The changing of Winter | ✔

|12| - Emotional

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"I don't get it," I mutter to myself as I head back to the caslte. I was frustrated. "He doesn't want to be cured?"

I hurried toward my dorm room. My knees kept locking, which made running difficult. I just wanted to sit on my bed and write down my conversation with Mr. Jones in my notebook before I forgot.

I was concentrating so hard on not forgetting, that I didn't see the guy waiting for me by the caslte door.

"Winter," he said.

I jumped and turned around to run as fast as my straight legs could go.

"Wait!" The guy cried after me. "It's me."

I was having a hard time processing who 'me' was. My brain fog felt foggiest than usual. And the moonlight made my vision blurry. Terrified that Brett was back to eat my brains, I hurried toward the cottage. Mr Jones was strange and I didn't trust him, but I had nowhere else to go.

"Winter!" He yelled again. "It's me, Jesse."

I stopped what I was doing and turned around to face him. "Oh," I felt foolish for running away. I slowed to a stop and waited for him to catch up. My heart was beating so hard, I wondered if it would ever settle back to its normal rhythm. We were on the pathway to Mr. Jones's, near the break off to the research center.

"I was worried about you. I've been searching all over for you," he said. The way he was squinting at me made me feel uneasy. "You feeling okay?

"Uh, yeah," I lied. I wasn't feeling okay at all. The combination of what had happend with Brett and the fact that Mr. Jones didn't believe me was making my head feel full. Plus, I had a toothache and my brain felt like oatmeal.

I looked up at the moon. It was full, big, round, and reddish. What did Danny call it when it looked like that? A hunter's moon. The thought made me shiver.

"I was afraid that Brett---" Jesse said, looking at me with a frown.

"He almost did," I said. He didn't seem like a brain sucker, but then again, I had no idea what Brett would have done if Mr. Jones hadn't shown up. "Mr. Jones saved me," I told him.

"Told you he was nice." His frown flipped to a grin.

"He still scares me," I admitted. "I think Mr. Jones might have stolen the zombitus cure."

Jesse laughed. "No way."

I told him how Mr. Jones said that I might like it at ZBS-Academy if I'd give it a chance.

"He's protecting you," he said, defending the old man. "Remember how upset you were when you found out there was a cure and then found out there wasn't? It keeps happening. He just wants you to get into the routine of school and stuff."

"I don't know ..." My detective mind was spinning.

"I thought you said the Bs took the cure?" He asked.

"I did," I said. A possibility took form. "Maybe they're all working together."

"Now, you're getting goofy," He said. "Mr. Jones didn't tell the Bs to take the cure. He hired researchers and built a fancy lab. He wouldn't waste his money by finding a cure just to steal it himself."

"Unless ..." The mystery was becoming clearer. "Unless he has so much money that he doesn't care," I retorted. "Did the cure ever go missing before the Bs got here?"

Jesse considered the answer. "I'll admit that the Bs have been here evey time a cure was stolen." He stopped me before I could shout Aha! "But the doctors hadn't even discovered a cure until a few years ago."