Chapter Ten: Shelter from the Storm

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Ren, Kerra, and Hunter had paused to send a Nuntial leaf to Laric and Elliott once they felt they were a safe distance from the house, but they had not received a reply, and had decided their only option was to keep heading for the road. They had been walking for several hours when Ren smelled smoke. She stopped and looked around, Kerra and Hunter pausing behind her. "Do you smell that?"

Hunter nodded and glanced around. He dropped his pack at the foot of a nearby tree and scaled it in seconds. Ren and Kerra exchanged a surprised look.

"Wildfire," called Hunter from the top of the tree. "It's pretty far off, on the other side of the house." He dropped back onto the ground, landing on his feet with the ease of a gymnast.

Ren frowned. "Wildfire like Laric was conjuring fire and it got out of control?"

"Could be. On the plus side, Laric is fireproof."

Ren glared at him, her voice coming out high. "Elliott isn't!"

Hunter's face crumpled in concern. "Ach, right."

Ren gulped. "We have to find them."

Hunter and Kerra exchanged a look. "We have nothing to go on, Ren," said Kerra. "Absolutely nothing."

"We could go back to the house," protested Ren. "Look for tracks."

"And if we found them, they would probably lead straight into the fire," said Kerra.

Hunter's voice was apologetic. "The fire is heading for the house, Ren. It will be there in less than hour. It would take us hours to get back there."

Ren felt her throat tightening. "We can't just give up on them."

Kerra reached out and put a hand on Ren's shoulder. Ren glanced between Kerra's chipped turquoise nails and her face, shocked at the kind gesture.

"We're not giving up," promised Kerra. "But there are better ways to find them. From what I've heard, you can hack up a storm. So if we got to a computer, you could look through reports from the police and firefighters, right?" Ren nodded. Kerra pulled out her phone. "We're getting pretty close to the main road. So then we could hitchhike or something? It's a pity we lost the car."

They started walking, following Kerra's lead this time. "Hitchhiking seems sort of dangerous," said Ren.

Hunter laughed. "Have you seen Kerra's axe? No one in their right mind would dare to cross us. Mind you, they might not pick us up in the first place." He had a point, Ren thought, touching the hilt of her sword for comfort.

Their feet were dragging by the time they made it to the road, and no cars were in sight. They sat down on the shoulder to rest, and waited. A few minutes later, a semi came racing along the road, and Kerra jumped up to hold out her thumb.

"I can't believe we're doing this," muttered Ren. But the semi didn't stop, and neither did any of the next five cars.

Kerra crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the pavement. "Why are people so rude?" Ren glanced at Hunter and rolled her eyes, but she was too weary to tell Kerra that she was usually the rude one, especially when Kerra was the one trying to get them a ride.

After thirty minutes, they were starting to discuss the necessity of getting up and walking further along the road when a little red Volvo stopped. A girl with dark brown skin and curly rose-petal pink hair rolled down the passenger side window and said something in German.

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