What He Heard

Chapter 17

            With most of their fellow students still chattering away in the cafeteria, Willow and Rune had the hall by her locker almost entirely to themselves. Only two girls, sitting on the opposite end of the hall so only the colour of their hair and clothes could be seen, kept it from being empty.

            Rune glanced up and down the hall, his obious movements having Willow sighing inwardly, before leaning in close enough her to whisper, “I’ve got some more info on the hunters. Apparently they’ve been setting up cameras all over the forest, ones that are motion activated or whatever. I’ve got locations of most of them I think, based on what I heard the hunters say, though I’ll almost definitely need your help to find them out in the wilderness. Do you want to go take them out?”

            Willow shook her head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. Us finding and messing with one or two could be a coincidence, us finding all of them and they’re going to know something’s up. How would we know how to find them? And why would we be taking them out in the first place? It’s best we leave them. But knowing where they are would be awesome. I can let the rest of the family know so they stay away from those spots as much as possible.”

            “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, frowning for a moment. Then he suddenly grinned. “Alright, I’m nominating you to be the official person in charge of plans that aren’t us creating chaos and/or messing with our fellow students and the administration.”

            She rolled her eyes. “There are only two of us. It’s not like we can have a vote or anything. Besides, it’s not like that’s not how it is right now. I always have to be the voice of reason with you.”

            “Ah, but see now it’s official. I’ll continue being the resident evil genius, and you can take care of all the boring, practical matters. Oh, and the fighting I guess, since you’re better at it than I am.”

            “Thanks,” Willow said dryly. “I’m so glad to be of assistance.”

            “And I’m glad you feel so strongly about it. When I’m undisputed ruler of the universe, you’ll have a high ranking spot in my government. I might even let you be vice-ruler. But only if you work hard now.”

            She shook her head, her twitching lips betraying her. “Please tell me your mom knows how crazy you are.”

            “Of course she does. Where do you think I get it from?”

            “I’m so telling her you said that.”

            “Why do the women in my life take such delight in torturing me? I must have done something horrible in my past life,” Rune said, hand pressed melodramatically to his chest.

            “Because you torture us first. And you make it really easy.”

            Rune smiled then sat straight up and froze, as a puff of cool air flew into them. Willow frowned as he closed his eyes. Another gentle burst of air came, followed by a slender line of breeze, that ran over her skin, raising goosebumps. She rubbed her arms and watched Rune, wondering who’d seen him like this at PECI and decided he was hearing voices.

            After nearly a minute, he opened his eyes and leaned back against the lockers, sighing. “Well, they’ve finished putting cameras up for the day. They’ve got some kind of monitoring equipment so they can see all the feeds remotely at the same time, and they’re setting that up right now. They were arguing a bit about the placement of the cameras, and talking about the kind of evidence they expected to find. Mostly they’re looking for footprints, hair, and signs of feeding.”

            Willow snorted. “They won’t find any of that. Though…if they are looking for footprints and hair, we might be able to send Felicia and her group back out in the ape suit, to film more of their mockumentary. If the hunters find them, and think the whole thing’s a hoax, they might leave. I’ll suggest that to Uncle Allistair and see what he thinks.”

            “I’d be happy to help with that,” Rune said, grinning. “It sounds like fun.”

            “Felicia and her boys certainly enjoyed it enough. Not that I’m surprised. They’re an even closer group than is normal for the family, and are really similar to each other,” she said. Seeing the blank look on his face, Willow elaborated. “I mean, you’ve met Carol and her boys. They might listen to her while she’s around, and might all hang out together, but if they weren’t related and sasquatches, they probably wouldn’t have become friends. But Felicia and her boys would have anyway, probably.”

            Rune thought about it for a moment, before nodding. “That makes sense I guess. Now you’ve got me curious by what you mean by Felicia’s boys. I get that you have to call the group something, but you could have just said Felicia’s group or whatever.”

            She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not terribly exciting. Just that a lot of the girls in my family feel strong maternal instincts towards the boys who are approximately the same age. Sort of the way a mother bear is super protective of her cubs. And because the girls in my family are notoriously stubborn, loud people who hate following others, they generally end up the head of the group. So the boys follow the girls, until they get older, and the girls keep an eye on them, make sure they’re alright, not getting into too much trouble, and that no one’s hurting them. Carol nearly lost herself after Nathan was attacked for that reason.”

            He chuckled. “You forgot violent and short-tempered. But suddenly your crazy overprotectiveness makes sense. You see me as your cub. It’s almost adorable, except, you know, it’s not.”

            “I do not. If I did, I’d be bossing your around and do all the planning,” Willow replied. “You’re my friend. And besides, you’re not a squatch.”

            “I could always strip down, glue some fur all over my body and get a Neanderthal type mask. That ought to be close enough.”

            Willow’s eyebrows rose. “Remember, hitting you is always an option.”

            Rune only laughed.