"I'm fine."
"Are you sure? I mean, if you need someone to talk-"
"I said I'm fine!" I interrupted harshly. The waitress jumped a bit as the building went quiet at the sound of my voice.
"O-Ok, I'll leave you be then," she answered before scurrying off to the back. I felt a little guilty for snapping at her like that, but I'm pretty sure if I didn't she would have continued to pester me and I just wanted to be alone.
I pulled my drink closer to me as the noise returned to what it had been before. I was just about to take a sip of the drink when the chair across from me moved back only to be filled soon after by one of the hunters. He lounged in the seat as if he had every right being there,
"That wasn't very nice, yah know," he said as he set his drink down at my table. "She's a sweet girl that's just trying to help."
"I don't need help," I growled back. I took a sip of my drink before snapping it back onto the table.
"It looked like you did from the way you stormed in here."
"I just want to be left alone." I glared at the man only to get a smug smile in return.
"What? A fellow hunter can't come over and talk business? That doesn't seem like a very good way to do your job." He picked up his own cup before taking a large swig from it. "Though neither does getting drunk during your patrols, but what do I know?"
I took another sip of my drink, hoping the smart ass would just get bored and leave if I stayed silent.
"Anyways, have you found who's keeping all the Grimm around the area?" he asked. My head snapped up in alarm to see him looking at me over his cup.
"The mayor said they were being drawn in," I answered slowly, getting an unamused chuckle from the man.
"He's a mayor; that means he can run the town to be damn near perfect but doesn't know jack shit about Grimm," the hunter said as he put down his drink once more. "I've been out there every day for the past two months. Each patrol there's more of those bastards than I saw the night before. This is a small town, barely fifty people overall, there's no way that this amount of Grimm could have been drawn here. Not on their own."
"So you think someone's behind it all?" I asked, starting to get a bad feeling about this.
"Only explanation I got. Maybe they're trying to drive us out, or they're using them to protect something."
"Or someone," I replied quietly.
"Well, I suppose that could be-" he started to say but I was already in motion. I fumbled with my pocket, pulling out enough Lien to cover my drink before dropping the money on the table and taking off out the door.
There's only one person that could control that number of Grimm. Salem had to be stopped.
