Saving Grant Ward

Chapter Fourteen

"How much farther?" I asked Ward, yelling over the wind as we hiked. We'd been walking for three hours and still hadn't seen any sign of what we were looking for.

"Hopefully not far," he called back.

"Great! Thanks!" He didn't respond.

Finally, after walking for another thirty minutes, we found the cave we'd been looking for.

"The girl in he coffee shop was right so far," said Grant, "No blue light yet."

"Should we go in and check things out or wait until night time?" I asked.

"You tell me," said Ward, turning to me, "You're the one who's supposed to be learning how to be an agent. What would you do?"

"Oh. Uh, well, I think we should go in. Let's scope it out now, while it's light and there's no glow. It can't hurt, and maybe we'll walk in and stumble on something like the orb in Costa Rica without ever having to camp."

Grant grinned. "Good call."

We stashed our camping gear in some bushes and headed in. It was a fairly wide, tall cave at the opening, meaning we didn't have to stoop or use flashlights. Thankfully it was also a straight shot back, meaning no twisting passages to worry about.

"You know Ward," I said, deciding to share some of my thoughts with him, "I still think I made the right call, since checking out the cave for ourselves can't hurt. But if it's this nice, open, non-confusing cave, why hasn't anyone found anything in it before us? It sounds like plenty of people have been looking."

"I was thinking the same thing Slater. We gotta watch our step."

We slowly crept farther into the cave, shining our lights on everything until we got to the very back. We found nothing.

"That's annoying weird," I said as we headed back out to make camp.

"No kidding. Either we just got punked by that coffee shop girl, or something is very off in this place."

We decided to set up camp at the base of the opposite hill. It gave us cover from potential weather, and it was hidden enough that if anyone else came along they wouldn't be able to see us.

We sat huddled outside the tent in our parkas and blankets. I turned to Ward.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We wait."

****************

Turns out, I'm not that great at waiting. We'd been sitting in silence for almost an hour, and I was losing it. What kind of super-human patience did Grant have?

"Is this normal for you?" I asked.

"Is what normal?"

"This. Sitting for hours in complete and total silence."

"Well, considering I do most missions on my own, it'd be pretty weird if I wasn't silent."

I sighed in frustration. "Well, you're not alone now, so let's talk about something. I'm getting bored."

"You want to talk about getting bored?"

"What? No! Well, actually, sure if there's nothing else to talk about, but it's not my first choice."

"Ok, well, what's your first choice?"

"Literally anything else."

I saw Grant shake his head. I expected him to give in and say something, but he didn't. I rolled my eyes. I guess I was going to have to so the hard work with this conversation.