Chapter 20

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            Willow caught Rune’s arm as he stumbled again, winds whirling around him, his feet tripped by another hidden root. “Goddamn it!” he snapped as he righted himself. “I hope to hell we never have to go stumbling around a forest in the middle of the night again. I thought I’d be alright since we’ve been out here so many times in the day, but I can’t see a damn thing in the dark!”

            “Sorry,” Willow replied, eyes scanning the shadow filled forest. “We can see alright in the dark, so I didn’t think to grab a flashlight.”

            He sighed. “No, I shouldn’t be taking out my frustration on you. I just thought…The winds are leading us in the right direction as they know it, I thought it’d be easy once we got going. That we’d find your cousin quickly, not be tramping around here in the pitch dark.”

            She moved so she was ahead of him. “I’ll walk in front, you try and follow where I step, and just tell me if we need to turn. You ought to fall less this way. And if you do, you can grab onto me.”

            Rune’s nod was barely visible, even to Willow’s eyes, but a faint smile crossed her lips as she caught sight of the movement. The expression quickly disappeared as she went back to straining her ears and eyes for some sign of Austin. There was nothing. Just the endless dark shapes of trees and bushes, waving in the winds that practically encased them. The only sounds the distant cry of a coyote, and the occasional hoot of an owl, mixed in with the crashing, rustling sound of them making their way deeper into the woods.

            It was an odd feeling, being in the forest after dark. Willow hadn’t been out in their woods at night since she was a kid. Most of her after-hours explorations having been done when she and her parents went on vacation, and even then, she’d never gone this far off a trail.

            She swept the area with her gaze again, eyes drawn to a rare patch of silver, the only hint that the moon was approaching full overhead. Willow turned away from that, more concerned with finding the broken branches and disturbed earth that would tell her someone had gone this way before them. It wasn’t easy in the dark.

            “You know,” Rune said, after a few minutes of silence. “If you weren’t with me, I might be afraid of a bear coming out and eating me.”

           It took a second for his words to properly register with Willow. His attempt to lighten the mood was obvious, but still had her chortling. “A bear wouldn’t eat you, just maul you a bit. Unless it was one of my cousins. Then they’d probably just pounce on you and roll you around in the dirt for a while.”

            “Savages, the lot of you. Have you ever thought about muzzling your cousins? Or maybe getting those under the skin pet trackers? That’d save you a lot of time and worry.”

            “They’d get smashed. You haven’t seen roughhousing until you’ve seen some of my cousins going at it in squatch form. It has to be done outside, and still stuff gets broken. Aunt Katya nearly murdered Caleb and Bryce after they rolled into her house hard enough to knock stuff off shelves. They broke her favourite vase.”

            “You seem pretty intent on proving my point about you all being savages.”

            “Says the boy who talks to the wind.”

            “I happen to be a man, and no mere boy,” Rune replied haughtily, before flashing her a grin, his teeth bright in the inky light. “And besides, having a conversation with something is far more civilized than a wrestling contest between half-bear creatures.”

            “Call me a creature again and we’ll see how well your winds can protect you.”

            “Your first response is always violence. It’s quite disheartening,” he said with a sniff, affecting a snobbish tone.

           Willow shook her head, but smiled. There was just something about Rune’s insanity that made her feel better, even in situations as stressful as the one they were in. “If I’m so awful, why do you keep hanging around.”

            “I had hoped that some of my civilized behaviours might have rubbed off on you, adding some kind of polish, but alas, it seems I’m doomed to failure. Your rough nature is just too ingrained.”

            “The person who regularly baits our principal is civilized? We must have very different definitions of the word.”

            Rune chuckled, then froze, stopping dead as the winds spun more quickly around him. Willow halted where she was, watching as Rune tilted his head slightly. A moment later, the winds slowed back to their previous swirling, while Rune grinned at her. “It’s alright. Some of your family found your cousin. They’re bringing him home now. You can relax.”

            Willow could only stare for a moment, before the tension ran out of her body, leaving her faintly giddy. Her smile matched his for width as she reached over and crushed him in a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you!”

            “You’re welcome,” Rune replied, voice slightly muffled. “Now will you please let me go? I think you’re close to cracking a rib.”

            Laughing, Willow released him, watching as he rubbed his side. “That gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘bear hug’.”

            She chuckled. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

            Rune shook his head, one toe kicking at the fallen leaves. “It’s nothing. And it’s not like I’d be bastard enough to not want to help find a missing kid.”

            “Well, you might change your mind shortly,” she said, moving so she was in front of him again. “We still have to get back.”

          He looked around, taking in the almost solid wall of greenery they’d already forced their way through. “Shit,” he muttered, making her laugh again.

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