It was silent one moment.
The next, Tisper was ducked behind the stump of an old toppled tree, her bow pressed tight to her chest—the only thing she could find security in to keep her grounded.
Bailey had led them deep into the thicket, but after days of searching, the woods had all started to look the same. Things here were denser and the trees tangled and knotted into a thick boscage. Moss was on every organic object, trees, boulders, moss. Moss on moss. She hated the slimy, spongy stuff, but she was nearly face-first into it, crouched low while she listened in on the confrontation beyond the bark. They started as quiet bays, distant but near enough that before anyone could formulate a reaction, they were closing in.
Now she huddled to herself behind this rotted stump, listening to the quarrel on the other side of the clearing. The warbling, cautionary nips and cackles of restless wolves.
The others were encompassed—Leo, Bailey, Quentin, Elizaveta, and Izzy, backed into one another in a standoff with the beasts. They were smaller—much smaller than Quentin and his pack in wolf form. And in a way, they almost seemed frightened, chortling to one another and charging forward, only to back up again, wary of getting too close.
Across the clearing, she found Matthew, tucked safely behind a tree and wearing his signature stumped look. Why aren’t they doing anything? he mouthed.
I don’t know.
“Bailey,” Quentin was quiet to speak, sealed back against his sentinels while the wolves closed in, snarling and snapping and bouncing back again on their paws. “In my bag—flares.”
Bailey reached behind him, felt along the zipper on Quentin’s backpack blindly because he knew better than to turn his attention from the creatures. He shoved it open just enough to reach inside, and after a moment of feeling around, he returned with two sticks in his fist, passing one back to the right of his thigh, where Quentin’s hand outstretched in waiting. Bailey kept the other for himself.
“At the same time,” Quentin said, fingers slowly slipping into his front jeans pocket. “One… two,”—he returned with the lighter and gave the flint wheel a strike, sparking a small, wind-licked flame—”three.”
Quentin lit the end of his stick. Bailey struck his own against the hard underside of his boot. They both ignited in glaring flames, so bright Izzy cowered into the circle and even Leo stiffened away from the light.
The wolves lowered—each of them, snarling in fear of the fire. They surged back in a wave as Quentin swung the flame before him, smearing the red haze in what once was darkness. Bailey stalked towards his own snarling creatures, fierce blaze hissing, spitting sparks and smoke from the ignited end of the stick.
It started with one wolf, turning begrudgingly away, and then another. One by one, the wolves loped off into the darkness, tails tucked between their legs and ears pinned in shame.
Once she saw the last bushy tail disappear into the thicket, Tisper rose slowly from behind her tree, shaky fingers fiddling with the string of her bow. “What the hell was that? Why’d you guys just stand there?”
“They were wolves,” Izzy inhaled deeply, her arm still locked with Elizaveta’s
“Real wolves,” Quentin said. “They’re sacred to us; it’s against everything we stand for to—”
“To protect yourselves?” Matt crept out from his cover.
“Our society ain’t like yours,” Leo grumbled. “Killin’ a wolf is killin’ your own kind. A punishment worthy of death.”
“So one of those comes after you, there’s nothing you can do?”
“There is fear,” to Matthew, Elizaveta hissed. “Fear is worthy weapon.”
“Ya can’t shoot a rabid wolf with fear.” Matt wrinkled his nose. “Why were they here, anyway?”
“Were they like the others?” Tisper asked. “Like the grays who were watching us earlier?”
“No,” Bailey said. “Did you see the bands around their necks? These wolves were domesticated.”
Just then, something tickled at the hair on Tisper’s neck. Maybe it was for the feeling of security that she lowered her bow and cocked her arrow back. But it was surely something else that made her take aim towards the trees.
And then she saw them, two dark, glistening eyes in the branches above. She jerked her bow upward and pulled the trigger. The arrow snapped forward, and the next sound she heard was the penetrating pelt of its landing, the sound of branches snapping. A gun fell first, heavy metal body clattering to the ground. And then a man dropped hard beside it, ripping the arrow from his shoulder with a cry. By then the liquid had already taken to him, and on the forest floor, the man writhed, convulsed under the vile effects.
They circled around his snaking body, twisting and shouting out in some kind of agony—until Leo put a boot to his chest and the man went still under the weight of it. All of the pain now burned in the ire of his fiery red face.
“What’d you do to me?” he snarled.
Quentin squatted to the ground to get a good look at the man, arms lounged over his knees. “Want the antidote or not?”
“Yes,” the man sobbed, “the antidote—it burns.”
“Where is she?”
He shook his head, sweat sprinkling his temples. “Who? Where’s who?”
“Your queen,” Leo grumbled and dug his boot in harder. “The hell you think?”
The man threw his head back and fought the pain with a snarl. It was too much too fast and he bewailed a deep, defeated sound.
“North. North,” he sniveled. “Keep going North.”
Leo lifted his boot and left the man to twist around on the dry dirt and moss. “The antidote. The antidote,” he whined.
“There’s not any,” was all Quentin had to say. But he reached for his bag, shook some pills into his palm and popped two into the man’s mouth. “Here. For your time.”
Then he started onward, to what Tisper assumed was North. How he knew, she had no idea. Maybe among all the strange things in Quentin Bronx, there was a natural compass too.
She scurried along the cluttered autumn ground until she was by his side, the feel of the string still reverberating on her fingers.
“Will he be okay? What’d you give him?”
“He’ll be fine,” Quentin said. “Probably.” He must have noticed the worry on her face, because the alpha gave her that diamond smile and said, “You’re a good shot. Keep your eyes on the trees.”
“We’re getting closer, aren’t we?”
“If she’s got men scouting these woods alone, I’d say we’re getting very close.”
The world had been painted a single hue of red, the Bad Moon high above, flaunting her wretched face in a cloudless black sky. Its strangely lucent color filtered down through the trees, speckled the forest floor in shimmering pink light. Tisper watched Quentin’s face in the mottled shadows—his skin dark and filmed with dirt. They were all filthy, stinking of sweat and rain. Her hands felt so grimy, it was strange to hold her bow. She wanted a shower. Warm tea, the ambient background colloquy of a television and the smell of fresh baked pizza.
“You’ll cook dinner when we’re done,” she declared.
Quentin looked at her curiously from the corner of his eye, but there was a momentary bliss in that expression of his. He was probably resorting to the same measures as herself—imagining what it would be like when things were okay again.
“Dinner,” Matt laughed just behind them. “I expect a goddamn four-course meal.”
“I will hunt,” Elizaveta offered, puttering stridently at their heels. “Venison—a fit victory meal, dah?”
“Shit, I’ll bring the booze,” Leo offered. “And my men. Owe some of my boys a fine dining.”
“You owe me a game of poker,” a fainter voice said. Tisper looked back, unsurprised to see Bailey was the only one not smiling.
Leo guffawed. “I told ya’ I didn’t cheat. It was Felix that put that nonsense in your head.”
“Then there’s no reason not to rematch.”
“It’s settled,” Izzy sealed her hands together with a cheerful clap. “No one eats until we get the boy back.”
“That’s right,” Tisper said. “No one eats.”
Maybe they were only optimistic for the sake of being optimistic, but it was something. Something that brought her resolve. Something that put Jaylin right back into her line of sight.
She couldn’t wait to taste the venison.
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