Get down! His head screamed.
"Dad look out!" He tackled him to the ground. Right then a shot sounded and the ground right where Dad was standing blew up dirt and left a small crater from the impact. A scorched ring outlined the impacted zone. Katherine let out a scream. Basil rolled off his chest letting him look at the bullet hole.
"JB are you alright?" Katherine called as the others ran up to them. They got up, Dad nodding.
"Yea I'm fine, thanks to Basil." He turned to face him directly.
"Basil you saved my life!" Dad beamed a grateful smile at him. He was right. If he didn't tackle him out of the way that would have been an instant kill. That's nothing compared to how you saved mine so many times.
"How did you know that shot was coming?" Chip asked. Basil hesitated before answering,
"The moon told me." Matt laughed and wrapped an arm over his shoulders putting weight on his neck.
"That's my brother for you now! A regular moon mind!" He laughed again. It wasn't a mean laugh but a friendly one. He looked at him with new questions arising in his head. Who fired that shot and why were they aiming for Dad? Gary? Hodge? Their new boss? After his laugh Matt let him go.
"From what I know that shot came from higher up and at an angle." Chip bent down and examined the hole. The scorched ring around the hole was a dead giveaway that the gun was from their time period.
"We need to get out of here! I don't want to have another bullet wound." Johan started to panic. You don't need to worry about that since there was no actual bullet.
"Johan calm down. Panicking won't help." Dad told him soothingly.
"We should go and check out the woods. If anything the trees will provided cover." A hint of medieval accent slipped in Chip's voice. From a rational view that made sense but his mind was telling him to stay out in the open. It can't be that we'll lose connect. I've been in the forest a ton of times at night and had no problem feeling the moon. It has to be something else.
"No we need to stay in the opening." Basil said confident.
"But we'll have cover in the woods and besides the shooter was probably up in a tree and must still be in the forest!" Chip countered.
"That's one of the reasons why we need to stay out here! Make him come to us. There's no way he could have made that shot from the center of the forest, not through all the trees. He must've been near the edge were he would have a clear shot! He managed to get the first shot because we weren't aware of him. Now that he knows that we know he's there, he's not going to come out." Basil argued. Chip clinched his hands in fists. He's not used to people challenging him. He must've been some military leader back the dark ages. A king maybe? Basil figured. He turned to Dad for the final decision, like a criminal waiting for the jury.
"Both of you make fair points." Dad said in the same tone when he was settling an argument back at home. "But the woods are our best chance at figuring out what's going on." He sounded apologetic towards him. He shook his head in disagreement.
"You go! I'll stay here." Basil stood his ground.
"Basil." Dad warned gently shaking his head disapprovingly.
"Naw you go, I'll stay with him. I mean this in the nicest way possible but I trust Basil more than someone I just met. And besides he has a knack with this kind of stuff. He's proved it more than once." Matt defended him. Matt! Thank you! Dad tossed his hands up in defeat letting them flop down hitting his legs.
"Alright. You two stay here and we'll check out the woods." He sighed in defeat but headed for the first row of three about twenty yards behind him. The three fallowed behind him. He wanted to convince them that it was a bad idea but it was clear they wouldn't listen. Once they were out of ear shot Matt asked,
"So what now?" Basil didn't know. All he knew was going in the forest was a bad idea. He turned back to the moon again hoping for an answer but it stayed silent. Oh sure, now your quite. Basil shrugged his shoulders.
"Beats me but I really don't trust the forest. I get why they did it but I wish they didn't." Basil watched the trees were they entered and disappeared.
"I've been thinking. If we can figure out when all of this started we can figure out something that might be they- if not- a cause for all of this." Matt suggested. He took the idea in with open arms.
"What do we know? Gary and Hodge messed up time by kidnapping important kids from history then crashed them in twenty-first century. Dad pulled me out before the time crash ever existed adding to the damage." Basil directed his gaze thinking hard. Then his eyes snapped back up.
"The night Dad told us about the kidnapping was the same night I remembered! And the same night Gary and Hodge broke out of prison I had a dream about that and they met up with a new boss!" Basil nearly shouted. They were getting to something here. He just knew it!
"So somehow everything that's been going on with whole missing kid from history is affecting you." Matt tilted his head upward towards the sky clearly thinking hard.
"But not time so much as space! The moon is part of space not necessarily time." He panted.
"But what does that have to do with your mystery boss?" Matt questioned. Basil went silent not knowing either.
"I don't know but I do know he's related to all of this." He said looking him dead in the eye.