The Astana Diaries 4: Off the Grid

Welcome back, my friends. You are probably eager for the next chapter. When I left off, I had just fled Oregon and was hiding with my boyfriend and siblings in rural Wyoming.

My story is quite an interesting tale, complicated by good and bad motives. I do not know who I can trust. So, did I make the right choice? Would trusting Jake have disastrous consequences? Stick around to find out.

Well, enough talking. Let us go back to the frozen river in Wyoming, a day weeks after I first arrived. And with that, our story begins.

I delivered a scissor kick to the dummy, then knocked it over with a kung-fu punch. Beside me, Jake, Kissam, and Ares were doing the same.

Ever since a malicious spy ring had tried to capture us, we had been hiding out in a Wyoming cabin. Only ever leaving on weekly supply runs, we had almost nothing to do. After they had been abducted, my siblings Kissa and Ares had been let into the spy secret. I had wanted to keep them in the dark, but once the enemy had come for them, I needed to help them protect themselves. In a few days, I went from a loving sister to a serious martial arts instructor, teaching my siblings everything from Krav Maga kicks to Kempo punch techniques.

They seemed to have gotten used to it all, and their skills rapidly improved. At that moment, Kissa tackled the dummy, then threw a spinning back kick toward the one behind her, knocking both down.

For the next few minutes, we practiced our moves, hoping that we would never have to use them any time soon.

The following weeks were spent relatively the same way, until a morning in early December. As usual, we ate our breakfast and then went outside for fighting practice.

We had all gotten much better, and Ares and Kissa had gotten particularly good. It was just another session of kicks when I noticed her.

Although she did not seem threatening, I immediately went on high alert. Jake, Kissa, and Ares crouched beside me in fighting stances.

The girl laughed. Her flowing brown hair hung in a very casual position, and she wore a snowsuit yet somehow managed to look fashionable in it.

“Poppy!” she said. “Jake! It is so nice to finally meet you!” She then noticed Kissa and raised an eyebrow.

Jake and I stared at her. “Who are you?” Jake asked.

“Zoe,” she answered, as if it should be obvious. “Your sister.”

“What?!” I exclaimed.

Jake stared at her uneasily, then smiled. “Well, Zoe, it is nice to finally meet you.” He hugged her, then whispered to me, “I have a lot of explaining to do.”

The group of us walked into the cabin, where Jake started the fireplace. We gathered on the couch as Zoe shared her story.

She had been born a few years after Jake and was his half-sister. Their father had fallen in love with a spy in the Alps, who raised Zoe in Switzerland. Jake’s mother had been on another mission at the time, unaware of Zoe’s existence. Her father had no idea either.

“I use my secrecy as an advantage,” she explained. “Nobody knows I exist, so I can get away with much more than someone constantly under the watchful eye of spies.”

“Fair point,” I chimed in. “How did you find us, though?”

“This place makes the most sense,” she said simply. “It was our grandfather’s for years and is a perfect location.”

“Did anybody follow you?” I asked, growing worried.

She shook her head. “No. I am confident of it.”

“Good,” Jake said. “I need a word with Poppy.” He led me to the porch and I walked out as the snow fell.

“I just wanted to make it clear,” Jake said, “that her story checks out. My father did have an affair with another spy in Austria about 12 to 14 years ago, and Zoe looks enough like that spy to be her child. We should test her DNA to be sure.”

I nodded. “The best thing would be to let her stay. She would be less likely to turn on us if we could keep an eye on her.”

We headed back into the cabin and found Zoe teaching Ares and Kissa how to play a card game. She smiled, held out her finger, and said, “I am ready.”

“You heard us?” Jake asked.

“Of course,” she answered, laughing. “We all did.”

“Note to self,” Jake muttered. “Find a better conversation spot.”

He opened his professional-quality DNA testing kit that he had picked up on the last supply run. He had never told me where he got it, but I had my guesses. After fiddling around in there, he grabbed a needle and bandage.

As her finger was pricked, Zoe winced slightly, then took the bandage she was offered.

Jake did some more fiddling with the testing kit, then broke into a smile, holding up a testing strip. I did not know how to read it, but I could assume it was a good result.

“It checks out,” he said. “We share enough DNA to be half-siblings.”

Zoe hugged him, then whispered, “Thank you”.

And with that, Zoe joined us in our daily routine of martial arts, card games, and sledding, the last of which she added just for the sake of it.

A few days later, I went to the calendar to tick off the day. I noticed it was December 21 already and realized how close it was to Christmas.

I had never been religious. While I had never visited a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, the day of December 25 always held some significance for me. From opening presents under the tree to icing cookies with my cousins, the time of year has always been special. Even if the presents were never what I wanted and the cookies always tasted disgusting from the dirty fingers of a bunch of children, it was still fun. Every year or two, I got a new cousin, and the family only grew.

Naturally, I wanted to do something special with Jake. We had been together for over a month in the wilderness, but that had been filled with training, fighting, and supply runs.

Later that day during our morning practice, I motioned for Jake to come over. He followed me to the bank of the river, where we gazed at the frozen water.

“You know,” I said, “it is almost Christmas, and I was thinking we could do something special together.”

He made a weird joke and I stared at him strangely. “That is not what I meant,” I said.

He smiled. “Can’t you take a joke?” he asked. “And you meant a date, right?”

“Uh…yes,” I said, then gave him a look. “We can go to Yellowstone in a few nights, and see some animals and geysers.”

“Of course, Poppy,” he said. We walked back to the fighting range and then finished off the morning with Jujitsu kicks.

After lunch, we told Zoe about our plans for a date. She agreed to watch Kissa and Ares, and then gave us a list of presents to get. There were six, two for each of them. Jake and I wrote down some that we wanted for ourselves.

I laughed. While the kids were now trained in multiple forms of martial arts and had recently learned basic codebreaking and computer hacking, they were still children at heart.

The days went by until December 24 finally came. In the early afternoon, we had lunch, did our basic disguise makeup, and headed out.

It was another long walk to the nearest road, which was empty. In the hollow of a tree, we had stashed the bikes that we used for supply runs.

As we rode into town, Jake and I forgot most of the truth. While we were intent on caution in the backs of our minds, for the night we were a normal couple, enjoying a Christmas date. That would turn out to be a huge mistake.

First off was shopping. We traveled all over town, buying presents, then came to a bookstore. We had brought a couple hundred dollars for presents, and most of it had been unused. Looking up at the storefront, Jake and I walked inside.

We selected some books for everyone. I picked out some volumes of Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kingdom of Wrenly for my siblings-all of my childhood favorites and things they were beginning to age while Jake bought Zoe volumes of Gallagher Girls, Percy Jackson, and another series I did not recognize.

Once we had left the bookstore, we still had some shopping money left. As we noticed a jewelry store down the street, Jake held my hand and together we walked up to it.

We split the money and went separate ways each of us buying something for the other. I thought about what he would like. Jake was a nature lover, and particularly favored lions, which had been his favorite animal for years.

I looked until I found a custom jewelry station near the front. It had a whole bin of animals in many different styles. After picking a lion, I searched for some beads. I chose swirls of muted colors, then assembled the necklace and paid, meeting Jake at the wrapping table. We turned our backs to each other and finished wrapping our presents. We then put them in our bags and got back on our bikes.

It was then time to head to Yellowstone for Christmas Eve. Little did I know, someone had been following us the whole time.

Soon, the days of peacefully hiding in the woods would be over. We had been training for this day. It would come sooner than we had thought.

As I rode my bike with Jake down the road into the ark, I was oblivious to the dangers that would soon come.

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Chapter Five will most likely be released from July 13-20. This series will end after six to eight chapters, and then I have a special surprise for its fans...