casing."

"Nothing," Kaden grumbled, turning theatrically and crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Kade, come on, what's wrong?" V hooked in amusement, resting his chin on his best friend's shoulder. When Kade still said nothing, he pressed his cheek against Kaden's. "Talk to me, you pout."

With a deep, dramatic sigh, he finally came clean. "I don't even know what I'm doing here, I don't have a clue about the stuff you need."

"So I'm always torturing you along with me?" teased V, poking him in the side with his finger. He knew full well that Kaden didn't like that.

"V!" hissed Kaden even angrier, squirming out from under the other nomad's chin. Only to look into V's amused eyes. "Screw you."

"Gladly," V winked, earning an eye roll in return. "You're always a big help, and without you, raiding the junkyards would be half the fun," V added a bit more seriously now, but still with a smile on his lips. "Besides, we've found other cool stuff too. Think about the TV you have now, or the motorcycle we were able to take in one piece, or-"

"-or that huge black dildo that fell on me once," Kaden growled, shuddering at the memory.

"Oh yeah," V started laughing again at the mention.

"Who knows where that thing had been," Kaden shook his head in disgust and wrinkled up his nose

"Must have been of good use to his owners," V suddenly whispered in his ear. Kaden hadn't even noticed him sneaking up on him, but his voice right by his ear sent goose bumps all over his body.

"V!" protested Kaden in disgust again, slapping him on the upper arm with the flat of his hand.

"Ow," V laughed, rubbing his arm briefly. He unceremoniously slipped through the hole in the fence they'd cut in earlier and deposited the treasures they'd found in front of Kaden's working car. "I've got enough tinkering to do for now, do you want to look around some more? Maybe we'll find something else."