The Runaways

Chapter Four - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

"We're back~" Remington calls as we walk into camp.

Corban looks up at us from the fire pit while Reece proceeded in attempting to talk his ear off.

"D'you get any food?" Corban asks as his eyes search us for a dead rabbit or bird of some sort we'd be carrying back with us.

"Nope!" Remington answered in a cheery tone. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the dagger he had stole from one of the hunters, "I got this though,"

"Aw Nice!" Reece said as she ran up to Remington to get a better look, "What are we gonna do with it? We should go out to eat! At that tavern in town, we don't have any food pluse their food is way better than what we can make!"

"Don't you think we should save our money—"

"We don't even need money at this point," Reece exclaims cutting off Corban, "We steal everything we intend to buy,"

"Reece does have a point, we don't have any food to eat tonight either."

"I'm actually with Corban on this one," Remington says in a strangely pensive and hesitant tone, "You guys know I hate eating out."

"You can just get a drink then! C'mon you love alcohol!" Reece said.

Remington looks unsure.

"We don't have any food and we have money, heck we can dine and dash if we need too. Remington you can set aside your weird fear of restaurants for one night." I say

"It's not a fear!" Remington says defensively. 

"Germophobia or whatever," I correct.

"If Remington's a germophobe he's the most selective one I've ever seen." Corban scoffs. Over the four years I've known Remington something that always stuck out was very strange eating habits. Remington's eating habits are all normal except for the fact he refuses to eat or drink anything that wasn't made be himself. He could watch someone make him a meal every step of the way and he will still refuse to eat it. He makes exceptions for his alcohol, but even then Remington ingesting anything in his body is some of the most paranoid actions I've ever seen.

"I've explained this to you guys already! You never know who's out to get you! Food is the best way to get a person, when you put something into your mouth that is when you completely surrender yourself, you're saying 'I trust this piece of meat to be cooked fully and not to be poisoned now that I'm willingly putting it directly into my body'." Remington explains, its his usual answer on the reason why he refuses to eat food that's not cooked by him. But it sounds, suspicious, knowing Remington being an incredibly 'go with the flow person' to the point where its at fault his whole food paranoia is just completely out of character. And knowing how much he just loves telling the truth I know he's either lying or not telling us the whole story. 

"We haven't done anything special for at least a good couple months, we deserve to treat ourselves," Reece whines. 

"I'm just worried someone might recognize us as thieves, ya know?" Corban asks, "Plus I thought we had this conversation just the other day we need to save our money! I don't wanna keep town hopping forever! I don't wanna be a thief forever I wanna live a life!"

Me and Reece stare at Corban in silence for a moment, he looks upset, and frustrated. His simple complaint had escalated into a small rant. He's got a serious look in his eye that's telling me he's thinking about much more than just saving up money for winter.

"Whoa, ha, why'd it get so serious all the sudden?" Reece says awkwardly.

Reece grabs the money from Remington and then pulls out a little bit of her own as well, "Well then me and Elias will go and have a great dinner and you guys can stay home."

"I'm still not sure about this," Corban mutters, "You guys will still be wasting all the money on just one night! What about the long term affects! What if we run into trouble! What if I wanna go do something with myself!"

"Here I'll tell you this Corb, how about you come with us to make sure we don't spend too much money," Reece suggests, "You know, maybe accidentally leave before we pay,"

"Alright," Corban sighs.

"Remington?" Reece says as she looks over at him with big eyes, "C'mon you're always the biggest advocate for fun!"

"Fine, I'll come, but I'm not eating any food. I'll just get a beer or something." Remington says as his sentence runs into a mutter. 

"Great! Let's go then I am starving to death." Reece says as she starts walking towards the entrance of camp. I walk up ahead towards him, distancing myself from Reece who had continued to talk off Corban's ear.

"Do you think somethings up with him?" I whispered to Remington.

"It's probably just his stupid teenage hormones acting up, I wouldn't worry about it," Remington says.

"But he seems so adimit about saving money so recently, and I don't think it's for winter either, he kept talking about wanting to live a different life and what he wants. Do you think he wants to leave us?" I ask.

"Possibly, I mean I wouldn't blame him if he wanted to. But again it's probably his hormones being out of whack."

"But what if actually does?"

"I mean sure yeah, that'd be upsetting but it is his choice, I wouldn't stop him, he's a smart kid he knows what he's doing," Remington says, "Why are you so worried about this?"

"Remington if we loose the one smart person we have in this group how much trouble to you think we'll end up getting into?"

"We were all fine on our own at one point I'm sure we'll survive without Corban, as much as I like the kid, I wouldn't try to stop him if he wanted to go. He's his own person."

I let out a small sigh and follow as I hear Reece talking up a storm behind me.

Corban has always been the sanest out of all of us. Never really as animated as Remington, never as talkative as Reece, never really as much of an ass as me. He was quiet and preferred to keep to himself. I didn't know too much about him either. He said he used to be really close with his dad, he talked about him sometimes. I can't help but feel bad for him. Corban must've only been five when the war happened. He was forced to grow up early, he tried to educate himself as best he could. Corban loved learning. I could easily see him being that one goody-two-shoes that always say in front of class with fifteen different high-liters, very organized folder, not a single paper crinkled in the slightest.

We walk through the forest, carefully making our way around the steep edge of the valley walls. We walk towards the south where the valley levels off down to flat ground with the surrounding forest by a large steep hill. We walk down and then turn right to the middle of the two hills where it leads down to the bottom of the valley where the town was located. As we get closer and closer to town the walls of the valley begin to climb as the ground beneath our feet becomes steeper.

Remington leads us into town where there are people everywhere. Due to all the people the area seems a lot more smaller than our little tent set up. But Remington easily navigates through the crowd and motions for us to follow.

As we walk through town I notice a few people giving us dirty looks, especially Remington. Do they recognize us? I sure do hope not, besides I don't even know why'd anyone would recognize me, Remington goes into town frequently but I rarely go into town without wearing some sort of mask because usually I'm here to steal.