Inciting Investigations

Chapter 11

Birdy Anders

Birdy felt panic rise in her body as she stared at the contents of the folder laying on the ground before her feet. After a couple of seconds, she got onto her knees to try and scoop up all the papers before the two boys in the room saw what it was that she had been working on without them knowing. But of course, that didn’t happen because why would anything work for her?

“Let me help you with that.” Badger said as he knelt down beside her, and Julian followed suit.

She tried to grab the papers out of their hands quickly before they could see the contents of what was written all across them, but she evidently wasn’t quick enough. That was proven by Julian gasping just slightly before standing up with a couple of papers still in his hands.

His eyes were wide, and his mouth was slightly agape while he quickly shuffled through the papers that he was holding. She tried to get up to grab them away from him, but he just took a couple of steps back and stared at her in disbelief. She froze because she already knew that he knew what she had been doing the past couple of days and now she was worried.

“What is it?” Badger asked, clearly confused by what was going on between the two of them.

“Why is his name on these papers?...”Julian asked as if just seeing the name made him scared.

Out of the corner of her eye, Birdy could tell that Badger looked confused as he slowly approached Julian. The other boy simply took a step back for every step that either of them took forward with that terrified look on his face. He wouldn’t take his eyes off Birdy, and she could tell from his eyes that there was a lot going on in his brain. She could practically see the gears in his head moving at a million miles an hour, and she knew they couldn’t be stopped now that they had started.

“Look, I can explain. I prom-” She was cut off.

“Then explain!” Julian demanded.
The two of them were in a standoff as Birdy thought of ways to get the papers back without actually telling him anything, and Julian wondered why she would want to even think about Tempest. Badger looked between the two of them as he tried to mediate the situation when he didn’t even know what the situation was. None of them were sure how to continue.

“Okay, let me see the papers.” Badger reached for them, but Birdy grabbed his hands and pulled them away before he could reach them. “No, you can’t see them.” She said.

Julian, however, shoved the papers in Badger’s face before Birdy could stop. Badger grabbed them and skimmed over their contents before she could stop him. He looked up at her, and she could see that he now understood why Julian had seemed scared earlier.

“Why do you have these papers, Birdy?” Badger asked her as she tried to reach to get them back.

Badger pulled his arms away before she could get them, though, and she knew that she wasn’t going to get them back unless she gave an explanation. She really didn’t know what lie would work in this scenario, so she just decided to be honest with them. For one time.

“Look, we all know that a lot of bad things happened to Cyrus because of him, and he was never caught. He was never held accountable for what he did to my brother and countless other people. My only aim with this is to bring him to justice and give some closure to his victims and the families of his victims. Okay?” She spoke slowly to make sure her words were heard.

“You can’t do thi-” Julian was quickly cut off by Birdy. “And who are you to decide that for me.” Julian looked annoyed, but he still spoke again. “What I was going to say was, you can’t do this…alone.” Badger nodded, and the three of them knew they had come to a very surprising agreement. This wasn’t just Birdy’s problem anymore. It was all of theirs.