Ovenshine

14.

She's trying to sit still, really trying, but the energy singing through every ounce of her blood is nearly too much to bear. Even as she sits atop an overturned peach crate—the same one she'd sat on as Percy had nursed her wounds the other night—Indy's legs and hands are still shaking.

Gatz, Percy, and Sylvia are all sitting on the floor of the attic, mingling with the dust bunnies, gathered around the copy of the fateful police report Indy pulled from an online database. The silence is enough to slowly nibble away at Indy's already anxious brain. Whether she's anxious because she thinks they'll find something to disprove her hypothesis, or because she thinks they won't, she isn't sure. She just feels it—a weight pressing on the back of her neck, like a stone, or the breath of a stranger.

Gatz sits back with a long sigh, like an elderly person sinking their old bones into a chair. "It's not enough."

Now Indy is the one sinking. She gapes at them. "What do you mean it's not enough?"

"I mean we'd have to go talk to Pine again if we wanted to know for sure."

"There has to be some paper trail for this," Percy agrees, handing the report off to Sylvia, who glares at it for another moment before returning it to Indy, faintly crinkled. "Like a write-up he did the day of the maintenance call, or something. Otherwise we don't really have proof."

They're right, and Indy knows they are, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating. She's so close, a cohesive answer right at her fingertips, but she keeps slipping before she can reach it. "Okay," she says. "Okay, that makes sense. We'll go back as soon as possible, and then—"

"Indy, take it slow," Percy says. "After your little incident the other night, don't you think you should lay low for a while?"

"Or at least stop breaking into abandoned places for a while?" Sylvia suggests. Indy filled them in on the results of her and Jude's trip earlier, and though she tried to gloss over just how catastrophically it went, thankfully Percy was there to make sure Sylvia and Gats knew every unfavorable detail.

"I know," Indy says, ignoring Sylvia's raised eyebrow. "I know, but this is safe. It'll just be...an anonymous tip."

Gatz looks like they were fully planning to laugh aloud at that before they catch themselves. "Right."

"Even so, there's still too much of this shit that doesn't make any sense," Sylvia says, rising from her spot on the floor and to her full height, which is at least doubled by the platform shoes laced up her ankles. Her monochromatic hue of choice today is baby summer sky blue, her cropped fur coat making her resemble a sugary roll of cotton candy. "Your journal didn't mention anything about the hammer, but for some reason it did seem important to give you that address. I don't see where the dots connect."

"Maybe it's not my job to see where they connect. Maybe it's just my job to hand it off to someone who can."

Sylvia looks unsure. Gatz looks concerned. Percy just looks tired.

"It could be a breakthrough, Indy," Percy says, and he sounds startlingly sincere as he does. "I'll give you that."

He looks at her, a silent reminder of everything that had been said last night in his eye, and Indy nods. Take it slow. Proceed with caution. Somewhere inside of her Indy knows it's the right thing to do. But it's a logical voice her panic just won't listen to.

The crew files out of the room a few moments later; Dr. Clover's class is starting soon and Gatz is complaining that they need coffee urgently or they may simply cease to exist. When all of them reach the bottom floor, Indy notices the increased amount of people milling about the lobby, faculty and students alike, the buzz of their voices rising up to the ceiling like hot air. For a building that's hardly used anymore since the newer renovations, the crowd gives Indy pause.