Mythical Link ▸ Link Neal {Book One}

Fifty Three

     Mike swiveled on his heel to look at everyone in the room, his eyes wild. "Why's everyone looking at me like that?" 

     Alex's eyebrows shot up his forehead. He ripped his cap off of his head, his hair flopping to the side. "Dude! You're the one that grabbed everything for the episode!"

     "Dude! You were with me when I got everything!" 

     Alex leaned back a bit, fixing his hair before placing his cap back on his head. "Good point."

     "Come on!" Link shouted. "What on earth was it? Seriously?" 

     Mike and Alex looked at each other and lowered their eyes to the ground. "We found it at a craft fair downtown," Mike mumbled under his breath.

     "A craft fair?" Rhett questioned, throwing his hands on his hips. 

     Mike felt the heat build up in his neck and cheeks.

      "It was something we passed on our way to the grocery store," Alex cut in, Mike glancing up at him appreciatively. "It looked like the perfect thing that could fit into a Nerf gun. We had no idea it was going to explode. Honest." 

     Rhett and Link threw a quick glance at each other, and all the color had long since drained from Link's face. For once, he thought the day was turning out normal and then they had to catch this monkey wrench. He shook his head and started walking away from everyone. 

     Rhett sprinted after him. "Link, where are you going?"

     "Outside," he said shortly, pushing the door open to reveal the sunlight. He stepped outside and Rhett stopped right before the door, feeling a presence behind him. He turned around and almost everyone had followed them to the door.

     "He's mad, isn't he?" Mike asked, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets with his shoulders slumped. 

     Rhett sighed with defeat. "I don't think he's mad. I think he's just startled, that's all. Let me go talk to him." Rhett turned around and walked outside, squinting from the brightness of the sunlight. He watched as Link was crouched to the ground, sifting through a spot of soil as if he was in search for something. 

     All Rhett could see was his back and he slowly approached Link. He stopped beside him, looking down at him as he was holding his hand out. In Link's hand he had several of the stones that they had just fired off. 

     Link looked up at Rhett. "Somebody placed these here. These weren't here yesterday," he started slowly. Rhett felt like all the wind had been forced out of his lungs and he dropped to a crouching position, opening his hands up for Link to hand him some. Link placed some rocks in Rhett's hands and he eyed them with curiosity. "These aren't typical gravel stones."

     "No duh. If they found them at a craft fair downtown, how did they end up here?" They looked into each other's eyes, conveying a message to each other telepathically. Somebody or something had been messing with them. The both of them rose to their feet simultaneously.

     "We have to go downtown and check out that craft fair. We need to figure out who is running the stand that sold that to Mike," Link said, and Rhett nodded his head in agreement. The both of them spun around to start heading toward the car when they were stopped by Mike and Alex.

     "Let us go with you," Alex said.

     "We can at least show you where we got that." Mike's eyes slowly lowered to Rhett's open hand. He turned his head to look at Alex with narrowed eyes. 

     Alex pointed to Rhett's hand. "Where did you get those?"

     "They were on the ground here," he said, throwing a glance over his shoulder toward the spot where Link had found them.