They sat at one table. Ernst, Frida, Strix, Evan, Callisa, Aiko, and Morona. The atmosphere was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Frida stared at her father as if she wanted to drill holes through him. Ernst sat unmoved like a rock. Only his flattened ears and tucked tail betrayed his mood. Both of them were measuring each other with memories. It was so quiet it was painful. The whole situation was as tense as a bowstring.
And someone finally decided to release it.
"DAD!!! YOU REALLY WERE A HUNTER?!"
"YOU STILL BELONG TO A HUNTING CLUB?!"
"WAIT… DOES THAT MEAN YOU'RE STILL A HUNTER?!"
"WHY DON'T YOU HUNT ANYMORE?"
"WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MOM?!"
"WHY DID THEY CALL HER THE WILD ONE?!"
Frida screamed at the top of her lungs. Finally she fell silent. She leaned on the table and breathed heavily.
The Commissioner tensed and clenched his teeth.
The club chairman turned to him.
"Ernst… you've been running from this for years. You'll have to tell them eventually. They deserve an explanation. Especially Frida."
Vollmond sighed heavily and gave the owl an unpleasant look. He looked at his fingers and played with them for a moment before he began to speak.
"I met Helga here in this club. I was a junior commissioner back then."
For a moment he smiled.
"It was a routine official visit. I was assisting a senior commissioner. At one point I saw her."
He drifted off into memories for a moment.
"She was the most beautiful being I had ever seen. I started talking to her. We quickly found common ground. We talked endlessly. Eventually my boss caught us. Helga helped me get out of it by pretending it was an interview."
Frida had to pick her jaw up off the table. She felt like she was listening to a completely different man than her father.
"I became a hunter to impress your mother. I collected a few trophies. I never really liked hunting. We started dating. We hunted together. Eventually we got married."
"Yes, I remember. It was a wonderful ceremony," Strix said, momentarily lost in memories.
Frida was in complete shock. In her eyes, her father had always been a strict system man. He had kept her away from hunting. He always spoke badly about it. But what he was saying now… it was the complete opposite of the man she knew.
"Why… how…"
Ernst looked at his daughter with genuine sadness.
"Frida, you have no idea how much you're like your mother. The same temperament. The same approach to life and pride." He put his hand to his head.
Strix nodded.
"Yes. Helga could be… problematic. During one hunt she broke three rules. She would just glare at me and complain…"
He gave Ernst a reproachful look.
"When she met you, she started looking for loopholes in the regulations and using them regularly."
"I'm sorry. And it wasn't just about the regulations. It was about her hunting style." He turned to his daughter. "She chased her prey without regard for her surroundings. She sought direct contact. No tricks. An open frontal attack with wild fury in her eyes. And she really didn't take losing well."
Frida was speechless. She needed a moment to recover. Evan and the girls also gave her meaningful looks.
"But Mom…"
"When she got pregnant she calmed down. She stopped hunting. She calmly waited for your birth, and after you were born she devoted herself to motherhood. And so it went until you became a teenager."
"Yes, for us it was a huge surprise. We never expected that wild Helga could be such a caring and calm mother."
Ernst lowered his gaze, but his hand twitched angrily.
"Then she started talking about coming back. In the club they said she had calmed down… lost her edge… you can guess how that affected her pride."
Frida suddenly remembered the race with Evan at the beginning of their acquaintance. Plus, if anyone questioned her strength, they would get a firm response.
"That's when it happened. That hunt."
"Let me explain," Strix spoke up. The Commissioner nodded.
"We have an annual hunting tradition in the club. We release prey into a closed area. Several hunters hunt it at the same time. Whoever catches it becomes the King of the Hunt. If no one does, the prey goes free. As for the prey itself, we mostly look for debtors."
"Helga was really excited about that hunt. She wanted to show everyone that she was still the old Helga, that motherhood hadn't softened her. When she set her mind on something, there was no stopping her. She was so excited that I wanted to help her somehow. I was already Chief Commissioner by then. Thanks to my connections, I found a debtor with sufficiently good quality meat and significant debts."
The owl adjusted his monocle and nodded.
"Together we made him an offer. If he survived the hunt, he would leave alive and debt-free. If not, his debts wouldn't burden his loved ones. And it always worked without a hitch."
Suddenly Vollmond slumped onto the table. He looked as if he had sunk into despair.
"It was my fault."
Ernst touched his shoulder.
"I've been telling you for years that it wasn't your fault. If you hadn't found him, we would have found someone else."
"But I was the one who found him. If not for me… if not for that competition…"
The Commissioner said many more things before Frida slammed her fist on the table.
"What is this about? Mom died in the hospital."
Ernst looked her in the eyes. Frida shuddered. Her father looked nothing like himself.
"The hunt went according to plan. Your mother caught up with the guy. He didn't want to die. He fought desperately for his life. At one point he kicked her and your mother fell and—" Vollmond trembled "—cut her forearm. Still, she managed to catch him and become the Queen of the Hunt."
Vollmond rested his head on his hand.
"She cleaned the wound and bandaged it. Formally, we did everything right."
Now he rested his head in both hands.
"In the morning your mother started feeling unwell. The wound turned red and she had a fever. She took medication and bandaged it again."
Now he spoke through tears.
"After a few days she developed a very high fever… we went to the hospital… they said it was a staph infection… you know she never left the hospital."
Everyone fell silent. Formally, everything had been done correctly at every step. It seemed like it should have been enough, but in the end it ended in tragedy.
Ernst clenched his fist and cried. Frida herself began to cry. It was the last thing Evan and the girls would have expected from her. She stood up and hugged her father.
"Dad, please, let's talk in private. Like father and daughter, not like a system man and a stupid rebellious teenager."
"Alright." Her father answered through tears and stood up.
"I'll have a room prepared for you," Strix said and gave instructions to the staff.
Silence fell over the table. After a while Morona spoke.
"When the wound bursts open, it reveals the sorrow that had been festering beneath it."
"Do you really have to put it that way?" Aiko scolded her, and Morona lowered her antennae.
Late evening. The end of the reception. Evan and the girls stood in front of the club building. Frida looked as if she had experienced some enlightenment in a Buddhist monastery. Ernst also looked different. Nothing like his usual self. It was clear that father and daughter had talked a lot.
Frida stood next to him and gazed at the moon.
"We should have had this conversation a long time ago."
"True," Ernst said, looking at the moon.
"I understand why you left hunting, but I love the chase, the thrill of the hunt."
Ernst looked at her as if he had given up.
"You're just like Helga. Do you remember what I told you?"
"Yes, Dad."
Ernst nodded and smiled.
"I'll order you a taxi."
"No need," someone said from behind. It turned out to be Don Serrano, Mateo, Hernando, Emilio, and Strix.
"Please allow us to arrange your ride home."
"Thank you. We'll gladly accept," Evan replied.
"Mr. Evan, although tonight didn't end as we planned, you will have a place in our family chronicles and in our memory."
Evan bowed at Don Serrano's words.
"Thank you."
"I'm sorry… I almost killed you," Mateo stepped forward, embarrassed.
"You don't have to worry about that. What matters more to me is that you were honest with me. Thank you."
"Now I feel even more embarrassed… although I still haven't given up."
Evan chuckled lightly.
"Next time plan the starting point better, and I renew my request to invite the girls."
"I will," Mateo smiled awkwardly. He took a step back, however, because of the girls who gave him threatening looks.
"Mr. Evan, your presence was truly an extraordinary event in our hunting club," Strix bowed. "However, I recommend that for some time you avoid red zones and staying near their borders. The same goes for solitary walks."
"Why?" Evan was surprised.
"Well… you currently enjoy the sympathy and respect of the club members. That, however, does not guarantee your safety. I know from reliable sources that certain members of our association are planning to target you. There are also other hunting clubs."
"Yes… tonight was truly extraordinary. Do they really all want to go to such lengths for me?"
Strix nodded. At that moment a limousine pulled up.
"I wish you all a good night." Strix returned to the club.
Everyone started getting into the limousine.
"Girls, a word please. In private."
At Hernando's request, the girls and he stepped aside.
"I already talked about this with young Morona. Your boy is in really bad shape."
The girls looked at him, dejected.
"We know," Callisa spoke for the group. "We figured it out around noon today. But we have a plan."
Hernando smiled slightly.
"In that case, I wish you luck, but hurry. Time is working against you."