Tares City

11. Field Trips

NAOMI REID

Stuffing the last bit of things into her purse, Naomi runs out the door – Hopping into the silver car out front. "Good morning," She greets as she enters into the passenger seat.

"Morning," Calvin replies to her with a nod, sipping his coffee. He waits until she's buckled in before driving off. "You can put the address into the GPS," He says to her.

"Yeah, sure," she says to him doing as he suggested. "How'd it go with the flash drive?" She asks him as she inputs the address. "All the videos seem to be authentic. No signs of being tampered with," He answers causing her to sigh.

"What do you think about all this? Like, from a detective's point of view. Does it seem, I don't know – Fishy?" She asks him, placing the GPS back in its spot. Calvin lets out a heavy sigh, "I don't know what to think. I can't wrap my head around any of this. Haven't had a full night's rest since," He confesses to her.

She nods in understanding, "Yeah I hear you, I didn't get a full night's sleep the first night either. I was totally paranoid at work too."

"The first night? So last night was better for you? How'd you manage?" He asks, causing a smile to rise on Naomi's face. Calvin glances over, seeing her smile just before she turns away and looks out the window. "Oh, I see. You got yourself a little distraction," He jokes lightly with a chuckle.

"Oh my gosh, change of topic please!" Naomi says making Calvin laugh. "Hey, good on you! You know what, think I'll start looking into- " He begins to say before Naomi cuts him off with a "OH SHUSH!"

"You know, we hardly know each other," She says to Calvin. "Certainly not long enough for all this teasing." She exclaims crossing her arms, looking out the window defiantly.

"We're on a field trip to another city to ask a possibly mental woman what she knows about the large, mythical, man-eating wolves," Calvin says to her, glancing over with a raised eyebrow.

"Point taken," Naomi replies quietly.

Throughout the rest of the car ride, the two would periodically break into conversations, learning more about each other and discussing additional information they'd found about the wolves. In between their talks, Naomi would reply to a text from Jensen, fighting the urge to smile each time.

~

They reach Hinsdale City in record time, pulling up to the mental facility. The two of them check in with the receptionist, signing and collecting their visitor badges. They remove all "dangerous" items from their person, placing them into security bins before entering the ward. A nurse leads them through the floor, carrying them to the woman they came to see.

"Cecilia," The nurse call out sweetly to a woman who was at a table, staring outside in boredom
 
"Cecilia," She says again. This time the woman sighs in annoyance, still not looking at them.
 
"These two people are here to see you." This time, Cecilia turns around, looking at Naomi and Calvin. "I don't know either of you," She says before turning back to the window.

"I'm Calvin, and this is Naomi. We just have a few questions we want to ask you real quick. And then we'll be out of your hair," Calvin says to her.

"Alright! What is it?" Cecilia relents with a sigh. The nurse walks off, Naomi and Calvin taking a seat at the table.

"Recently, we both received an anonymous file," Naomi begins. "In these files, were pictures, letters, and videos telling us that we're being tricked and lied to. It claimed that there are these things called Lycans that exist. And, um. It also said that there are people who hunt and kill these things and they're called hunters, and-" She explains, getting cut off by Cecilia mid-sentence.