Mending the Broken

Chapter 4

 

  Audrey (p.o.v)

Audrey never thought she would be so foolish as to run off into the forest alone, but there she was, chasing the most beautiful bird she had ever seen.  It was like a cross between a dove and a bird of paradise, with white and blue plumage, and a long tail. 

She had first seen it in the tree out side her bedroom window, staring into her room intently, as if daring her to try and capture it's beauty.  She had grabbed her sketch pad and started to draw. But as soon as she had picked up her pencil, the bird flitted just out of her sight onto the edge of the deck outside her room.  Using the door in the hallway,  She moved her efforts outside to the deck and had just started an outline, when the bird flew down to the edge of the woods, alighting on the branch of a fir tree.  She rushed down the deck stairs and had just started to adjust her pencil when the bird flew a little farther into the forest.  Mr. Ingalls had warned her not to cross the boundary of trees, but it didn't look like it was far from the house, and it was only 5PM.  She would be back in time for dinner. 

She stepped into the forest, getting nearer to the beautiful bird. It sat still long enough for her to almost finish the outline.  Than it flew a bit further into the canopy of the trees. She followed it as it glided from branch to branch. Five minutes later she was running at full speed trying to sketch the bird and look at her feet so she didn't trip at the same time.  She fell every thirty feet or so, and had to pick her self up again and keep running.  Blood trickled from a cut on her face where a branch had got her, and her ribs had started aching again. The bird would land on a branch every so often just long enough for her to stop and start to sketch again, than it would fly off.

She stopped, panting. Now that she thought about it, it was getting dark. It had been late evening when she left, and now the sky was a deep blue and getting darker. If she didn't get home soon she would be missed. But when she turned to go back she realized she didn't know which way was back. The trees led of in every direction, and the bird was nowhere to be seen. She was alone.

"Stupid bird" she muttered.  On the other hand, at least she'd gotten enough down that she could finish the sketch.  She sat Indian style at the base of an oak, her back to its rough bark, and finished the picture.  It showed the bird wings extended, perched on a branch in a forest. She ended up adding a back ground of trees and a silver moon.

Now it was officially dark. The trees looked menacing in the dimness, their branches twisted to look like faces and groping hands. Audrey shivered, a combination of fear and cold. There was no way she could find her way in the dark.  Every one at the house must be worried.  Heck, even she was worried! She hadn't paid much attention to Kyle's obsession  with living in the wild, though she had taken first aid.  That, at least, had seemed important.  Now she wished she had paid closer attention to other survival skills like, say, sleeping out doors!  Sure, she had been camping before, on some of Kyle's many "adventures," as he liked to call them. But now she didn't have a tent or a sleeping bag.  It was just her and the the pine trees.  In the dark.  At night. 

She had always hated the dark.  The dark was then when all the lights had been turned off.  That was when her mother would drink.  And drink till she dropped.  Sometimes she would leave, and Audrey would be left alone in the dark house.  She hadn't been able to stop thinking about robbers, or drunks in the street, waiting for her Mom to leave so they could come in and... Audrey shook her self back to the present.  Besides, none of those fears had ever come true.

The cold was somehow getting colder, numbness wrapped around her like a blanket.  She huddled in fetal position against the tree, her head on her sketch pad, settling in for a long night, when a piercing howl shattered the silence that had shrouded the wood.  It was joined by more voices.  Each distinctive howl sang of sorrow and of pain.  It was a haunting sound, filled with misery. One voice stood out louder then the rest.  The agony it sang of, the despair, of complete and utter loss, had  Audrey feeling as if she could drown in it.  And maybe she did, because the world began to fade, colors dimming till every thing went black and she slipped into the realm of sleep.

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                                                           Carter (p.o.v)

Carter had never wanted to find a body.  It had just happened.  One minute he was running patrol with his younger and newly turned brother, Jothan, and the next Jothan had stopped in his tracks.

"Is that a girl?" Jothan said through their mind link, confused.  They crept closer to the huddled form.  It was indeed a girl, curled up at the base of a tree.  Carter sniffed around.  A little human blood tainted the air, but nothing else.

"I don't smell rouges," he said.

"Do you think she's dead?" Jothan asked.

 "Of course not you idiot!  She's just asleep!  Listen to her breathing."  They stopped, listening.  Her breaths were shallow and slow.

"Is she hyperventilating?"

"I don't think so."

Carter moved closer till he was standing right in front of her. He touched his wet nose to her forehead.  It was cold.

"What was the temperature last night?" Carter asked worried.

"Maybe 50 degrees.  Why?"

"I think she has hypothermia."

Carter began to shift. His bones moved, his snout shrunk, and his fur vanished leaving him naked on all fours. He stood. 

Jothan started pacing.  "Oh no" he said. He looked nervous.  "We should take her back to the pack house.  Maybe Doc can help."

"You're right."  Carter knelt.  It had rained that night just a sprinkle but it had been enough. The girl was only wearing jeans and a T-shirt.  She must be freezing, he knew.  Once when he was twelve he had taken a dare, to take a swim in the lake in December.  He had to be dragged out and revived. Now he blamed it on young stupidity, but his mother hadn't thought that when she grounded him for a month for scaring her.

"Bro if you're going to carry her you should get dressed. Unless you want Mom on you case again."

"Your right, I'll be right back." He jogged into the woods and came back with some sweats on from one of the many stashes the pack kept for just such an occasion.

Jothan was studying the girl. "She's pretty" he said appreciatively. 

Carter leaned over  her.  She was rather pretty with dark brown hair and a pouty face, as if she were dreaming of something that didn't please her.  He guessed you could call her attractive, but not quite his type.  Now his mate, Abby, she was hot.

"If you say so." He knelt and carefully lifted her up to cradle her in his arms.

"Come on we'd better hurry."

"Coming." called Jothan trotting over.

Ben would want to know about this.  First, the Rouges in the area, and now, a human girl found near the border.  This day just got a lot weirder.

 

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