The Winged [HIATUS]

Chapter Twenty

"Truth is stranger than fiction..." -Mark Twain

[ C H A P T E R   T W E N T Y ]

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I wake up many hours later when Logan taps my shoulder. I open my mouth to speak, but she lifts a finger to her lips and signals for me to be quiet. Then she reaches over and shakes Tempest awake in the same fashion. Wiping the crud from my eyes, I sit up very slowly and listen as hard as I can.

Something rustles in the bushes.

My muscles tense and I sink back into a fighting crouch. Adrenaline crackles through my veins like a live wire as I draw my knife.

We breathe a collective sigh of relief when a grizzled gray fox limps out of the shrubbery in question. One of its back legs appears to be broken in two places. It freezes when it sees us, slowly backing away the way it came.

“It’s okay,” Tempest coos, kneeling on the ground and holding a cracker out for the animal. “You’re safe here.” The fox hesitates for a moment before hobbling over to us and eating the food from her hand. She strokes its fur and garbles soothing noises to calm it down.

“You’re good with animals,” I comment, thoroughly impressed.

She smiles as the fox butts its head into her palm. Scratching its ears, she says, “Animals have auras too, so I can get them to trust me pretty easily. Now, about that leg…” She moves her fingers over the creature’s body and re-channels healing energy into the injury.

Logan begins to roll up her sleeping bag. “We should eat it.”

“No!” Tempest exclaims, horrified. “How could you even suggest such a thing? Finding a gray fox around here is very uncommon. They’re protected by law, you know.”

“I was just kidding,” Logan drawls. She picks up the burnt logs we used for our campfire and scatters them throughout the trees, covering our tracks. “I’ve never really liked the taste of foxes.”

“You’ve eaten wild animals before?” I ask, wide-eyed.

“Of course. I’ve been on the run for a while. You eventually learn to use whatever resources are available to you.” She digs a hole to hide the ashes and covers it with soil, patting it flat.

The three of us bustle around for a minute, quickly brushing our teeth and hair, applying deodorant, and using the “toilet”. The fox trots alongside Tempest the whole time and does its best to keep up with her super speed.

BANG!

All of us drop what we’re doing, locked in place by fear. The animal takes a few steps, tripping over its own feet before collapsing in a puddle of blood.

“STEVE!” Tempest shrieks, falling to her knees at the fox’s side. It whimpers and closes its eyes.

“You named it?” is the only thing I can force out of my mouth.

“Tempest, we have to go,” Logan says tersely, backing away from the scene. “Now.”

Her hands fly over the broken body, attempting to heal the fatal wound while stubbornly shaking her head. “I’m not leaving Steve,” she says in a hoarse voice.

“Tempest…”

“Steve is dead,” I say, tugging her to her feet. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“But-”

“The fox. Is. Dead.”

Two pairs of pounding feet reach my ears. “I think we got it!” someone whoops, barreling through the foliage like a gorilla. The other one hollers some unintelligible victory screech as they crash past the tree line and into our camp.