28. Thinkin' Of A Master Plan
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"Face it, Alsharafzi. They're not coming. If they were then they would be here by now, but they're just over five minutes late."
Alsharafzi and Zonarosa were waiting for Kehlani and Kishati at the Krondon Library, where they had agreed that they were going to meet.
Whilst they were waiting, Zonarosa had printed out an entire map of all of Costa Rica (almost), with both of them slightly getting annoyed over how that both of them were taking.
They were coming, both of them.
They were just kind of delayed right now.
Alsharafzi had even sent Kehlani a text message asking him if he was OK or not, as well as where he was at and if he was with Kishati, but Kehlani hadn't replied to that, accidentally leaving the kid on read.
But he honestly had no intention to. He had just forgotten to reply.
Not that it had mattered much now anyway, as when all hope was pretty much lost for Alsharafzi and Zonarosa?
There Kehlani was wearing a hoodie, and there Kishati was doing the same thing and holding some sort of a bag or something.
"There you guys are. We were becoming worried that none of you guys were going to show up. Where were you guys?" Alsharafzi demanded.
"Sorry, I got grounded for getting suspended at school, so I had to sneak out, and both of us also had to sneak past Jordan and Khalil on the way here; you know what they're like."
Alsharafzi and Zonarosa had almost simultaneously forgiven them for being late, before Zonarosa had then showed them the map she had printed out of almost all of Costa Rica.
She had made a circle in the middle of the map saying that they were there, but she didn't know where Ashanti was...
Saying that she was somewhere in Costa Rica.
She had shrunk back from the three dirty looks that Kishati, Kehlani and Alsharafzi had shot her at exactly the same time, with Kehlani kind of rolling his eyes afterwards, before saying anything else.
"Was that supposed to make us feel better or something? Because it didn't."
"Yeah, no kidding," Kishati added, drumming her fingers on the table in boredom. "We know she's in Costa Rica- of course she is, where else would she be? But we just don't know where."
Alsharafzi had then realised that maybe the underground headquarters wasn't on the map because:
A) It was underground
And B) It wasn't close to them at all.
"No, even if it was on the map, it would probably only tell us the places surrounding it, and not where the headquarters are itself. It could be anywhere."
Kehlani had a smart idea.
They could have used Google Maps to search for the underground headquarters.
Or just Google in general, in case Google Maps didn't have it or something.
He honestly had no idea why he hadn't thought of that before but he did... not that it had even worked out or anything.
Because it didn't.
When Kehlani had typed out Sugar & Spice underground headquarters on Google, it had literally said 'no results', but Kehlani had honestly thought that his eyes were just playing tricks on him or something.
He had realised that this wasn't the case when he had asked all of them to type the same thing, causing them to groan to themselves as nobody knew where she was.
Until...
"Why don't you just call Ashanti and ask her where she is?" Kishati had suggested.
Everybody had fallen silent when they had heard that for like five seconds, before literally saying oh yeahhh! to each other afterwards.
Wow.
The simplest answer ever no one had really thought of.
This had literally made Kishati face palm herself really loudly when no one was looking or paying attention to her- that was until Zonarosa had pointed out that they didn't want to call her unless they were all a 100% sure that they couldn't have found the address to the secret headquarters.
At all.
It had turned out that they didn't even need to call her anyway, because she had called Alsharafzi first, completely freaking out at him because she only had twenty minutes and seventeen seconds left to live.
When Kehlani had heard her, he had wanted to talk to her privately, asking Alsharafzi if he could have borrowed his phone as he had talked to Ashanti.
"Ashanti." He had whispered to her through the phone, when he was completely out of Kishati, Alsharafzi and Zonarosa's line of sight. "You OK?"
Ashanti hadn't replied for a while, because even though she knew that she had called Alsharafzi's phone, the person that she was talking to didn't really seem to have Alsharafzi's voice.
Then she realised.
"Kehlani? Is that you?"
"Yeah."
"I've missed you so much!"
When Kehlani had heard that, he had smiled to himself, before saying that he had missed her too, but that wasn't why he taken Alsharafzi's phone away from him to talk to her.
He needed to know the postcode of her location.
"Why just postcode?"
"So we can type it in on Google Maps and see how far we are away from it." Kehlani had explained to her. "As well as how to get there. Do you know the postcode?"
She didn't.
She didn't even know how she had gotten here to be honest.
But she could have found it out.
As in, the postcode.
Kehlani had agreed to that, before their conversation was over for good, with Kehlani in the meantime going back to tell the rest of them the good news.
Ashanti in the meantime?
She just literally had to get the postcode.
Easier said than done though.
Way easier.
After her phone conversation with Alsharafzi and Kehlani, Kayden had gone from almost always keeping tabs on her to intermittently doing that as he had to do something every now and then.
Hmmm...
Maybe I can trick Kayden exactly like he tricked me.
"Kayden."
"I'm not giving you the postcode to this place, so don't even try it," he told her, walking away because he still had to do something.
How did he know what I wanted to do before I did it?
He's like a psychic!
Tazeena then.
She's pretty gullible.
Ashanti just had to wait for Tazeena to walk past, as if she had called her name, then everyone would have gotten crazy suspicious and Ashanti didn't really want that for herself.
Tazeena did not walk past at all.
Ashanti had waited for her for seconds.
Seconds became minutes.
Minutes became hours.
And hours became years.
Although not really, but it hadn't really seemed that way at all.
Maybe they deliberately told her not to walk past... or the kid just genuinely doesn't see a reason to walk past, without anybody else getting involved.
When Ashanti was about to fall asleep for good, with just under 15 minutes remaining, there Tazeena was, with Ashanti getting her attention again.
"Ooh, Tazeena!"
She smiled at her.
"This is such a beautiful place, isn't it?"
"I know right?" She agreed. "I love it so much."
Loved it hard enough to tell Ashanti the address to it?
More specifically, the postcode though?
Ashanti had asked her this, but when Tazeena was about to tell her it, Thalia had walked right into the scene, yelling at her that Ashanti was using her to escape.
So they left.
Dang, they are so good!
How am I supposed to get the stupid postcode now?
Ashanti had wondered around the room for something-- anything- that had the postcode on it, but there was nothing.
Until...
Hang on, there's a letter on the right hand side of me that's addressed to Shealtiel about his new job!
And it has the postcode on it as well!
Just one problem though-- how am I going to get it?
Then she realised.
She had un handcuffed herself again, stretching out to get the letter. She had been mini electric shocked in the process, but Ashanti didn't care.
She needed it.
C3LR SQJ, she had texted Alsharafzi, who had realised something.
That's the park we go to all the time!
The headquarters is somewhere in the park.
It was the park that Kayden, Thalia, Tazeena and Ashanti had gone to earlier before Kayden had used the harmless sleeping gas on Ashanti.
They had the postcode now.
Now all they had to do was save Ashanti with the 13 and a half minutes that she had left to live.
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