"I can't believe Spencer wants to kill me." Roderick said to himself while he walked. He could hear wolves howling and owls hooting. Yet nothing could scare him.

He knew the locket was the reason for all this. Roderick tapped on his pocket to check if he still had it or not. He felt relief when the lump chimed inside his pocket.

This thing should always stay with D'Agata. Roderick talked to himself as he kept marching for the cave. All he needed to do was to throw the locket back inside. He had no courage to get in there because he had heard many haunting tales about D'Agata in the past.

The wizard of wishes. The wizard of jinx. The wizard of curses. He found none of them pleasant to hear. About forty years ago an entire tribe had been wiped out because they had tried to steal the locket from the cave. Those people had slept and had vanished with no trace like land had gulped them.

And it was a mere consequence of infiltrating the cave. Spencer had somehow managed to steal the locket by getting in there. Roderick could only imagine how furious the wizard could be. The only way to dodge the wrath was giving him back his possession.

Roderick climbed a hill and looked at his watch. He saw the hour hand touching one in moonlight. He did not get to see how many minutes had passed.

He was too exhausted for it since he was walking for three hours straight. The water bottle he had been carrying had almost no drop of water left. And the water he had drank smelled of medicines.

Roderick did not complain for it because he had stolen it from Spencer's tent. He assumed Spencer would not mind the petty theft admits of a million dollar heist.

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Half an hour later, his walk became fruitful. He could see the cave from where he was standing. Roderick gulped in fear because the place had peculiar silence. He could not hear owls or animals anywhere nearby.

The place bore unnatural silence. Like life forms and nocturnal creatures were not allowed to make any noise. Even rustling of leaves was missing from there which made Roderick wonder if there was breeze or not.

Roderick grew nervous when he took the locket out of his pocket. He walked towards entrance of the cave with shaking legs. His heart wanted to come out of his ribcage whereas his hand wanted to get rid of the locket.

He looked at the locket then at the cave. The locket looked like it could not take a fall. But Roderick had no intention to step inside the cave because it was D'Agata's territory.

"Roderick!" somebody roared.

Roderick flinched and looked in the cave. In the scare, he failed to judge which direction the sound had come from. He turned his back at the cave and saw Spencer pointing a gun towards him.

"Give me the locket back." Spencer said.

"Then what? You will shoot me and throw in this cave?" Roderick said.

"I don’t plan to hurt you."

"So why do you have this gun pointed at me?" Roderick asked.

"I will have it pointed at you till you hand me over this locket."

"You will kill me anyways. I heard you on phone."

"Not a surprise."

Spencer stretched his finger at the trigger. Roderick thought he could not hurt him, because he had locket, till he noticed the suppressor attached on Spencer's gun. Roderick swiveled and sprinted inside the cave for a cover.

A bullet hit the cave wall as soon as he entered.

"Roderick. Get back!" Spencer screamed from outside, hesitant to get inside.