Shake It Out (Rick Tyler Book 2)

Chapter Eight

The next morning, Dinah drove over to Rick's, a box of his things in the passenger seat. Dinah pulled in front of his house, put her car in park, and grabbed the box as she headed up the porch. She knocked on the door. Rick opened the door and sighed when he saw it was Dinah.

"What are you doing here Dinah?"

"I just came by to drop off a box of things I thought you would want back." Dinah replied as she handed the box to Rick.

"So we're really doing this?"

"Rick," Dinah started as she let out a sigh but was cut off as a car pulled in the driveway and a woman got out.

"Ms. Woods?" Dinah asked.

"Hello Dinah. Hello Rick."

"What are you doing here?" Rick asked.

"I just wanted to come by and apologize again Mr. Tyler about accusing you of cheating. And I also brought you some brochures about different colleges and some financial aid opportunities you may be eligible for."

Before Ms. Woods could continue, Rick's uncle barged out of the house demanding who the woman was and telling her to leave. He grabbed the papers from Rick and got in his face.

"You'll end up in jail before you go to college." He sneered as he threw the college papers on the ground and then turned toward Dinah.

"And I thought I made it clear you and your father weren't welcome here."

"I'm was just dropping some things off for Rick."

"Yeah well, you better hurry up." He said as he walked off.

Dinah went over to help Rick pick up the papers.

"I got it Dinah. You can go." Rick said quietly.

"Okay." Dinah responded as she pulled her jacket closed and walked to her car.

Later back at Courtney's house, Dinah and Courtney were staring at the bag Yolonda had left on the porch that had the Wildcat suit in it.

"I should go talk to her." Courtney said.

"Court, just give her some space. She was already going through a lot with the guilt of killing Brainwave but Eclipso just messed with her as well. When Eclipso messed with me yesterday, he made me see some of my worst nightmares. And I don't even want to think where it would've gone if he had continued." Dinah said, tears in her eyes.

"You're right. I'm sorry." Courtney said as she gave Dinah a hug.

They broke away from the hug and Dinah wiped at her eyes. "No more crying. We're going to stop Eclipso."

"We still need to figure out how to get Cosmo working again."

"Cosmo?"

"Oh yeah. I named the staff."

"You named it?"

"Yeah we had a bonding moment and I named him."

"Okay." 

"Let's go see what Pat suggests we do."

"Hey Pat." Dinah said as they entered the garage.

"What are you guys doing here and with the staff?"

"We need to figure out how to fix Cosmo. Yolonda is already out and we can't lose anyone else." Courtney replied.

"Cosmo?"

"She named the staff." Dinah added.

"Court, the staff can heal on it's own. We don't need to rush into anything. We need to get Rick and Beth here to talk about where to go from here."

Pat's phone started to ring as he finished talking. "Speak of the devil. What's up Rick?"

Pat finished talking on the phone and hung it up, looking at the girls. "Rick needs our help. He's at the woods."

"Oh no." Dinah said as she realized why he was there.

"What?" Pat asked.

"He's been going out there and feeding Grundy."

"Grundy?" Pat asked.

"Yeah."

"Why would he keep that a secret?" Courtney asked.

"I don't know. I just knew he went out there and left food. I don't even know if he ever actually saw Grundy."

"Well let's go see what he needs our help with."

They arrived at the woods and started walking around.

"Don't you think it's weird that there's no sign of Rick or the hunters he said were out here?" Courtney asked.

"Yeah it is. He said hunters were hunting Grundy but there's no sign of anyone."

"Grundy!" They heard Rick call in the distance.

"Come on." Pat said as he started running towards Rick, the girls following behind him. They reached the river and saw a body floating in it as Rick ran away.

"Pat!" Courtney said as Pat ran towards the body and carried the girl over to them. They were looking at the body when the girl's eyes suddenly popped open and she disappeared.

"Oh no, no, no." Dinah started to mutter.

"What was that?" Courtney asked.

"Eclipso." Pat said as Dinah started running after Rick, screaming his name and telling him to stop, Pat and Courtney following behind her.

As they approached Rick's house, Dinah yelled again for Rick to stop as he fought Grundy but he didn't listen.

"It's not Grundy!" Pat yelled out to no avail.

Courtney shot a blast from the staff at Rick, knocking him back.

As Rick got up, he looked to where Pat was running and realized it was his uncle and not Grundy he was beating up. He looked up to a worried Dinah and Courtney staring at him. Rick ripped the hourglass necklace off and threw it on the ground, breaking it, earning a small gasp from Dinah and Courtney.

As his uncle was being loaded into the ambulance and Rick was being handcuffed and put into a cop car, Dinah's dad pulled up in his car.

"I heard the dispatch. What happened?"

"It was Eclipso." Dinah started as tears started welling up in her eyes. "He made Rick see Grundy and think that Grundy killed a girl and that there was a hunt going on to kill Grundy."

"Hey, don't worry. I'm going to help get this cleared up."

"How dad?"

"I don't know yet."

Dinah looked over to Rick, both of them making eye contact as tears fell down their faces.