The Final Showdown - The Moon Trilogy - Book 3

Chapter sixteen:

   Rachel grabbed her bag. It mainly contained knives, but a couple of other useful things had also been crammed in there. It had been long enough since she'd actually looked inside for her to forget.

   Just as she was about to leave, Benny came through the door. She fought to keep her groan silent. He always picked the worst times to show up.

   "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, crossing his arms as he took in her battle-ready getup and equally battle-ready bag of supplies.

   "Out," she said quickly, trying to push past him, but he was able to stop her from getting away. Barely.

   "That doesn't answer my question." He said. "We literally just found each other again, I don't want you getting lost or killed. If you're gonna do something stupid, I'm coming with."

   "I'm not gonna get killed, and you know it." She said sternly. She didn't want to deal with him. She didn't want to deal with anyone.

   That was the reason she was going, really. It was a way to get her mind off things without having to be reminded every single second what she was trying to distract herself from. The rest of the team was, regretfully, a perfect reminder.

   "You know what I mean." He said, his arms still crossed. "So, wherever you're going, I'm coming too." 

   She groaned again, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping at him.

   "Since when do you tell me what to do?"

   "Since... I don't know. I can tell the others that you want to go somewhere." He said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't think you want that. Now, do you?"

   She huffed. Then rolled her eyes.

   "Fine." She grumbled.

   She waited for him to gather his stuff, then they left together. Luckily, no one saw them, and they were able to get down to ground level without raising suspicion. She hoped that no one would notice their absence and come after them. Two was a crowd.

   This was only going to be a quick trip, anyway.

   She told Benny where she wanted to go and why then they officially left the building. She didn't know exactly where it was, but she knew that it was on the edge of the city, which was enough to go on for the moment.

   It was only a short few minutes when she noticed the soft orange glow over the buildings to the north. A good enough lead.

   They headed that way.

   There was a pretty high chance that they weren't going in the right direction, but she didn't care. She already knew that the crater held nothing but an odd space-rock that overly-suspicious humans thought was a sign of extraterrestrial life.

   She just wanted to get out. The place felt like a hollow void without Clarity there, awake and well like she should be.

   After a while of walking, they passed a rental cube for tour bicycles.

   Though Benny was still terrible at biking even after all the years they'd been apart, it was still much faster than walking. The buildings slowly became shorter and less important as they faded out towards the edge of the city. The road ended abruptly at a tiny wedge of parking spots, bordered on three sides by a sandy cliff.

   They left the bikes there and climbed up a narrow trail.

   She was greeted with the same scene that she'd seen on the television. A large field occupied in the dead-center by a crater. A copse of trees near the crash was singed on the side closest to the super-heated rock.