~Rain~

Chapter Twelve

Authors note - 

Thank you for reading this far. I hope to continue updating this daily, but I will only be able  to do that if I get a reasonable amount of feedback on each chapter I post. I know that there are almost fifty people still following that haven\'t commented at all, so if you could leave a comment that would be amazing - you have no idea how much it means to me. Anyway, I\'m going to shut up now and let you read the story. Enjoy.

Chapter twelve

 

Alice stomped heavily on a twig, causing it to snap neatly beneath her heel.

‘Alice,’ Tyron hissed, not for the first time that morning, ‘We won’t catch anything if you stomp around like that!’

Scowling at him, Alice kicked a large rock, sending it tumbling off the lightly worn path and into the undergrowth. ‘We won’t catch anything anyway.’

Biting his lip to keep himself calm, Tyron turned to Alice in exasperation, ‘We might if you would be quiet.’

Miles shuffled impatiently from food to foot, still piecing together information in his mind, coming up with theories and reasons for everything that had gone on. Nothing added up. ‘Stop arguing. You’ve been at it all morning. Can’t we just start heading toward the city? Do something useful?’

Tyron stopped, sighing heavily. ‘Look, if we don’t get food, there is no way we will make it to the city. It is at least a weeks walk, and we won’t be able to travel at night. Bottom line, we need food.’

‘Which we won’t get unless I shut up or go away,’ Alice added angrily.

Tyron nodded, and Alice scowled harder at the ground, stepping silently over a fallen tree trunk and onto the dewy grass on the other side. Biting back any further remarks, she watched the cloud of air around her mouth disperse as she inhaled sharply.

‘Well, lets get going then,’ Miles said with a small smile, surprised that what he said had had any affect whatsoever on his friends.

Tyron started talking quickly, and neither Miles not Alice could work out whether he was addressing them or the forest around them, so they kept quiet and fell into step behind him.

‘I set some snares back after the first night…’ Tyron said, fingering the bark of a tree as if it would give him some sort of clue as to where about he was. Suddenly, he whipped around and set determinedly off in the opposite direction. ‘But all the animals trapped in them would be dead by now, with almost a week of no access to food and being open to predators. Unless-‘ the boy trailed off, and Miles and Alice scuttled uncertainly along behind him.

Tyron stopped. He turned, watching everything around him almost without breathing. Then he kneeled down and pulled a set snare from behind a small, almost bare bush.

‘Anything?’ Alice asked in a hushed whisper, as though she were afraid to break his intense concentration.

Tyron ignored her for a second, pulling on the string and then teasing the knot back into place. Setting the trap back down with perfect precision, he shook his head and started off in the  direction of Alice’s old boarding school, not looking at either of his companions.

‘Is it time to tell me why you know all this yet?’ Alice asked, a peculiar look on her face.

‘No,’ Tyron said, somehow stepping silently through a running stream of fallen water and keeping his eyes glued ahead of him.