Ravenwings (Imaged + Completed) [1st in Trilogy]

Part II: Chapter 21

I climbed out the window out the attic, ran across the house over the roof, jumped down to the flat porch roof, and peered over the edge. Raven was still in a heap at the bottom of the steps.

"Raven!" I hissed. "Are you alright?"

He didn't even reply. He just turned his head to look up at me, blinked, and leaned his head back down.

Sh*t, he's not even talking... "How do we get you up?" I said aloud. "We can't go back in through the house."

He tried to get up. He pushed the ground away from him, and he got up to his knees. He even dragged himself to sit on the bottom step. He bowed his head, exhausted, panting from the struggle. But he didn't move anywhere else after that.

I looked around for a way to get down to him. No nearby trees, no conveniently placed ladder, not even a possible rope I could throw out my window made of clothes that they do in the movies.

There was a pang in my chest to have to let Raven out of sight, but I ran to the back of the house and got down climbing onto my halfway-out-the-garage car.

I ran back around to the front of the house, glanced around for any signs of the dogs just in case, snagged the dropped pepper spray (which was nearly empty) and approached Raven.

I paused a short pace from him.

"Do you think the dogs are coming back?" I asked.

He looked up at me in surprise, as if he hadn't even realized I was there; he hadn't heard my footsteps. He had been very deep in thought.

He looked defeated. Withered. Like when I found him. The only difference was the way he looked at me.

Luckily, he shook his head. You're sure they won't come back? I wondered.

"How do you know?" I asked.

He didn't respond. He looked back down to the ground and rested his head on his knees.

"Are you alright?"

He shrugged.

Sighing, I plopped down by him on the steps. "Look, I feel like this is all my fault. I shouldn't have fallen, that was where this started. If I'd-"

He was shaking his head and looking at me, surprised.

"You don't blame yourself do you? It's not your fault at all."

He turned to look back out towards the forest.

"Look, neither of us saw those dogs coming, we didn't know they were there on the ground below us."

He was shaking his head again, this time so strongly you'd think he was trying to shake off wet hair.

"No, you...wait, did you know they were down there?" No, that can't be right.