Shifters (Feline english version)

Chapter 30

Is it not said: " All cats are grey in the dark "? Well, so are the trees. All this vegetation favourable to relaxation and serenity during the day became at night a jumble of strange and frightening ghostly shapes, each one scarier than the next. I felt like I saw and heard the shooters behind every tree and bush, and my concentration was seriously affected. I knew Worth had my back, but I wasn't reassured. Especially since in this more than hostile environment my instincts were getting the better of me. I curse myself once again for not having dared to strip one of the dead guards of his clothes to cover myself, because on that cold October night I was literally freezing. In addition to that, the adrenaline, extreme fatigue and lack of food made it harder and harder for me not to shake.

After falling twice already, I was covered with scratches of all kinds, but despite my bare feet that made me suffer, I was pushing myself to speed up the pace. The sounds of the forest were changing and I felt that the few animals around were preparing to flee, sensing the danger.

I decided to stop making a perfect target at the shooting stand and chose to climb a tree as well. Well, in the forest, the scope for original hiding places was more than limited. I huddled on myself to keep warm and waited, all senses on the lookout. He was very discreet, but I still ended up figuring out the approximate location where he was. He had stopped the moment he stopped hearing me and, like me, he was waiting.

His behaviour suggested that he must have suspected a trap or that he overestimated me. Strangely enough, I was more in favour of the first option. This implied that they knew about the accident and therefore knew that we were no longer easy prey. We had restored some balance: we too were now armed! The minutes passed with a disheartening slowness. I couldn't stay here forever wasting precious time. Adam and Cassie were counting on us. Besides, speaking of us, what was Worth waiting for to shoot? I couldn't be a perched goose forever. Especially since I was feeling worse by the minute.

I was alone, lost and scared. My primary brain told me to run away like the animals I sensed around me, while my rational mind told me that if I moved, I was dead! No matter how much I believed the second one, the first one made me feel trapped in that tree. An icy sweat began to flow down my back and my heart began to beat. Then came the breathing difficulties, a good old-fashioned anxiety attack! Except it wasn't the time at all.

I struggled to get some air into my lungs, when a bullet whistled in my ears and landed in the trunk of the tree, barely an inch from my head. Despite the panic that had occulted all my senses, my body had instinctively reacted to the detonation, however weak it may have been, because I had already started to move the very instant a second bullet hit the trunk again, missing me only slightly for the second time. The adrenaline flowed through all my cells and gave back control to my body, which took over my overheated brain. I fell to the bottom of the tree like a monkey. Once on the ground, I didn't think and ran as fast as I could as I slid between the trees, in order to give as few shooting slots as possible to the man who was chasing me.

After a few minutes of frantic running, I heard more distant detonations, and the shots in my direction stopped abruptly. I slowed down and tried to regain more normal breathing when the characteristic sounds of a person running through the undergrowth, without any concern for discretion, were heard. This distracted me for a moment and, getting my foot in a root, I spread all the way down on the spongy ground, which fortunately for me cushioned my fall. I heard two bullets whistle over me; one of them grazed my arm while I was already on the ground, while the other went a good meter above my back. Which could only mean one thing: the one who came from my left and ran like an elephant through the woods fired to hurt, while the one who followed me silently since I had come down from my tree fired to kill. And obviously, Worth had only slowed him down. I felt a slight twinge of sadness at the thought of his death or perhaps serious injury alone in the woods, but the reality of my situation was made brutally plain to me when a bullet grazed me again.