The Skylar Experiment : Beginnings

Chapter Thirty-Four - Choosing Your Friends

"Is he driving?"

I had no idea. "Of course. We'll only be gone for a bit."

He peeked out the window, but the drizzle left the glass panel fogged with mist and water droplets. "Then it's fine with me. Text me if anything changes," he declared after awhile.

After thanking him, I headed out the door and found Luc waiting in the driveway, hands in his pockets. That uncanny stare of his rested on me. The world around it seemed to fade, sink into washed concrete greys and browning, slippery leaves.

"How was the trip?"

I was staggered he cared enough to ask. I considered him weirdly while joining him, and we walked off. "Fine. Not much to say about it, to be honest. We're not riding?"

"No, I like to walk whenever I can. It helps to clear my mind. The woods are a nice place when they're not infested by Wanderers, but if you're with me, you'll be fine."

Gravel crumbled under the soles of my shoes as we progressed. We gradually left the road to hike under the cover of trees. The cool, humid air smelled of damp wood, earth and fallen leaves. I found myself picking out subtle aromas, sweet and sour scents of bark the downpour had brought out.

It was calming in the first half-hour, especially with the peaceful silence between us, but then we started climbing a neverending slope off trail. I was left with cursing at slick rocks and uneven terrain.

He noticed how far behind I lagged and halted, grinning to himself.

"Not a fan of the outdoors, I see," he said, his eyes glowing in the semi-darkness.

"Not a fan of these woods is more accurate. Whenever I step out here, nothing good ever happens."

"I thought you'd come to think that, which is why I'm bringing you on foot." He resumed his trek when I got to his level. "Before you develop a fear of the forest once and for all."

"I don't have irrational fears of that kind."

"Then I suppose you don't have a problem walking with me?" he tested.

I stepped on a rock steeped into the muck. It rolled under my foot, causing me to lose balance. Luc caught my arm before I'd fall and crack my skull. Warmth emanated from his palm through my layers of clothes, and for a brief second, I remembered us dancing at Homecoming. I recomposed myself, fiddling with my jacket.

"It's not that I have a problem, I just find it inconvenient. And risky." We regained our pace. "The night you scared that Wanderer away in the woods, did you heal anything else than my ankle?"

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so?" Was he going to lie again?

"We don't have X-ray—would be sick if we did, but I can only tell if something is wrong when I touch a person or if it's obvious," he explained, looking ahead. "I didn't see anything with my own eyes then. Why?"

"Just wondering," I quickly said against the bloom of worry deep in my chest. Then, how did the C-scar appear under my hair? Something like that would have been blatant. And shouldn't there have been a bald spot after healing? But there was a more burning question, since he had nothing more to offer there. "And... why did the bodies look so... advanced? It was like they were decomposed already."

He side-eyed me. "Wanderers consume bodies in more ways than one. What you encountered was what makes them unrecognizable."

Still no ceiling. Perhaps the less detailed explanation worked for me, today. We'd witnessed a massacre, and I could not close my eyes without seeing the piles of dead monsters or replaying the overwhelming echoes. These days, I needed to open windows when I smelled cooking meat or I'd get intense nausea.

And those students... were any of them Luc's friends in some measure? He always seemed to make abstraction of it, even though they must have known each other for years.

"Do you have human friends? Or do you guys just not mix with us unless you're forced to?" I ducked under a low-hanging branch.

He frowned as if that never occurred to him. Beneath his soundless strides and the growing pause, I almost thought he gave up on answering.

"We don't appreciate spending more time with humans than we need to. Not all of us have such a... distinctive attitude like Devin, however. Most of us are a lot more discreet. There are more of us around than you'd think."

"What's so wrong with us?"

Luc gazed up. Finally, after a whole hour and then some, the tall, rectangular building was rolling within view. So he was bringing me to the hospital, and I was willing to bet it was good news which uplifted my spirits straightaway. In some mysterious circumstances, Emma had become the only acceptable outlier in his no-humans club.

"No offense, but there's just no use to form bonds with people who we can't be entirely honest with. It's not easy to hide a huge part of our lives, and the more contact we allow ourselves, the more slip-ups we risk having."

Darkening skies began to blend with far-reaching elms while we crossed the parking lot.

I said, "That's... that's kind of sad."

He stopped. "And why's that?"

"I don't know, it's just that you don't really choose your friends. Haven't you ever wanted to put differences aside for someone you thought was cool? You've never clicked with a stranger?"

The switch happened right then. He went from being relaxed to ready to warn me to shut up. I could see it in his eyes, two beams filled with derision. He stiffened in front of the heavy doors, lips pressed into a hard line.

"No," he dropped, the flare in his eyes vanishing. "Time and time again, you people show us you are not worthy of trust."

The entrance swiftly detected our motions and opened. 

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Do you think Luc is getting tired of the Q&As yet?