Experiment

fourteen

The woods are silent, even the animals that usually wonder within the thick trees are frozen in place as if each of them know exactly what we are up to and fear getting in our way, but I could honestly not care less. The moment Mr. Williams had classified Lily as prey my mind has been dead set on catching the beautiful Tiger, but it has been just a little over four hours since he had allowed us all to rush into the trees and out of each of the people that I have caught, not one of them had been her. I have not even caught sight of her. Since I am unable to smell her I keep each of my other senses open, watching for even the smallest of flashes of her beautiful white fur, listening for the sound of her large paws on the blades of grass, and waiting to feel that familiar tingle of our bond when I get anywhere close to her. But no matter where I go or how deeply I roam into the tall trees I am unable to find her.

One would think that with her being as large as she is it would be impossible to miss her, but in all honesty it is as if she has disappeared completely.

A soft rumble rolls through my chest as I jump out of the thick branch that I have been sitting in for the past half an hour in wait for her to pass me. Even as my large paws land on the slightly thinner branch that was just shy of being three yards away from where I had been, I remain absolutely silent and my silver eyes immediately begin to roam through the thick green leaves of the trees around me in search for the beautiful snow white feline but it's just as useless as it had been thirty seconds ago. A low rumble leaves me once more as I lower my body on the branch so that only my eyes can be seen through the leaves but only were one to be looking for them, then I wait.

For another half hour I do nothing more than listen to the slightly far off sounds of low growls ripping through the air forcing soft yelps to come from those that the others hunt down. Every now and then one of the other men that had been deemed as predator will pass beneath my tree with their noses to the ground and their bodies running along the bottoms of the trees as if to scare off whoever remains as prey. Just as a large Fox begins to do this exact thing to a tree not even ten yards away from my own, a loud growl fills the air so familiar to me that it has my ears twitching on top of my head but it isn't Jake's growl that has me jumping out of my tree and into the next running after him ignoring the way I scare off the Fox behind me.

What has me jumping from one tree to the next is the same reason my blood is now pumping through my veins as if it had been replaced by liquid fire, it is the same reason my spine shivers just as it always does whenever she's near. Just as my body coils to jump into yet another tree I see a flash of white making my heart give a quick thud within my chest in excitement and before I can even think things through I'm jumping from the tree I had landed in and am running after her with Jake's large deep red Wolf just beside me.

I don't have to speak to him to know why he turns off to his right, it's a technique that Les had taught us when he had just begun teaching us how to hunt. He wishes to trap her between us and take her down. I follow his lead and move to my left pushing myself to run faster just to keep up with the large Tiger. One would think that with how large she is she wouldn't be able to run as fast as she is, but from her lack of panting and seemingly lack of strain, it seems as if she could move even faster than she is now if she had truly wished to do so.

A soft growl leaves Jake's large Wolf telling me that he's in place and ready to attack whenever I am and the moment I give him a soft rumble of my own I hear him turning towards her just as I do. I watch her thick white fur twist in the wind as it brushes throughout her large body, I watch the black stripes move and twist with her movements, I watch her seemingly always tense muscles coil together and spring loose as she runs through the tall trees, and when I see an opening I take it. My paws slam into the grass making my claws dig into the dirt as I throw my large form towards her own, I see Jake's large form moving closer to hers dunking close to the ground when he's close enough as if to knock her feet out from under her, but just as we're about to take her down she's all but flying through the air as she jumps right over Jake's large form but remains just low enough that I can't reach the top of her back even as my paws stretch out to do so. The moment she lands we're both on our feet and chasing after her once more only to trip over ourselves as she jumps into the air only to use her large paws to kick off of the base of a large tree throwing her body over ours before she begins to run in the opposite direction only to stop once she's ten yards away from where we stand.