Hendrix ✓

6 ★ The trees

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕤 - ℝ𝕦𝕤𝕙

"There is unrest

in the forest

There is trouble

with the trees."

Cedric POV

"Nice morning, eh?" Savannah asks over her shoulder, lifting a dark eyebrow at me with a coy look on her face. I shrug. There are other things on my mind than how the morning is, but I don't tell her that.

We're walking through the woods. It's early, I'm not sure what time exactly, but early enough to where there are hardly any humans around. Not that there are many of them trapping around in the forest in the first place. For that I'm at least grateful. We couldn't have picked a better time.

The reason why we're here still annoys me. In fact, I don't know why I let my Beta drag me along.

A ridiculous amount of camera tech hangs in a duffel bag settled in Savannah's arms. It's preposterous, but my second in command has proposed the idea to set up monitors in the woods to scope the surrounding area for rogues. I'm still against technology as a whole, but Savannah insists that I am too set in my ways.

I don't fight with her. I let her lecture me and get it out of her system, but when she steps over the line I have to put her in her place. Like when she called me a "prude old man" earlier this morning.

I didn't like hearing that.

"This is perfect." She tells me, climbing another tree to put yet another spy camera in the branches. Savannah makes short work of it. She's the one who knows things about technology and knows how to work it.

I still don't understand why we need it.

I've done things the same way for years, so why change if it works? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Unfortunately, I agreed to this since she insisted it will help us catch Ryk and the Red Alpha. If it aids our mission, and I don't have to deal with it, then I'm fine with it. As long as I don't have to be involved in any of it.

Savannah does her own thing sometimes, and I try to accept that. I can only hope this will shorten the mission that much more.

And then there's the nagging in the back of my head that won't go away.

Something feels off today. I don't know what it is, I haven't experienced a sensation like it before, but I brush it off. Lots of things I've been dealing with recently are different than what I'm used to.

It's been a few days since I've started teaching at the university. Some might say it's going well, because from the outside it looks like everything's fine. I'm coping, I'm moving on through without complaint, but on the inside, I'm struggling. The humans are almost too much to take, and I have another class in a few hours.

When my Beta finally gets down from the tree, she looks me up and down with narrowed eyes, putting a hand on her hip.

"You alright?" She asks, noticing my mood.

"Fine." I say, but it's not convincing, even to my own ears. In reality I feel as if I've been stuck under a microscope to be experimented on. My skin crawls, I ignore it.

Savannah has the strangest look on her face that I haven't seen before. She looks wary and apprehensive, and now that I think about it she has been acting a bit odd this morning, and when she got home last night from wherever she was.

She's usually more talkative than this, more outright and abrasive. Today she's nearly silent.

I can't tell if it's just paranoia, maybe I'm just trying to push what I'm feeling on her. As if I'm looking for someone to blame for the strange things I'm feeling. I sigh. This whole mission could be a mistake.

It's not a new thought, there have been many times during this process where I've felt like I have been misplaced for the job. Times where I'm positive that someone else would've done a much better job than me.

But then there's always something that draws me to it, like someone behind the curtain telling me to keep going and reminding me of my lines. Who knows, maybe it's Wheeler wanting me to avenge him from beyond the grave.

Whatever it is, I don't question it. I follow my instincts... even when I really don't want to. They've gotten me this far. As I said before, if I know that something works, I don't see the point in trying an alternative way.

As Savannah finishes up with the cameras, we're both silent in the otherwise busy forest. The birds are awake now, fluttering around in the high branches and singing their wake up call to anyone who can hear it.

I can't help but feel guilty now. I should be doing more, patrolling as often as I can. My job here is to find a villain who has tormented my kind for too long, but I'm distracted and emotional. Though you'd never hear me admit it or show it, I've felt far too many emotions in the past few days than I've felt in a long time.

Glancing around the woods, I suddenly miss Montana. I miss my pack and my alone time in solitude. Everyday of this mission is like walking on shards of glass, I have to watch my every move.

I can't be uninhibited, be myself. I have to wear contacts for Goddess's sake. I can't let the humans see my red eyes, could I? Not that the contacts even completely cover my natural eye color, but no one will get close enough to know the difference, and that's something I can count on.

As we wrap up our morning jaunt, I mentally prepare myself for the day of tiptoeing around humans. I can't help but wait patiently for this whole thing to be over with so my life can go back to the way it was.

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