I turn to walk away from him, but if I leave him… could he get hurt as well?
I drop my invisibility and turn to look at him just as he hugs a tree. I’m… not quite sure how he’s going to find me inside of a tree before I realize that he’s exhausted from running all this way after running to the parking lot and is using the tree for support.
“Why are you out here?” I ask.
His head snaps around to look at me. “Why amIout here? I’m out here because you ran off and I wasn’t just… going to let you sacrifice your life when I could help you. I sent August and Lex with Ellison, in case the person is after him and has left this area.”
I stare at him. “I still don’t understand why you’re out here.”
“Because you’re not supposed to be putting your life in danger alone! You’re supposed to do that shit with friends!”
“Why would you put your life in danger with me?” I ask.
Landon reaches over and shakes me. “Because. I. Care. About. You!”
I still while I let that sink in. Really, it seems to be quite a complex assortment of words that I don’t know what to do with, so I settle on turning invisible. He growls as he hangs on tome, and since my invisibility does little when he won’t let go, I become visible again.
“Alright… I have read many murder mystery books and I almost always figure out who the bad guy is. I’m just… really good like that. So… I… think it is… uh… Valerie!”
“Valerie had that conference today, but if she cloned herself and left one Valerie at the conference while the second Valerie came here to commit the ultimate crime?—”
“It was a joke.”
I hesitate. “Right, right.”
Landon kicks a rock. “I’m going to be really honest… I kind of only know how to pick up things with my brain and smash other things.”
“The deer were over there, and we were right here, so why did Ellison move over there?” I ask.
“I don’t know… maybe he’s afraid of deer?”
“Ellison is only afraid of getting his suit dirty,” I say.
“Exactly. So… he saw something that caught his interest? Where he ended up isn’t in the direction of the car, so it’s not like he was going ahead of us.”
“Right,” I say as I walk over to examine the spot. I look at the area directly in front of where he must have been standing and inspect the snapped twig and the grass that’s bent over. The culprit stepped here so briefly before disappearing…
But to where?
“I don’t understand why I didn’t hear them,” I muse.
“None of us did.”
“It’s different,” I say. “I can hear a squirrel fighting another one in that tree, I can hear a deer drinking from a puddle over there… but I didn’t hear that.”
I look at the way the grass is twisted and point. “It looks like they went this way. Go back to the others, I’ll catch up.”
“Nope, I’m going with you,” Landon says stubbornly.
“You’re dead weight… literally. I can’t move quickly and carry you.”
“I will… I will suffer for Ellison, okay? I will suffer, so let’s go,” Landon insists as he follows me.
I watch him for a moment before giving him a nod. “Don’t step on any evidence.”
“Uh… okay, yeah, sure. I bet I’d be less likely to step onanythingif I was being carried.”
Ignoring that request, I keep moving, following the tracks, but I find it strange that I never see a single footprint. No shoe treads to track. Nothing but cracked branches or bent-over grass. It’s like they were careful to never step on anything that would give them away.
