Burning Road

The Wolves Den- Part III

Her smile wilted around the edges.

"Hi, Cali. It's great to see you again," she said in a strained base. "I know right, I pedaled all the way here on my bike just to meet up," she replied in her normal voice. "You did? That's badass, Cali. You are the coolest!" She jumped back and forth between a terrible imitation of Prince and a high pitched version of herself. "You think I'm cool? Thanks."

"You've got to be kidding me," he moaned as he released her, letting her fall into the bushes.

"Hey!"

"Seriously, why are you doing this to me?"

"That hurt! What's wrong with you?" she asked as she climbed to her feet.

"What's wrong with me? You're what's wrong with me. You're trying your best to make me shoot you."

"You're a real life, honest to goodness, hero. Can you blame me for wanting to know you?" She adjusted her crooked helmet and tried in vain to brush the twigs and leaves from her tutu.

"What are you doing here, Cali? How did you even find me?" It felt like he was speaking to a child. He had to constantly tell himself to keep calm because shooting her felt more appealing than dealing with her specific type of crazy.

"I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I wanted to give it a second shot, but I couldn't seem to get a call through."

"I blocked you."

"I figure something was wrong with your phone," she continued like she didn't hear him. "So I GPS tracked it. The funny part is I had this place on a list of locations where I might find monster related stuff so I hopped on my hog," she gestured toward her pink bicycle, the name Piggy stenciled on the frame, "and I rode out here."

"Cali... what the hell is your real name?"

"Califia, Califia Morrison." She extended her hand for a handshake. He ignored it.

"Califia, I'm not sure where you belong, or what kind of medication you've neglected to take, but you have to stop this," he said with heavy emphasis on the last word. "You don't belong here, and a lot of my peers would rather make you disappear than deal with your mental illness."

"I'm not crazy... my parents think I'm crazy, and my therapist thinks I'm crazy. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I know what I saw."

Khouri stifled a laugh as she confirmed what he'd already deduced.

"When I was five I saw a minotaur take my next door neighbor right out of her first floor window. The authorities said she was kidnapped by a drifter, but I knew better. I told everyone what I saw. No one believed me. No one except for an old man who came by one day asking questions."

Khouri suddenly didn't think her situation was funny. He'd never given much thought to what it must be like for the average person to see the things hunters saw. He was raised in their world, seen dozens of monsters before he'd had his first pimple. A five year old child with no context to reconcile what she'd seen would be put under immense mental stress.

No wonder she'd snapped.

"He knew things, and understood the description I gave him where everyone else assumed I was making it up, trying to get attention."

"Do you remember the old man's name?" Khouri asked. Despite his dislike of the strange girl, something inside him felt pity for her.

"He said his name was Courtney. He said he was hunting the monster, and going to get my friend back. But my father thought he was crazy. He checked his credentials, and found that Courtney wasn't a private investigator like his business card said he was. My parents called the police, and he was arrested...  They actually charged him with the kidnapping, said he was the criminal returning to the scene of the crime.  I-"