The Darkest Minds | Liam's perspective

East River....is a RV Park?

Quick A/N before we begin:
Hi Author here! Sorry for the long break I've been busy and unable to get to the story. So sorry again.

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Ruby and Zu passed out pretty quickly once we hit the road and Chubs was giving me silent treatment. Classic Rock drifted through Betty the only sound for a while. Following Chubs's instructions we ended up in East River Rv Park. The only problem.....there were no kids or sign of life. It was still raining when we parked. I unbuckle my seat belt and feel a tug on my sleeve. I turn to see Zu. She shakes her head then hands me a blue hoodie and a redskins cap. Maybe they're hiding.

"Thanks Zu." I say as slip the hoodie on under my jacket and pull up the hood before pulling the cap on and getting out to search for a sign of life.
    Nothing. There's absolutely no sign of life. I feel the twinge of disappointment set in. I here the rustling of foot steps and turn to see Chubs, annoyed as always, heading towards me. "No one?" He asks. "Checked around, they're either amazing hiders or we are in the wrong place."
   "I told you this place isn't it, I told you."
  "They said it was at the east edge of the state," I insist. "And they could have meant West Virginia—"
   "Or they could have been screwing with us," Chubs cuts me off.
Before either of us could continue this argument we hear foot steps.  Chubs turns away from me and towards Ruby as she approaches with Zu darting ahead of her. I turn towards them as well. "Mornin', sunshine. Sleep okay?" I called
"What is this place?"
I sighed before continuing, "Well, we were hoping it was East River. The East River, I mean."
"That's in Virginia," Ruby said looking down at her shoe. "The peninsula. It empties into the Chesapeake Bay."
"Thank you, Detective Duh." Chubs shook his head. "We're talking about the Slip Kid's East River."
"Hey,"I said with a sharpness I didn't intend. "Lay off, buddy. We really didn't know anything about it until were out of camp, either."
Chubs crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. "Whatever."
"What is it." Ruby asked.
I turned my attention back to her. She immediately looked at Zu, who look confused. Had I weirded her out?
I sighed and scratched the back of my head. "We first heard about East River from some kids in our camp. Supposedly—and I mean supposedly–it's a place where any kids on the outside can go and live together. The Slip kid, who runs the show, can get you in touch with your folks without the PSFs finding out about it. There's food, a place to sleep–well, you get the picture. The problem is finding it. We think it's somewhere in this area, thanks to a few fairly unhelpful Blues we ran across in Ohio. It's the kind of thing that . . ."
"If you're in the know, you're not supposed to talk about it," Ruby finished. "But who's the Slip Kid?"
I shrugged. "No one knows. Or . . .well, I guess people know, they just don't say. The rumors are pretty incredible, though. The PSFs gave him that nickname because he–supposedly—escaped their a good four times."
Ruby looked too stunned to speak.
"Kind of puts the rest of us to shame,huh? I was feeling really bad about myself until someone told me the rumors about him." I shuddered before continuing, "Supposedly he's one of those–an Orange."
"Yeah I thought they were all killed or taken to special camp. We never saw any at Caledonia." I continued.
"Why do you even need this guy's help?" Ruby interrupted. She looked light-headed. "Can't you just go home?"
"Use your brain, Green," Chubs said. "We can't just go home, because PSFs are probably watching our parents."
I shook my head and took off my sunglasses. I wondered if they others could see how exhausted I was. "You'll have to be really careful, okay? Do you even want me to drop you off at a bus station? Because we'd be happy—"
"No!" Chubs said. "We most certainly would not. We've already wasted enough time on her, and she's the reason we have the reason we have the League after us, too."
  "So," Ruby said squinting at the nearest trailer. "This isn't East River."
  "It might have been, once," I said. "They could move around from time to time. I hadn't really considered it."
"Or,they could have already been taken back into PSF custody. Maybe this was East River, and now there is no more East River," Chubs groused, "and we're going to have find a way to deliver Jack's letter and get home by ourselves, only we won't ever, because of skip tracers, and we'll all be thrown back into camp, only this time they'll—"
"Thank you, Chuckles," I cut in trying to lighten the mood, "for that rousing burst of optimism."
"I could be right," he said. "You have to acknowledge that."
"But you could also be wrong," I countered, and dropped a reassuring hand onto Zu's head. "In any case, that's what we're going with now: this was just a false alarm. Let's see if we can find anything useful, then we'll hit the road."
"Finally. I'm sick of wasting time on things that don't matter." Chubs shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and stalked toward Ruby. If Ruby wouldn't have moved he would've bumped into her for sure.
I walked over to stand next to Ruby and crossed my arms trying to suppress disappointment. "Don't take it personally," I said. Ruby made a sound of disbelief. "I mean ... okay, the kid is basically a grumpy seventy-year-old man trapped in a seventeen year-old's body, but he's only being this insufferable to try to push you out."
Ruby seemed to still not believe me. "And I know it's not an excuse, but he's as stressed and freaked out as the rest of us and—I guess what I'm trying to say is, all of this acid he's throwing your way? It's coming from a good place. If you stick it out, I swear you won't find a more loyal friend. But he's scared as hell about what'll happen, especially to Zu, if we're caught again."
With that said I started walking towards a row of battered trailers.