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The sky had just started to brighten when they made it back to Central. Olive was surprised to see that there were few guards there. When she asked Red, she said that they were probably searching the forests for people who could have come across Rhys between when he left Central and when he fought Olive.
There were several people there who were obviously not guards, but some sort of other pack official. Most of them swamped Rhys as soon as they saw him. Red stepped in and said a few things, and some of the officials left. The rest went with Rhys and Red to the other end of the clearing.
Two or three officials spoke with Olive for a while as well. It wasn't the same two or three officials the entire time—they kept switching around with the ones talking to Rhys and Red. It seemed like she was asked the same questions over and over again in different ways. What did the feral look like? How did she beat him? Where did she bite him, and why didn't she wait for someone else to do so? Why did she go after him in the first place? (To that one she responded, "Well, I figured my day just wasn't complete without a nice near-death experience" before she could help herself. The officials gave her blank looks, and after that she answered the questions seriously.)
After a while, they left her alone, going off to join a group that consisted of more officials, a few guards, and Christoph. The group was talking quietly, though occasionally there was a sudden exclamation from someone. Olive looked around the clearing; Rhys was nowhere to be seen, but Red was walking over to her.
"Are you finished already?" Olive said.
"With the basic questions. They'll be a while putting together the information that they all received, so they told us to take a break—Rhys went off into the forest or something, but it should be pretty easy to find him when we need him again. Poor guy's got a lot more of this ahead of him, too—we're all still going to be here long into the morning." Red stretched. "Oh, except you. I think they're done asking you stuff, so you can go now, if you'd like."
"Thank god."
Olive was halfway out of the clearing before the rest of what Red had said sunk in. She paused, glanced at the forest, and then sighed.
"I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, am I?" she asked no one in particular as she turned away from the path out of Central and headed into the trees.
"If you're trying to make those skip," she said from behind him, "I think the creek has to be deeper."
He didn't respond. If Olive hadn't seen a few rocks fall from his sleeve when she spoke, she would have thought that he hadn't heard her at all.
"So," she tried again, "they asking you a lot of questions?"
"I don't know why," he said after a moment. "It's not like I can remember anything."
"You can't?" She sat down next to him.
"No. I just know that I felt really angry. Not a focused anger, more like... like I was listening to country music. Or, um, something," he added in response to the look that Olive was giving him.
"Country music?"
"It just makes me mad," he muttered, his face pinkish. "It's the same stuff in the same tone and... never mind. Stop laughing."
"Oh," Olive giggled, "I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing because it's the same with me, only with reggae. One time this substitute bus driver insisted on playing it the entire ride, and I didn't have a CD player or anything, and I was so—so infuriated that I lied about where my stop was just so I could get off of the bus. I ended up having to walk, like, a mile to get home."
He stared at her. "Why reggae?"
"Why country?"
"Point," he said, and lightly threw another rock into the stream. It flew in an arc, landing with a small splash in the deepest part of the creek (which was half a foot down at most). They watched the ripples fade.
"I think they're done with the questions," he said. "They ended up just answering my questions by the time we were done talking. They said they're going to make sure that there's nothing wrong with me still, like after-effects from the transformation—or problems with my neck, since the ritual was done by someone without training and all."
"Ah. They told you that, then."
"Yeah. They told me everything." Olive was still gazing at the creek, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him turn his head a bit, facing her. "How's your back?"
"Pretty good. Doesn't hurt anymore, but the scars are still there."
"Oh." He looked away. "...Sorry."
Olive frowned slightly. They were both silent for a minute as she thought something over, and then she spoke.
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why are you sorry? Could you help that someone wrote down the wrong birthdate in your files? What, do you think you should have been able to stop yourself from changing, or from attacking people?" She crossed her arms. "This is the one time that you'll ever be able to use the excuse that you couldn't control yourself. Every other time, it's just you being a jerk."
"Gee, thanks."
"I'm just saying, there was nothing you could have done."
Silence fell again, until it was broken by the faint sound of Red yelling.
"Rhys! We need you back in Central!"
"I'd better be going, too," Olive said, standing. "My father'll be up in a few hours, and I have to get some sleep."
She had started to walk away when Rhys spoke.
"Hey, wait."
When she stopped and turned, he continued. "If I got yelled at for apologizing, does that mean I'd get yelled at for trying to thank you, or would that be fine?"
Olive hesitated, trying to work out if he was being sarcastic or sincere. Deciding it was probably a bit of both, she answered, "That would be fine."
"Good. Well, thanks."
He started off through the trees, nearly tripping over the bottom of the robe as he went. She watched him go, and then began walking in the direction that she thought the student clearing was.
Luckily, it turned out to be the right way. The clearing was closer than she'd thought, too; it only took her a couple minutes of walking to get there. It was oddly quiet in the clearing without the rest of the group around.
She knelt by the storage space, touched her stone, and abruptly landed on her bed. Paying no mind to the fact that she was still in her dirty clothes, or that the sun was already streaming through her window, she pulled the sheets over herself and finally slept.
