Chapter 69

Chapter 69: Chapter Sixty Nine

Katie opened the door to the surveillance room, her mind paying no attention to the inhabitants of the room while she answered her friend, “No, we did not plan anything out. Guess it was a blessing he was in a helping mood.”

“Hello, Boss, well for today that is or at least until seven in the evening,” Kenneth spoke up.

“Hey, Kenneth, how are things going on here?” she asked him and watched the man smirk from behind his container of popcorns. Two hunters sat in chairs watching the monitors while he reclined in his eating popcorn and oozing laziness.

“How can you ask me such a question? I am on top of things. Besides, I don’t see anything going wrong today. There is no rogue that is capable of even thinking of coming close to this place with the rogue killer still around,” he said.

“How do you know that? I captured one just yesterday,” she said.

“Yeah, you did. That speed of yours makes the night patrols seem useless. Anyway, Frost and Jackeline put that rogue you brought in last night through the wringer. He spilt what they could manage to get out of him. He said the rest were too scared to come here and for good reason too. Even after what those two put him through, he seemed more afraid of you. Just what did you do to the rogue?” Kenneth asked.

“Well, he was quite skilled, so when I showed him how useless his skills of stealth evasion and combat were against me, his resolve sort of crumbled. He tried running away, but got many of his bones broken instead, so it only stands to reason that he would be that scared of me,” she said.

.....

“Well, his physique did show that he’d been put through some intense training, but that can only get a low ranking werewolf so far. He was able to at least describe what his experience against the Rogue killer was like. He was warned about getting three miles within the town, but he’d never thought that there was a place that guaranteed your death once you were within three miles of it. Finding out that this was true was what scared him the most. Finding a hunter that he couldn’t escape from or at least give a hard time had not been part of his experiences and he got cocky,” he explained.

“That sounds terrifying indeed... I’m not that scary, am I?” Katie asked. Sandra took a step away from her friend.

“I sometimes find myself thanking Prometheus and the moon goddess that I was not born a rogue, just because of how hopeless you make them look,” Sandra sighed, nodding her head in disbelief at her friend’s question.

“Same here... When Frost let the rogue continue ranting about how scared he was of you, the torture methods that were left had no effect and they left him delirious. Well, some of his bones that healed... well the ones that had minor injuries, but from the way he acted, it was like he was from hell. He wasn’t even supposed to be feeling pain from those injuries after the anaesthetics that were used on him,” Kenneth said, his hand failed to make the trip to his mouth with the next shipment of popcorns.

“Let’s change the subject... I am not that scary. Well, I’m okay with being that scary to the rogues, but not humans and werewolves,” she said.

“Talk about the partner you had during your speech,” one of the hunters who were watching the monitors spoke up in reply to her request.

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” Katie groaned, the rest laughing at her antics.

“Come on, tell us what’s going on. I know there is nothing he’s supposed to know with the moon goddess blocking the connection for now, but the boy seems drawn to you either way,” they began. Sandra put her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter and breathed in twice to block her emotions.

“Sandra, save me,” Katie begged the junior hunter.

“I know nothing of what you speak of. You don’t seem to be in any trouble,” their eyes simply wouldn’t meet while she spoke. For some reason, all these computers were starting to look very interesting. Katie was being abandoned but her sole best friend.

“Sandra...” she called, “In that case, I won’t be quiet about your affair with...”

“Fine fine fine, it’s been nice knowing you boys. Let’s get going. Everything here looks fine and moving smoothly. We have no more reason to be here. Katie, why don’t we go check on the outdoor patrols, okay? Good, thank you,” the girl started ranting while she pushed her friend out the door until they were out of the room and the door shut. “Hey, nothing’s going on between me and whoever it is your mind is pairing me...”

“You mean Jason...”

Katie was speechless after that, “Why did you choose him? You didn’t even see us together which we haven’t been.”

“Well, I do notice the way he’s always sending you winks and small gestures of the sort. That boy cannot keep such to himself,” she said, “He’s just too obvious.”

“Yes, that is true...” it was Sandra’s turn to groan this time as they walked on. The two were stopped at the staircase by a voice they knew of all too well.

“If it isn’t Hunter of the month,” Dexter said out loud. They turned to see the Beta crossing his hands with a smirk on his face, his normal escort next to him humbly, “Someone’s got their hand wrapped around a Royal. I never thought you were that type of girl.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katie asked the werewolf.

“Nothing much... just an observation made by me and my boys,” he replied, raising his hands up innocently. Katie couldn’t think of him in his stubborn moods since he’d stood up for her during her speech, but his attack this moment had something else behind it. Maybe it was just idle chitchat, but she knew something that might have helped her uncover what was going on behind his mind.

“Don’t you have someone else whose life you’d rather make miserable?” she asked him dismissively. Sandra always loved to watch their exchanges. The two weren’t friends but took pleasure at jesting jokingly even though every now and then, Dexter would break the rules and have to be put to a stop, a painful process.

“No, not really... Of late, I am taking pleasure in poking at couples. Our moon goddess is taking her sweet time in giving me a mate,” he said.

“That’s not what I heard considering you won’t be eighteen until later next month. I heard some other piece of information from someone else. Were you dumped, dear Dexter?” Katie smirked as she finished her taunt.

“What gave you that idea? Nothing of the sort...”

“Well, I heard of the reason you attacked Ash that day,” she said.

“Ash was just getting himself, or herself in this case, into something that had nothing to do with her,” he retorted, going on the defensive.

“Well, who was the girl?”

“That doesn’t matter anyway. Let’s change the subject. I’d actually come looking for both of you and not just the hunter of the month. I saw the person that Sandra couldn’t take her eyes off and the way she reacted to him,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Wait, really, but Sandra is barely expressive...”

“What seems to be going on here?” someone’s voice cut through the air, silencing Katie and sending shivers through her body. This reaction was noted with clarity in her mind as an overreaction on her part, ‘Celeste, what the hell did you do to me?’ the cursed the moon goddess. Cole was behind them staring at the odd confrontation. “Is something wrong here?”

“No, there is nothing wrong,” Dexter broke through the silence to answer the Royal and turned to leave winking at the hunter just before he looked away.

“Hey, Jason,” Sandra said, clearly noticing her friend’s state of ‘thought.’

“Hey Sandra, good morning,” he replied. She greeted the rest while Katie also got out of her trance to greet them. The three of them looked very much like the time when they first appeared on the first day they showed up at the school.

“Katie, are you okay?” Cole asked, having forgotten to greet Sandra all at the same go.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’d like to thank...”

“Don’t mention it,” he stopped her, “To be honest, I was having fun with that speech. You handled yourself well for a suspected murderer.”

“It was terrifying actually...” she replied, chuckling, “If anything had gone wrong, there was the option of everyone advocating for my direct imprisonment or death sentence.”

“That’s not something to say so lightly,” Cole said. “Okay, now that we have the greetings out of this, we were actually looking for you guys.”

“Anything specific you had to ask,” Katie asked.

“Yes, we have never been to this Founder’s Festival thing and we’re hoping to get the best guides in the school. We were told the two beauties usually walk together and are almost impossible to miss because one has strikingly blue eyes,” he carefully voiced.

Katie felt her cheeks start to heat up and answered him quickly in an attempt to distract herself from the compliments, “Well, you found them and they are currently unoccupied.”

“Wonderful,” with that said, the five friends were on their way to the lower floor to start the tour of the entire festival. Katie couldn’t help but rub her cheeks when the boys weren’t looking. ‘Is this a good thing or a bad thing?’