“Excuse my friend here,” the first one starts, giving a hard look. “He has an… appreciation for eyes.” That immediately tips me off. Thankfully, I have a plan for that.

“Ah, perhaps my contacts are out of place then?” I ask, swiftly moving to adjust the lens. I’ve found that they actually help hiding the “glimmer” that most dragon eyes had, though it wasn’t perfect. I also needed them to see, so there’s that. The second man stepped back with a disgruntled huff, the first one shaking his head at him.

“I’m sure you’re fine.” The first man mumbled. “We’ll be back later to see your dinosaurs.” He said, taking his friend by the elbow and leading him away. I sincerely hoped they would not be coming back. But I had a sinking feeling that not only would they come back, they would likely loiter around the area. I quickly send a text to Beth, asking her to come up and watch the desk and cameras while I continue the field trip tour. It takes only a few moments for Beth to come up from the basement and meet me at the lobby.

“What’s up?” Beth asked as she came up to me, her bright expression dimming when she saw me. I likely had worry etched into every line of my face at this point. “Did something happen?” Beth asked quietly. I shook my head with a sigh before saying anything.

“There were a couple of strange men that came in,” I start to explain. “One of them wasn’t exactly subtle.” I close my eyes with a heavy sigh. There were already plans put in place to cover up the museum’s construction as a simple expansion for specimen storage, but now I had to put in extra precautions for the entire ordeal. It was going to be a huge headache.

Beth nodded her head in understanding, taking her place behind the counter. “Any word from Derek yet?” She asked, a wry smile on her face as she did so. I rolled my eyes, pulling out my phone.

“That boy is going to find himself without a job at this rate.” I mutter under my breath as I go to call him. Beth laughed, having heard my statement. This was not the first time he was late or didn’t show up to work. Unfortunately, the town didn’t have that many people interested in working minimum wage while standing at a desk all day. Most of the people moving in right now were the construction crew working on building the college.

The call goes to voice mail, and I leave a message in no uncertain terms. If he does not show up today, then he’s fired. I could have used him back here, at least as a sort of buffer that might have put the place under less suspicion. If those men were Dragon Hunters, and I was the first one they met, then things could get hairy in the next few days. Of course, whatever information they had that brought them here in the first place was already enough to put us in their sights.

With the world’s heaviest sigh, I thank Beth one last time before heading back to the school group. I find them where I left them, the children taking turns playing the touch screen monitor. I quietly find Miss Smith, letting her know that all is well and that we can move on. She and I wrangle the kids back together so that we can move on to the next exhibit, the Cenozoic Era.

“Jennie was very glad to see the fish again.” Miss Smith tells me as we walk the kids over to the next exhibit.

“I’m sure she was,” I say with a smile. While it had been a bit of an inconvenience, but in the long run it wasn’t so bad. She looked like she wanted to say more, but I continued on with my tour for the kids. We had lost time, and I wanted to keep things as on track as possible. This was another point where there was a mass extinction, and I had even included an interactive sliding image that demonstrated what each extinction and subsequent rebuilding looked like.

Just like many kids had an interest in dinosaurs, there were plenty who had an interest in the Ice Age. While the Cenozoic Era does include our current time, here in the present, it was easily one of the most interesting subjects to talk about as we can see the near ancestors or present day animals more clearly. It was a long stretch when you told kids that dinosaurs became birds, but it was easy for them to connect the ancient mammals like the mastodon to the elephant, or the smilodon to the leopard. Showing them that there had once been a species of cheetah in the Americas was something that got many questions, and the overall display seemed to get their attention just as much as the dinosaurs. I’d say that overall, today’s field trip was a success.

At the end of the exhibit was the end of the loop that lead back to the front entrance. The adults lead the children back out through the front door, the kids going out in a neat and orderly line. I said my farewells and thanked them, the little girl - Jennie - giving me a hug as she left. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as she left, her joy more than infectious.

“You’re really good with them.” Miss Smith said as she walked up beside me, nearly startling me.

“Nah,” I say nonchalantly. “They’re just easy to impress.” I downplay it because in the end, I really hadn’t done that much. It wasn’t something long-term like teaching, or even raising a child. I just took her to see something she liked.

Miss Smith chuckles. “It’s not what you did, it’s how you did it.” She explains. I turn to say something to her but she’s already leaving, saying goodbye over her shoulder as she catches up with the group. The idea settles like a stone in the bottom of my stomach, and it’s all I can do to just stand there for a moment to process it.

“Addy?” Beth’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, spiraling as they were. “Everything okay?” She asks me warily. I do my best to give her a smile, though I know it’s not a true one. I don’t want her worrying about me, we have too many other things to worry about. One of them happens to be walking through the door right now.

I turn at the sound of the front door, hoping that it’s Derek finally coming into work. It’s not. The two men from earlier are back, and it seems the one still can’t get over me.