“So,” Casey began. She and Dave were in Dave’s Living-room the day after the venture to the school. Dave sat on his couch, while Casey sat on a chair opposite. “got any ideas about who that was?”

Dave knew who it was… well he had it narrowed down to two people at least. The person was female, they broke into the school, and they took something from a hole in the schoolyard, which was talked about by Ira and Saber when Dave overheard them on his way to find Casey. Ira or Saber.

“I… d-don’t…” Dave trailed off from the pathetic lie, which only made Casey suspicious. Dave could care less about Ira, but Saber he did not want to make an enemy of. He did not know her reasons, and needed to find out more before blabbing.

“Why are you hiding your info…?” She asked presumably, peering at Dave.

“I… okay I don’t want anyone to get hurt, I just want to figure this out. The less people know the be-“

“Ugh! Not another one!” Casey fell back into her chair in an exhausted plop.

“… What?”

“Everyone’s got a secret! Or… almost everyone- and now you?! You’ve only been here what, a week? Now you’ve got something ‘too dangerous to talk about’ too?! No one will spill anything!”

“I…” Dave was surprised that Casey felt like this. In truth he felt the same way. He hated all the secrets the people in the town had, and was quite annoyed that no one was trusting him. And now he was keeping a secret from Casey. Despite how much he might of thought she might tell others, she had a point, and if he clammed shut now, he doubted she would let him hear the end of it.

With a sigh, Dave answered truthfully, “When I left to find you… about the necklace and school thing… I stopped at one of the rural areas. I saw Ira… and Saber talking.”

As expected, “I knew it!”

“STOP!” Dave stood up, attempting to be as intimidating as he could be. His tall height could only give him so much. Casey looked confused at him, but while it was not fear or respect, she was silent. “Whatever they talked about, whatever is going on, we need to keep it to ourselves. Having the police over again wasn’t great, and while Ira isn’t on my friend-list, I don’t want her, OR Saber, to have a reason to hate us unless we have the story all-together.”

“Then what are you going to do?” Casey asked, letting his outburst pass.

Dave kept silent for a moment. He then answered with a sigh “I guess I’ll have to talk with Saber.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“No.”

“Then how do you expect to find her?”

“I… seem to be finding people rather quickly in this town… or randomly I should say. No doubt I’ll find her at some random moment. Do you have any idea where she hangs or, or friends she has?”

“She likes going to Macy’s… but pretty much every girl here does, including yours truly.”

“Maybe one of the clerks know-… waaaait…” Dave grinned slightly, “Saber goes to the gamestop a lot, doesn’t she?”

“Uh… yeah… how’d you know that?”

“That’s where I first met her… and since it’s smaller than the Macy’s, I’ll probably have an easier time finding her there.”

“Then go on already!”

“Alright, al- wait, why aren’t you coming?” Dave stopped himself in mid-step to the door.

“If… they get suspicious its best only one of us gets caught so the other can keep investigating.”

The boy was hardly convinced. It sounded very much so like a bluff, even if it was a rather clever one. But why would Casey bluff about this? Dave seriously doubted it was fear or embarrassment. Aside from Rin, Casey was the most brave, and headstrong, girl he had met so far. Was this out of laziness?

Deciding not to inquire, and waste less time, Dave simply nodded, then left the house, with Casey leaving as well, only in a different direction. It took a good hour of waiting until Dave’s plan panned out. Saber walked into the store.

“Saber!” Dave waved from across a shelf as the red-haired girl entered. At first she looked a bit confused, then when she saw Dave she shot him a friendly grin, waving back.

“I know you.” She greeting in an almost giggle-like tone.

“Hey, um… can I talk to you for a sec?” Dave asked, already nervous. The female gave Dave a pity smile, but nodded. “What’s on your mind?”

“I… don’t think anyone else should hear this.” Dave nudged his head towards the clerk of the store. Saber acknowledged this and walked out, with Dave following.

They turned a corner, going to the side of the store; Saber leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, as if slightly impatient. Dave could guess why.

“I…” Dave stopped himself at first, looking down a bit. Gradually he did face her though. “I know I barely know you, and I shouldn’t be getting into your personal life, but-“ Dave noticed Saber was still smiling, almost… was she blushing? *ping* Dave instantly understood what SABER thought he was talking about.

“I-I’m not talking about being your boyfriend.” He blurted, before immediately slamming himself in the face, covering his mouth firmly, and closing his eyes. That came out wrong. When he opened them, Saber was neither smiling nor scowling, but she was certainly done blushing. “I,” he pulled his hand off his mouth, “I want to know… I want to know what you and Ira were talking about in the Ruin area yesterday.”

Saber did not expect this. Her eyes popped, and her hands dropped, though now tensing, almost making fists. She stood up from the wall; Dave could only suspect she was going to run or something… and he doubted he could catch up to her if she did.

“H-how… So you’re a stalker is that it?” The now flustered female accused, narrowing her eyes a bit.

“No!” Dave retorted, feeling a bit annoyed himself. “It was by accident! Completely! I heard you two talking while I was looking for someone.”

“And now you think you get to know what we were talking about?”

“… I’m not going to spill your secret, I just want to know what it was about, AND what was going on with the school infiltration.”

“… No.” Saber took a step towards Dave. “I don’t know what you think happened, and I don’t care, but I am too close to having this whole thing get messed up by some new kid who hears too much.”

The plastic smile was gone, and while an angry Saber looked no less attractive, Dave was seeing what he assumed was the real side of her, below the flirty act. Her words hurt, and even more considering that she was up to this point, very nice to Dave. But after Dave got passed the emotion, and personal questions, to his surprise, one sentence came out of his mouth.

“Will what you’re planning hurt anyone?”

Neither of them expected this; Saber looked surprised once again, stepping back a bit, and losing the angry look. Unfortunately the look came back, and Saber darted off, but not before saying “It’s not your business.”

And that was it. Dave had no reason to follow her. If he chased, she’d only clam up more. But now Dave had lost the trust this person, and whatever brief friendship they had. It should not have hurt so much, but it did. To have someone actually give Dave the time of day was refreshing, and while others had done the same… losing even one was depressing.

He arrived back home at around two. He walked back. This gave him more time to think. He could no longer use his pull with Saber to get any info, and he seriously doubted that Ira would help him. Who else? Dia? The friend? She seemed too loyal to blurt out anything about Ira or Saber, and definitely would tell Ira if he approached her. … Holly? He doubted she knew anything, but the girl was friendly enough. But he could not have one without the other, and if Holly was near, so was Ira.

When he got home, Casey was outside pacing. When she saw him she tensed up, moving her arms apart asking sternly “Well???”

“It didn’t go well… “ Dave said lowly, half-ignoring her tone.

“She wouldn’t spill?” Casey followed Dave inside his house and sat back on a chair.

“No,” Dave answered as he sat down. Sighing he continued, “and now she hates me for prying.”

“Yeah Ira wasn’t too friendly either.” Casey casually noted.

Dave tensed a bit in his chair, wiping his head around to face Casey, looking surprised, “You actually tried to get Ira to spill?”

“Yeah, she wouldn’t listen though.”

“Well what did you do to interrogate her? Ask politely?” Dave joked in a rather irritated tone.

“No,” Casey answered in a somewhat peeved tone as she pulled out her small pistol from her purse, “I did it with this.”

Dave jumped out of his seat, “PUT THAT AWAY!” He yelled, shielding himself with a pillow.

“Fine, alright!” Casey stuffed the pistol back into her purse. “I wasn’t gonna shoot you or anything.”

“You’re not old enough to have a gun! Do you know what my parents will do if they see that?!”

“You won’t tell them, will you?” Casey asked cautiously.

Dave peered at her, “Are you threatening?”

“Just asking. I don’t use the gun… usually. It’s just there for interrogation purposes. Ira’s a jerk and all, but if she died they’d probably figure it out at some point.”

“Don’t bring that when you come over again!” Dave replied, somewhat ignoring the reply.

“Alright, for the love of guns! It’s put away! Can we please move on?”

Dave gaped, wondering how she could be calm about this… was he stressing too much? How could he be, it was a GUN… right? Either way he doubted Casey would keep talking about it, so he swallowed his annoyance and utter shock. “Move on to what? What is there to talk about?”

“Well… we could sneak around following em now.”

“Uh… you can do that. Ira already came after me and you, but I doubt I could convince you to stop. I on the other hand, can control my non-existent urge to give them reasons to kill us… I still feel kind of bad about how Saber reacted.”

“Why? She was hiding something bad. It’s as bad as Ira-“

“Can we… not do that?”

“Huh?”

Dave rubbed the temples of his forehead, sighing deeply, “We don’t know why they’re doing this, STILL. Ira is probably doing it for personal gain, but Saber… I think there was something else. Maybe her dad or uncle is dying or something and she needs money.”


“Well her cousin might be an option.” Casey suggested. “He seems less high-strung than Saber.” Dave wasn’t so sure about that. Saber herself did not seem high strung at all when they first met, nor at the Christmas Eve Party, nor any other encounter until just that day. Her cousin might be just as hostile, or worse. He knew Dave less, so maybe he would even get psychical.

“Saber didn’t seem high-strung either, and now we’re here.” Dave retorted.

“Mm, true. And Saber might’ve told him about the talk you had already…” Casey cupped her chin a bit, pondering. “… I’ve got nothing. I could try talking to him if you want.”

“Um… no that’s fine, I think I will. If Saber’s there maybe I could salvage things somehow.” Dave was actually wanting to go because he was afraid Casey might hold Halem at gunpoint, but did not want to offend… but in the back of his mind the idea of mending things with Saber seemed possible, if not probable.

“Suit yourself.” Casey shrugged. “How do you plan to find him?”

Dave shrugged back, looking away while sighing, “I’ll ask one of the others. Kyle… maybe Craiger. He and Halem look around the same age; maybe they’re buddies.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Dave leaned over slight, looking confused.

Casey’s eyes widened a bit at the confused stare, “Um… yeah… maybe… what’s up with that face?”

“How long have you lived here?”

“… A year or two… I think…” Casey looked a bit saddened when she replied.

“Wouldn’t you know about them being friends?”

Casey sighed, “Look I’m not that good at remembering things. And I’m really bad with names. It’s not fault, so let’s just move on.”

Dave looked concerned now, feeling a bit guilty, “Oh… I’m sorry, I… I’ll try not to get on your case about it.”

“Thanks… Anyway, have fun.”

Ten minutes later…

“Hey Dave.” Rynk greeted, before running out the front door as the tired out teen arrived. She was holding rope.

“Are you going climbing?” Dave asked. Rynk jerked to a stop and ran back looking excited. “Y’know that earthquake this morning?”

Dave’s eyes bursted open, and his hands shook a bit, “N-n-no, what earthquake!? How big?! When!?”

“Like… six- Oh you were asleep? Huh… it was pretty big.”

“H-how- why didn-“ Dave shook his head a bit to get his calm side back, “You w-were saying…?”

“… Yeah,” Rynk looked a bit disbelieving with a bit of pity in her smile, “anyway, it opened up a crack in one of the parts of the abandoned road! There’s a water fall under it, so me, Grace, Chloe, and some others are gonna go check it out. Do you wanna come?”

“U-um… Later… I’ve gotta ask Craiger something…” Dave was forcing those words out hard. His mind was now racing, and concentrating on his current task was hard. A WATER FALL!? He thought. An earthquake?! HOW DID I MISS THIS!? Despite all temptation however, he slowly yanked himself back to face the front door, whining a bit inside.

“Alright, see ya.” Rynk dashed off.

“What a town this is…” Dave stuck his head inside the open door, “Craiger?! You home?! I wanted to talk to you!”

“Kitchen!” Craiger’s voice called back. Dave walked to the kitchen area of the house. It was rather narrow to be honest, but suitable. Craiger was making BLT’s, filling water bottles, and putting together some other snacks.

“Is… that for the guys at the water fall?” Dave asked.

“Yep.” Craiger answered, hands rapidly at work, and his eyes focused. Dave accidentally laughed when he saw this masculine person cooking food; using his muscles to slap on pig meat onto bread. He had to cover his mouth when he pictured Craiger wearing some kind of apron, pink of course.

“Is there a joke I’m not getting?... Like the inside joke for Crocodile Hunter?” Craiger asked, turning to Dave and pausing his for a second. He looked oblivious for the moment, so not mad, thank goodness.

“N-nothing… um, I wanted to know if you knew where I could find Halem? Saber’s cousin?” Dave remembered that Saber told him her last name, and that it sounded cheesy, but he couldn’t recall what it was.

“Um…” Craiger flipped some of the bacon while pondering, “He’s got like three jobs, and he’s almost never home. You could try one of them. He works at… erm… lessee… he works at the Music store… the Wendy’s- not to be confused with the Diner, and… Radio Shack I believe.”

“Alright thanks… did… YOU feel the earthquake?”

“Oh yeah.” Craiger answered with a chuckle. “When it hit, Rynk fell right outa bed screaming like a banshee. She said she was ‘screaming at the earthquake for ruining her dream’. She hates waking up because of insomnia. If she doesn’t go to bed earlier, she has a really hard time sleeping. But if that happens we just break out the sleeping pills. … Off topic, sorry. Anyway,” Craiger started tearing lettuce, “it was fairly big, about three inches of shaking. A few valuables almost broke in the process. Why do you ask?”

“I slept through it.” Dave blandly stated, his arms dropped, and he himself feeling a bit left out, and fortunate, “I wonder why no one told me.”

“Your folks didn’t tell ya?”

“No they were gone when I got up. But Casey was over, and she didn’t say anything.”

“She probably slept through it too. Anyway, while I could very well run over to the site, I don’t want to drop all these, so if you help me load em up into the car, I can drive you over to the mall.”

“Alright, cool, thanks.”


They carefully placed the sandwiches into Craiger’s convertible (He subconsciously hoped for a jeep to finish the Ausey feel… he would later feel like a guilty racist.), and sped off. When Dave was dropped off, he thought about going to the music store first. He liked music, and this was as good a time as any, since he planned to do this already. If Halem wasn’t there, he wasn’t there, next.

The music store was brightly-colored, with a ton of CD’s, a few booths to listen to them, and surprising, but soothing, Oriental themed-music playing. Dave was confused as to why THIS music was playing. He saw a lot of Rock Music Albums, so it wasn’t like they didn’t have those, but it wasn’t a bad thing, he just thought it seemed out of place.

Dave walked up to the Cashier, who was not Halem but a different male employee, and asked “Excuse me, I’m looking for ‘Halem’? I don’t remember this last name.”

“Hail? !-That’s what we call him here.” The Cashier informed. “He doesn’t work Thursdays, just Mondays, Fridays, and Wednesdays.”

“Do you have his address? Or phone number?”

“Yeah, but why do you need it?”

“I wanted to ask him about something… it’s kind of a personal thing. I don’t want to give him any unwanted attention.”

“… Well if it’s trouble I guess he’ll just tell you himself.” The Teller wrote down Halem’s number on a strip of paper and handed it to Dave. Dave thanked the Teller, looked around for anything he’d like, remembered his wallet was not with him, then left.

*ring ring* …*ring ring*… *rin-* “Hello you have reached the phone of Halem Firus-“ (Weird name, Dave thought)”leave a message, and stop hogging all the Peanut Butter, Saber.”

*beep* “Hi, Halem? It’s Dave… I don’t know if you remember me, but I wanted to talk to you… I… messed things up with Saber, and I wanted to know if-“

“Hey Dave.” Halem answered, “You wanted to talk about Saber?”

“Yeah, is there some place I can meet you in person?”

“Yeah, I’m on break until three. I’m at the park, head on over.”

“Thanks.”

“See you then.”

When Dave arrived he saw Halem on a bench, looking about. When Halem saw Dave, he got up and walked over. Dave thought Halem would look upset or hostile if Saber had told him about what happened, but he looked friendly, so this meant he might not have been told.

“Okay, so what did you want to discuss?” Halem asked as he stood.

“Well…” Dave rubbed the back of his neck a bit, “I… tried to ask Saber about something personal,” Dave did not know if Halem knew about Saber’s dealings, and if he told him and he did not know, Saber would most likely hate Dave more now, “and I messed it up. She left and… I’m just really confused. She said she didn’t want me ruining things… is… is there anything… tragic or something about you guys?”

Halem pondered over this, his expression fortunately turning sad not mad. “It’s… not something that people should know about. Saber had enough trouble fitting in when he first arrived here. But… Saber and I have been going through a sort of trouble thing.” Halem straightened up a bit, “It’s not gangs or drugs or anything like that, but it’s a family issue we don’t like people to hear about… You were probably stopping her from getting some sort of money to fix it… she’s very protective, so she probably thought you were a threat.”

“Yeah… I guess I can see why…”

“I could try talking to her if you’d like.”

“… No, I think I should. If… you could convince her to talk to me maybe? I just…” Dave looked down, “I think I did the right thing, but I think I did a really stupid thing too, and I want to fix it.”

Halem nodded, “I’ll talk to her. You seem like a nice guy, Dave. Once everything’s finished, I’d be fine with letting you know a bit more, but for now, it’s best nothing happens.”

Dave nodded; it was all he would get. He could tell Halem was getting some sort of flashbacks by the sudden cringe Halem would do with his eyes here and there. No doubt it was gruesome. But what Dave did know… Casey was right. All these secrets were REALLY starting to annoy him.

Dave felt he might as well go to the waterfall. He did not know where it was, and when he asked a few people about it they would either ignore him, or say they did not know. He did not have Craiger’s cell, or home, phone number, and he did not even know if Rynk had one, so he chose to walk around till he would find where it was.

Finally, who would recognize him, but Asher, who was running out of what Dave assumed was Asher’s house. “Yo! Bro!” Asher dashed over. Dave waved. Despite Asher’s somewhat odd talking-pattern, Dave enjoyed his company. “Hey you goin to the flow?”

“… Did… you just make that word there to make it sound cool?” Dave asked, feeling a bit snappy from the long walk he had been on.

“Yeah it was a bad choice o’ words, I’ll admit it.” Asher said with a slightly humored grin. “Anyway, you goin?”

“I’ve been looking for it for about an hour.” (No doubt Halem was back at work at 3:32 P.M. now) Dave stressfully grunted.

“You’v-… Aw man, um… the Fall’s not on this side of town. It’s almost on the complete other.” Dave was paying attention to Asher until he saw a hand waving to him from a bush… strange.

“Dave?” Asher waved Dave back to the conversation.

“H- Oh right. Well… I... I guess I’ll just have to walk over to it.” Dave sighed.

“Well at least we can converse on the way ovah, right?”

“Y-yeah… Actually one second, you go ahead, I’ll catch up, alright?” Dave walked past Asher. Asher was surprised, but nodded and walked on.

When Asher left, Rin walked out form the bushes.

“You know they aren’t going to hurt you.”

“I was doing that for you.” Rin informed bluntly as she walked up, looking a bit hurt for some reason.

“… Huh?” Dave raised an eyebrow.

“If people see you talking to me, they might think badly about you. It’s happened with other people.”

“And what if I… don’t care what other people think?”

“Everyone cares about what other people think.”

“What did you want to tell me?” Dave changed the topic to keep from getting into a heated one.

“Well… you wanted to see me at a normal time or something, so… I thought I’d say hi.”

“Oh…” Not the best time, Dave thought, “Well I’m about to go to the Waterfall place if you want to come with.”

Rin shook her head frantically, “I can’t do that!”

“Rin, you’re a person like everyone else. And unless you’re radioactive, they aren’t allowed to do anything to you, they probably wouldn’t anyway!” Dave then remembered that Rynk knew Rin, going by the conversation they had about Rin’s secret, “besides, Rynk’s your friend, right?”

“Well… sort of… but-“

“Do you want to go?”

“… Yes, but-“

“Then C’mon!” Dave gestured for her to walk over. “I can’t stand to see someone alienating themselves, and you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Rin cupped her hands, twiddling nervously with her sleeves, “… Are you absolutely sure?”

“I’m completely fine with it. And if they get upset, just ignore them.”

“… Okay… thanks…” Rin smiled briefly then began to follow as they walked to the WaterFall area. Rin was not very talkative, at least at first, and until she did begin talking, Dave had multiple topics on his mind.

First he thought about the Waterfall itself. Was it sewage water? Was it a hidden stream that connected to another far off? Would the police be investigating it? Would they get there before the police did? This made Dave wonder why Craiger, who he assumed was at LEAST eighteen, would be promoting this if he knew about the danger. He did not seem stupid enough to just go along with something that was so dangerous, if it was dangerous, so maybe it would be fine.

Second he thought about… Saber, again. The more he thought about it, he guessed she was not too upset, but she did run off, and she was angry. Dave trusted Halem to talk to her, but would she talk to Dave? And if she did, would she be willing to accept his apology? What would he say to her? In all honesty he did not know. He felt a bit angry himself now that he thought about it. He felt that if she was doing something wrong, she should stop, but he did not know how far she had been going, or her reasons. He needed to know her reasons, and what she was doing. If he was able to know those, he could understand.

And with this realization, he became more and more anxious to talk to her again, especially since he was not getting any closer, possibly farther. But the other red head who did NOT hate him at the moment was with him, and he was not about to ruin things for her as well.

With Dave deep in stressful thought, Rin eventually would take notice, and ask “What’s bothering you?”

“I…” Dave had to process that she was talking to him, then what she said before answering, “Just a problem. I kind of said something really stupid to Saber.”

“What did you say?”

“Well, in short, I just asked her about something I saw her doing which I shouldn’t have. I was trying to get some answers about it, but I just ticked her off. … It seems everyone has a huge secret they can’t share.”

“Oh…” Rin slowed a bit, “I… guess I’m not that list, huh?”

Dave did not answer. The answer was yes, but he did not want to risk offending Rin. But she could tell. “I know it’s not your business, with most of the problems anyway, but I get that its annoying you. I wouldn’t want to be in the dark around everyone I knew all the time…” Rin sighed and walked over to face Dave from the front, “the thing with me is that… I… was responsible… f-for something bad… th-that happened… they said I was responsible for… kil-killing… s-s-someone…”

Dave could see that she was tearing up a bit. “You’re scared now, right?” She asked in a saddened nervous chuckle.

“No… I’m… sorry- why did they say-“

“It was… really compli-cated… I… wasn’t myself… and…n-now he’s…” And right there she feel to the ground sitting, crying softly.

Dave was always nervous about comforting people, and could never tell if he should hug, say it’s alright, or just walk away. But right now he could guess she needed something that was not abandonment. He knelt over and hugged her.

After a second Rin returned the hug. A minute later she got up sniffling a bit, and wiping her eyes. “U-um… sorry I… kind of… um, we should… get going…” She started to continue their walk.

“W-wait, are you sure?” Dave asked in surprise, “If you need some time or something we don’t have to.”

“It’s okay… I need to get out more anyway…”

Dave never expected how he would feel when someone finally told him one of their secrets. But while the sadness and sympathy was there, it was mostly relief and a bit of happiness that filled him. The reason for this was that he could now understand what Rin had gone through a bit more now, and in turn understand her. And in turn after that, he could try to help her better in whatever way he could.

He took a few moments before following the hoodie-girl. Then she turned around and gave him a large hug. “Thanks…” She said.

“… For what?”

“For… listening…”