Midnight Birdsong [Dreamnotfound AU]

Chapter 35: Give Us Answers

They shuffled on, laughing and shoving each other playfully.
Sapnap's near black eyes met Clay's dull green again; Clay pulled his away.
"You want to talk to me about it?"

Clay glanced around and shook his head. This isn't a good place to relive nightmares and bawl my eyes out.
"I'm good. Go ahead with what you were saying."

"Ok, so I was asking if this means anything to you, I think it's a backwards word but: SA-HCA-OE? SAH-CAO-E? Ummmmm S-AHCA-OE? I don't know. It's nonsense."

Clay shook his head. "I don't know what it means but I think it's from George."

"From George?"

"Yeah." Clay was almost positive. "He's finally... finally talking to me again. Don't you think so?"

"Oh," Sapnap hesitated. "I'm not sure-"

"-just look though. He said meet in the library. He likes to hang out in the library. You know how he likes books right? And he said come alone so he wants to talk to just me... but he also said that to you... oh so... maybe not. No, I was wrong. Nevermind."

"You could be right."
Through his words, Clay could see on Sapnap's face that he thought he was grasping at straws. He quickly rearranged his features.
"Let's try and figure it out this afternoon."

"This afternoon?" Clay's brow furrowed. "But it says at lunch."

"Lunch Friday, dude. It's Thursday."

Oh.
Clay had been looking forward to the chance of seeing George again.
Now he had to wait another whole day.

Sapnap eventually stopped hanging around to go hang around the back of the bus, leaving Clay alone.

He sat lost in thought until a6d gently tapped him on the shoulder.
"Can I see that you guys were looking at?"

"Oh yeah sure." Clay handed his phone over.

A6d frowned at it and tilted his heads sideways slightly.
"Did you try moving the um- letters around each other?"

"Oh, no. I didn't spend that much time on it. I thought, oh well I thought he would just explain when I saw him."

"E-O-A-C-H-A-S. 'Sac' um sack? 'Sack a coe- eeoc', euh, maybe 'a chaos e?' 'Caao eh?' 'O ha case.' 'Oh casea.' 'Ha so cae.'
No probably not right-" he gave the phone back to Clay- "maybe something with case or chaos. I tired."

"Pretty good for a French guy," Clay attempted his best thankful smile.

"Anytime," Vin half-smiled. "I'm here for you."

"Thanks."

"Bien-sûr." He gave Clay a little two-fingered salute and leaned back in the seat behind him.

Nothing happened until Clay found himself at the beginning of lunch halfway to the cafeteria. It was like sleepwalking; he just walked on autopilot and looked around in a new place.

"-Clay? You listening, mate?"

Clay blinked. Grian was talking to him. Where did Grian come from?
"Um, sorry can you say that again?"

"Yep I said I think I got a clue for finding George last night. I got a text from an unknown number."
He beamed, then said,
"Good news right? You look confused."

"Um yeah." Clay rubbed the back of his head.
"I just don't know why he texted all three of us."

"Who texted all who?"

"George texted me and you and Sapnap last night."

Grian was confused. "But it wasn't his number, we couldn't trace it."