Page 89 of Hell’s Weapon

“Yes. I thought we were about to meet the killer. Where’s Wyatt?” Seffy steps forward to help Rio with the stash of takeout.

“He said he had an errand to run and to head on up.”

“Did he say what this errand is?” My adrenaline spikes once more, please don’t let him be off hunting down Garrick or something equally stupid.

“Said he needed to see a man about a treasure,” Rio answers, “I asked him if he’d figured out what it was we were looking for but he said it was unrelated.”

Treasure… “It means my treasure.”

Fuck.

He has indeed gone to see Garrick.

I’m up and gathering my shoes as Seffy bursts into a recap of our discovery. Pulling on my trainers, I look across the room to where Milo is watching me curiously.

“I won’t be long,” I say to him.

I’m swinging the door open once more when Seffy catches my arm.

“Wait. You can’t go as well,” she admonishes. “We need to go after the prize.”

“That can wait half an hour.”

“But Rio just said the rain has eased off. It’s the perfect opportunity.”

“What about Wyatt?”

“We won’t hand it in until he’s with us but we need to go get it. What if the other teams have been working today as well, they might’ve figured it out too.”

She’s right, we really shouldn’t sit around on the correct answer. It’s waiting to lose. And I won’t be losing this task.

Sending a silent plea that Wyatt isn’t about to get himself shredded by a very grumpy panther shifter, I find myself conceding. I’m not about to let Milo out into the woods without me, and I kind of like Seffy and Rio as well.

“Okay, let’s go,” I concede.

It’s dark and still drizzling outside, but the winds have died down somewhat and the air has a fresh bite to it.

The trees overhead swish and rustle, a few branches creaking as we close in on the area we believe the poison stash to be hidden.

“Why did they have to hide it in such a creepy place,” Seffy breaks our silence. We’d all been quiet since we’d left the compound, following Milo as he guided our way with the very basically drawn map we had quickly scribbled from the notes we’d put together.

“Not a fan of the dark?” Rio asks mockingly.

“No, I don’t think I am. Give me literally anywhere else right now.”

“It’s not that bad,” I tell her, not mentioning that we ought to be grateful for the wet night because otherwise we might be dealing with the sprites who love to settle in hollowed out tree trunks within these forests.

Milo’s fingers give mine a squeeze. His hand had found mine as soon as we’d left the compound. The warmth seeping up my arm from the contact makes my heart beat that little bit harder. In the darkness, I find it harder to read his expressions but as he strolls beside me without much reaction to the noises of the trees, I didn’t think he’s that nervous, in fact he seems to like it. It’s almost like we’re simply out for a nice evening meander through the forest.

Every now and again we check the map. We hadn’t gone that far but needed to make sure we were heading uphill. We should be approaching the correct spot before too long.

Climbing over a few fallen trees on the path, we do indeed reach a small clearing. It's not more than a few metres wide in any direction but there’s a clear gap in the trees and a small patch of grass growing on the forest floor from the window of light created by the opening in the treetops.

The clouds above mean there’s no moonlight and I briefly wonder how the humans are managing to navigate because it was pretty fucking dark, even to my eyes.

The small area seems to fit the description of what we were looking for, so we break off into pairs to start searching the bases of the trees around the edge of the area.

Time ticks as success evades us.