They swung open the cage door, cattle prods at full power, humming with electricity. The man lazily lifted his hands in surrender. "Now, now." He said softly. His voice was like velvet. "No need. I'll do as you please." The man in the cage said, his...
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The smell of crushed pine pervaded her senses as she stood at the kitchen sink with the window thrown open wide. Her cold reddened fingers danced through the light snowflakes that floated past the windowsill. "It's been so long since we got any real snow at home," Theo said, flashing a smile.
Dime hummed in agreement and settled down onto the counter next to her, wrists crossed over the basin of the sink. "Well there's plenty of it here. Most of the winter, the only way people can get around is by abandoning their cars and using snowmobiles," he said, distractedly picking at his nails.
Theo considered this, closing the window before she let too much of the hot air out, but not before she rubbed a smiley face into the frosted pane. "We should get the tree before the roads are completely unmanageable, then. Unless you've got a snowmobile in the parking lot that I just didn't notice," Theo chided.
Dime's hands flashed up in joyful surrender. "Never needed one myself." A tiny smile tugged at his lips. "You're driving."
—
Theo stretched tall in the driver's seat of Dime's truck to see as much of the icy, pothole riddled road before them as the truck's thick-treaded snow tires negotiated the terrain. She took a left, and then another, and drove until the graying pavement turned into hard packed dirt.
"Why this road?" Dime asked, sounding vaguely uncomfortable as his fingers tapped a restless beat on the door handle beside him.
"Look at the trees." They grew thick at the edge of the road, but all their lower branches had been snapped off. The gaps showed into little clearings where stands of perfectly sized trees sat, nestled into the brush. New growth. "You brought the saw, right?"
Dime rolled his eyes at her. "No, we're going to tear the tree off its roots with our bare hands." Theo rolled her eyes as her skin flushed red in the sudden chill of the breezy weather. She swung her legs out into the tightly packed snow, grinning as it crunched nicely under her feet. It had been snowing since the day before, and while it hadn't accumulated much, it had mostly covered the ground in a thin layer of ice and powder. Dime followed her out, already having grabbed the metal instrument from the backseat. "Let's be quick about this."
Theo ignored his suddenly gruff tone, bouncing off through the thicker piles of snow that had been blown into deeper piles by the wind until she found the tree she wanted. The saw blade wobbled as she knelt in the torn up earth, angling her body to get the perfect cut. A breeze carried behind Dime, chilling her as he moved to inspect the churned up dirt around her. "What would be digging in the middle of winter?" He murmured to himself as he gnawed on his chapped bottom lip.
Theo paused halfway through the thin trunk of the tree, "Maybe it was wolves." She hesitated as green eyes flashed in her head. A shiver passed through her, shaking her back to her senses. "I read in a pamphlet on the way up here that the area around town is a huge reserve for them."
