The Cursed and The Blessed

Chapter 12- Noah

"Henry Evans said... Aritide... hiding..." West sighs in frustration. The headlines come again and I patiently wait even though it's already been more than a minute.

"You're going to try again?" I ask when he doesn't say anything.

"Nah," he mutters. "The stupid thing moves to fast."

I wait for the headlines to roll onto the screen again before reading it out loud for him. "Henry Evans said to have escaped from the Labouring camp in Aritide and even crossed dwelling boarders. Suspected to be in hiding."

"If you have seen him please report to me or Mr Doyer so we can pass the news on to Mr Endle, head Governor of Aritide," Mr Edwards says to the screen. He gives us a brief smile and then the news changes to something about cooking.

We never really watch the news on the large billboard TV that stands in the middle of town but we decided to today just in case they brought up anything about the animal we found two days ago. But so far nothing. Nothing important to us anyway.

"Notice how ever since Brynn became a Labourer, Mr Doyer hasn't showed his face on Live," West says as I nod. "And it wasn't even publicly announced, I don't get how everyone found out."

I shrug as the news changes again but it's still nothing about our discovery. "Matthew."

"Oh yeah," West mutters. A couple of people around us get bored and start to leave. "Let's go, they have nothing to say."

We turn around to leave but I see Vienna leave her group of friends and approach us. She nods at us instead of waving and we nod back. "Nice afternoon isn't it?"

"No, we didn't catch anything," West answers.

"That doesn't make it a bad afternoon," she says, reading the headlines. "I never see you guys stand around her for so long, what's happened?"

"Nothing I was trying to read-"

"Wait. You can't read!?" She bursts into a hysterical laughter but stops when she sees West's face. She coughs and lowers her voice but it's too late because everyone is already looking at us. "You can't read?"

"I can," he answers back sharply. "Just not like everyone else."

"Dyslexia," I say. West always feels dumb whenever he has to tell people this even though I've told him many times that it has nothing to do with intelligence.

I decide to change the conversation. "Anyway, are those you friends?"

She turns around. "I guess. I don't think they really like me though because I'm their boss so half of the time I think I annoy them and when I'm gone they talk about me like now," she shrugs and blows a raspberry. "But I don't care, friends or not, it's a duty."

I can just imagine West saying the same thing. "So, how's Isla? I saw her ice skating alone yesterday, what happened?"

"Oh. She's just..." West searches for the right words without telling her too much. "It's her thinking place."

"Thinking place?" Vienna snorts. "What's she thinking about?"

"Thoughts," he says and I almost want to face palm myself. Vienna stares at him with a half-smile.

She laughs internally. "You're a terrible liar Chiyah Attah."

"Ok but you're not going to think that when you remember who caught your meat."

She grins. "I'm vegetarian."

"Oh," West says awkwardly as I laugh into my arm. Vienna is the only person that can catch up to him.