Hunter Academy (Edited)

Chapter 23 (Edited)

I watched out the window as the many buildings grew fewer and fewer and golden coloured leaved trees replaced them. When the taxi stopped in a parking lot in front of a forest I looked at Alexandria in disbelief. She was crazy, what were we doing here? Alexandria smiled at the driver as she passed him the money and then got out of the car.

“Ready for a hike?” she asked with a mischievous grin. I sighed and then turned back to watch the taxi get further and further away. There was nothing else to do but hike; there was no way back. I pulled out my phone and confirmed my suspicion, there was no service here.

“You’d better know what you’re doing,” I told her. Alexandria just smirked unbothered by my threat. She walked over to the nearest path leading into the forest. From my position the path looked like it was swallowed up by the forest.

“Oh come on, enjoy the scenery while we’re walking and eventually you’ll find out the reason I brought you here,” Alexandria said. So we walked in silence. The fallen leaves crunched underneath our feet and birds called out to one another above us, the forest was full of vibrant life. We seemed to be gradually climbing higher and higher, it was as if we were going to end up on a cliff or peak. To my surprise that wasn’t what happened. We were high up but we didn’t stumble onto a peak, we stumbled into a massive clearing. The clearing was completely devoid of trees or other things of nature and it was the size of a few football fields.

“What is this place?” I asked Alexandria confused. She just smirked and then invited me to walk further into the clearing, to the center. I swallowed my questions and just stepped forward, after a few steps I felt some type of tension and I looked over at Alexandria, she didn’t do anything to tell me to stop so I pushed forward and then noise reached my ears. I looked around, the once clear clearing was now filled with tents and people beside campfires; it was an encampment. I frowned, this meant magic was present.

“This peculiar clearing is the home of nomad witches,” Alexandria explained. At the mention of witches I glanced at Alexandria and she laughed. “Relax these witches are nothing like the coven of witches that we encountered, they’re peaceful,” she said, “for the most part,” what she added was almost like an afterthought.

“So is this where this Brandon Carmichael guy is?” I inquired as the nomad witches caught sight of us and stared with utter abandonment and I felt self-conscious. Alexandria seemed at ease with all the stares and just nodded as she looked around searching for someone. A grin slowly grew as she spotted the person she was searching for. I followed her line of gaze and couldn’t believe my eyes. I walked over to the person no longer caring about the other people in the clearing, I just wanted answers, I never would have expected in a million years to see this person here.

“What are you doing here? I thought you had something else to do, did you follow me?” The people beside him backed away sensing they did not want to be around for this confrontation.

“Newsflash Damien, everybody’s lives do not revolve around you. I did not follow you here to Ottawa, I came here because I had to; this is part of the thing I had to do. Oh and thanks by the way for leaving me a note not even telling me where you were going, I'm supposed to be your partner,” Erik replied loudly. I heard a crinkle of foil and saw Alexandria walking up to us as she put a piece of cinnamon gum in her mouth from a familiar package.

“Where’d you get the gum?” I asked her with my eyes narrowed. Erik huffed at the interruption and Alexandria just smiled innocently when she was anything but.

“A pocket,” she answered almost laughing. I gave her a look to convey that I didn’t think that was the whole story.

“Whose pocket?” I responded, at that question her smile grew as she held out the package of gum.