CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE
[73]
song: it's a trip! by joywave

"WE'LL HAVE TWO BURGERS, no tomatoes or onion for her. And fries. Lots. And... Can we get a side of nachos too, actually? And a separate order of the jalapeño cheesy fries. And the artichoke dip." Kai scans the menu one last time before speaking again. "Anddddd the strawberry cheesecake."

The waitress who stood by their table glanced in between Kai and Daisy with a hint of confusion on her face, before writing the order down. "That'll be right out." She nods before leaving the table.

Daisy gives Kai a confused look and she shrugged. "We're celebrating." He nods happily.

Daisy let's out a small laugh. "And how do you plan to pay for all that?" She questions.

Kai's smile fades as he remembers he really does have to pay for things now. The smile quickly returns as he shrugs again. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there." He waves it off.

Daisy laughs, leaning back in her seat and looking around the crowded restaurant. It was big, and each table was filled with different kinds of people- families, couples, friends. Daisy tried not to let her gaze linger on anyone for too long- but the sensation was impossible to get used to.

Of course she'd been surrounded by masses of people when she was in Winslow- but this was different. These people were here living out their normal lives and grabbing a bite to eat, they knew nothing about prison worlds- or witches for that matter. They were real, and human, and normal.

It was overwhelming, but exciting. Daisy wanted to bombard everyone with questions on what's been happening in Portland the past twenty years- but she couldn't draw any attention to herself.

Daisy returns her gaze to Kai, who also seemed to be looking around and observing. "I've never seen so many low rise jeans in my life." She says.

"And what's with the-" Kai motioned to his hair, "what's with the side part? What's happening there?"

Daisy laughs and takes a sip from the cold water sitting in front of her. "This is so weird." She says.

"I know." Kai nods. "Do you think it feels like- lighter? To you? Like the air-"

Daisy cuts him off, leaning up and pointing at him excitedly. "Yes!" She says with wide eyes. "Like moving takes less effort?!"

Kai nods eagerly and continues. "I think it's because there's no weight of magic all around us."

As Daisy sits back in her seat again, she processes Kai's words. She looks at him with narrowed eyebrows. "Your magic.." She notes.

Kai shrugs it off. "I still have some left."

"Some?" She questions, a hint of worry on her face.

"Enough." He corrects. "Enough for a locator spell, but then I'm pretty much back to the default settings." He sighs, a look of disappointment hidden under his emotionless face.

Daisy frowns. "That won't be too bad, right? Can't you siphon from grimoires?"

Kai nods. "Yeah, but they're not so easily at our disposal anymore."

Daisy opened her mouth to propose another idea, but Kai stopped her by placing a hand on hers- giving her a knowing look. "Stop worrying." He urges. "I'll do the spell, find the twins, get rid of them, merge with Josette- and everything will be taken care of."

Daisy's shoulders relax and she nods in response. "I just want everything to go smoothly." She says.

"And it will." He says. "Just gotta trust me."

When the food arrived, the two let no time waste before they dug in. Portal jumping must really take it out on someone- or maybe it was just the aimlessly wandering around an entire town.

"So you were all this way from Wayward?" Daisy asks with a full mouth.

Kai nods. "Yeah I woke up in a clearing in the woods by my house." He says. "That must've been where I was last but I- don't really remember."

"I don't remember much either." Daisy shakes her head with a frown. "Did they still live there? Your family? At your house?"

He nods. "It looked like it, yeah. But I didn't stay to chat." He scoffs.

"That's probably good." Daisy says, grabbing a handful of fries.

"Did you go to yours?" Kai asks, a bit of hesitation in his voice as he spoke.

"Yeah, I did." Daisy took a deep breath. "People still lived there but it wasn't- it wasn't my family." She shrugged. Kai nodded slowly, matching Daisy's disappointed expression. "I think it's maybe best that I don't know where they are." She admits out loud.

Kai narrows his eyebrows at her. "Why?"

Daisy thinks for a second before speaking again. "Because if I knew I'd go see them. And- I'm not sure I could handle seeing them moved on with their lives." She let out a small scoff, but it didn't hide the pain in her voice. "And besides, that's all in the past." She shrugs it off, but it was clear that wasn't the truth.

The waiter approaches, the table with the check in hand, and Daisy eyes Kai. He looked unfazed, so all Daisy had to do was wait and see how he'd pull this off.

"Thank you." He says happily as he accepts the check from her.

"No rush." The waitress smiles back, before walking off.

"Great." Kai responds with a firm nod.

He opens the check and makes an awkward face as he checks the total. Daisy narrows her eyes at him, as she waits for his next great plan. "Can't you just do some kind of spell or something for this?"

Kai scratches the back of his neck. "See- I can but then I'd be out of magic for the locator spell."

"So?" Daisy raises an eyebrow.

"So, we slowly stand up, act totally natural, then leave." Kai suggests.

"Got it." Daisy sends him a firm thumbs up, which he returns.

They look around for a few seconds to make sure no one was onto them, when truly no one had even bat an eye in their direction. They stand from the table and make their way out the restaurant.

As the cold air hits them, Daisy let out a sigh of relief as the crowded restaurant was beginning to make her anxious- that and the whole leaving without paying thing.

"Okay quick feet, quick feet." Kai says, putting a hand on her back and urging her to walk faster.

Daisy laughs as they both pick up speed, their feet beginning to unnecessarily carry them quickly down the sidewalks of Portland.

Dipping in and out between people doing their weekly errands, they ran. Though no one was chasing them, it was fun. It felt like it was just the two of them, despite the many people they were avoiding bumping into.

Daisy sped up, dodging out of the way of someone who came around the corner and walked right into her way. Kai behind her, she struggled to breathe because of the laughter that clouded her lungs.

She felt an arm wrap around her waist and she was stopped in place, almost toppling over at the sudden halt. Realizing she was at the end of the street about to run into the road, a car drove over where she would've just stepped with a long honk.

Daisy covered her mouth in surprise, where a few laughs still fell from her lips. She turned to Kai who let out a deep sigh of relief as he let go of her waist.

"Careful." He says, glancing around and down the road the car just drove by on.

Daisy readjusts herself, though her heart was pounding from the almost-step into disaster. She turns to Kai and let's out a quick breath. "What do we do now?" She asks, a question she'd sort of been avoiding asking as there wasn't a firm answer.

Kai realizes the sky was turning a darker shade of blue, and their freedom of running the streets aimlessly was coming to an end. They needed a place to stay, at least for the night, and so then he can do the spell to find his sister. "We can find a motel or something." He shrugs.

As a cold breeze swept past the two, Daisy shivered, wrapping her brown jacket around her body. "We don't have money, Kai." She sighs.

He thinks for a few seconds, glancing around at the slightly busy streets of Wayward. His eyes immediately falter to the guy in a coat ringing a gold bell outside the grocery store, he wore a red Santa hat atop his head, and beside him was a red bucket. Daisy follows Kai's gaze as she steps forward beside him to get a better look.

The sign next to the bucket read 'Salvation Army Donations', and Daisy and Kai exchanged knowing glances.

Immediately, the two began walking towards the bell ringer, who's gloved hands were shoved into his coat pockets. Kai stepped away from Daisy and busied himself at the side, while Daisy approached the man.

She smiled sweetly as they made eye contact. "Hi, I'm so sorry to bother you-" Daisy begins. "I was just wondering..." As the sentence fell short, she realized she maybe should've thought this through a little further. "How much money you make doing this?" Daisy asks, raising her eyebrows with a smile.

"Doing what?" The guys asks, turning towards Daisy as he lazily rang the bell to alert everyone that they were taking donations.

Daisy inhaled sharply and shrugged, as she took a quick glance at Kai, who was slowly approaching the red bucket while trying to remain inconspicuous.

"Ringing the bell." Daisy says, gesturing towards it.

The guy shrugs. "I don't know. Like ten dollars an hour?" He says.

Daisy nods, over excitedly, as she tried not to watch as Kai got closer to the bucket. "That's- that's great. Um- Do you like it? Do you recommend it?"

The guy narrows his eyebrows at her. "Do I like ringing a bell in the freezing cold for six hours straight?" He asks.

Daisy nodded with a smile.

He shrugs. "I mean- not really."

Daisy nods again, slower as she glances at Kai as he slowly bends down and picks up the bucket. The guy followed Daisy's gaze, and began to turn around to see what she was looking at but Daisy grabbed his shoulder and turned him back around. "Oh!" Daisy says excitedly. "I- love this coat." She nods, awkwardly patting the guy's arm.

He looks at her confusedly, "Thanks?"

Daisy smiles, taking another quick glance as Kai walked in the opposite direction, the entire red bucket in his hand. She looks at him confusedly, before returning her attention back to the guy in front of her. "Okay, bye!" She says, sending him a quick nod before running to catch up with Kai.

They quickly dipped around the corner and into an alleyway. "I didn't think you'd take the whole thing!" Daisy laughs a bit, as Kai reached in and grabbed the wads of cash. "What'd we get?"

Kai shuffles through the green paper. "Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred, hundred and five, hundred and six, hundred and seven." He counts, then looks up at Daisy with a shrug.

"Damn." Daisy says.

"Did we just steal someone's Christmas?" Kai makes a face.

"It's not like it's going to buy- drugs or something." Daisy shrugs. "And it's going to the poor and needy." She nods with raised eyebrows. "The poor and needy being us." She adds.

Kai nods. "It'll at least get us a motel for the night." He says. "Then we can make our way to wherever my siblings are."

—

"Arizona." Daisy says, pointing out the window of the cab as they drove down the unfamiliar roads.

Kai leans towards her and follows her finger to the Arizona license plate. "And they're handicapped." He turns to Daisy and gives her a nod. "Bonus points."

Daisy smiles excitedly as she plops back into her seat. She glances up at the mirror, making quick eye contact with the cab driver. She scoffs. "Sorry, we're probably being really annoying." She sighs.

The guy doesn't say anything in response, but Kai adds on. "We're just really excited." He says. "It's the first time I'm seeing my family in like a really long time."

"Also, what's the deal with these train ticket prices?" Daisy scoffs, and Kai shrugs and shakes his head, just as confused. "Two hundred dollars? For a train ticket?!"

Kai glances up at the mirror and realizes the driver wasn't listening to a word they were saying. "God, and having to slit the ticket collector's throat because we couldn't afford one? Such a pain in the ass."

"Like I only have one outfit- I didn't really want it to be stained with some rando's blood." Daisy rolls her eyes.

"Alright, we're here." The cab came to a stop, and the both of them look out the windows and realize they really had arrived. "That'll be thirty."

Daisy let out a little sigh of relief. "Luckily for you, we budgeted so..." she reaches into Kai's backpack that sat in between them, pulling out the now decreasing in size wad of cash. She flipped through the papers. "That's ten," She says, handing the cab driver a ten dollar bill. "Here's one, two," She unfolded the last bill and it was only a five. She frowned. "Five..." She handed the last of everything to the cab driver.

"Oh," Kai says. "We bought snacks on the train, remember?" He says.

Daisy snaps her fingers and points at Kai, "Right- right I forgot."

"I don't have all day, let's go." The cab driver says frustratedly.

Daisy makes an awkward face as she digs deeper into Kai's backpack. She raises her eyebrows a she picks up a pair of wirey, small headphones. "Oh, and we bought these." She says, handing them to Kai and giving him a knowing look.

"Oh, yeah." He nods, taking them from her. "I guess these'll do." Without hesitation, Kai leans up from the backseat and quickly wraps the headphones around the cab driver's neck, forcefully yanking him back against his seat.

Daisy turns and watches out the car window at all the unsuspecting people walking by, as the cab driver began to choke.

Kai pulled harder, ignoring how the driver attempted to pull and tug against the wires as they strangle him. As he lets out his last croak, and the car once again falls quiet, Daisy redirected her attention back to Kai as he put the earbuds in the dead man's ears.

"Oops." Daisy shrugs, before opening the cab door and stepping out.

Kai came out after, shutting the door behind him and standing beside Daisy as they looked around. "Is this the right place?" Daisy asks.

Kai looks down at the stolen cell phone in his hand, where he had written down the location. "Yeah, we're here." He nods, then gestures towards the large sign across the lawn. "Whitmore College."

a/n
sorry for the filler chapter :(
more soon !