Surprise For A Feral

Have You Met K?

The three women had been travelling together for some time. Longer than they had thought, truth be told. Chloe and Zoe were sisters, separated by less than a year. They'd bumped into K not long into their trip. She'd gotten them out of a tough spot and for some reason, she let the sisters stick with her as she moved through the forests and countryside. The girls had grown to depend on her. She'd shown them more about survival and hiding in the first week they'd been together than Chloe and Zoe had managed to learn since before they'd left their familial home until they'd met her.

K, however, didn't know how long she'd been moving anymore, and the girls thought that they were doing her some kind of favor just for being with her. But the truth was that for K, having two teenage girls with no street sense dragging behind her had made her moving undetected nearly impossible. She felt an odd sense of responsibility for them though that kept her from ditching them, even when it got too hot. She had pulled their chestnuts out of the fire more times than they could count.

Ultimately, the woman was a survivor in every sense of the word, and was easily the most tenacious person either had ever met. She dragged them along with her, keeping them safe from the men chasing them. Both the group that was after the girls - which, K had to admit were easy enough to evade - and the group chasing K, which so far, they hadn't come across. Up to that point, it had been a matter of evasion and hiding. It would remain that way too for the foreseeable future at least until it got a little colder, and though K could find her way in the cold wilderness, she knew the girls wouldn't be able to hack it. She hadn't come up with a solid plan on what to do with them yet, but she would.

It was one of the rare mornings that one of the girls was on watch when Chloe decided she just couldn't take the rough lifestyle that they were living. She snuck off while K slept to get herself a coffee from a Starbucks that they'd spotted as they tried to skirt away from the little town they were travelling past. When the teenager got up to pay she realized she didn't have the cash on her, but the smells drifting out of the cafe had called to her, and her mouth watered thinking of the pumpkin latte with her name on it.

It would break one of K's cardinal rules, but ultimately, temptation won out.

She handed the cashier the credit card her parents had sent her off with for emergencies. On the hike back to camp, she did everything that K had taught her about moving undetected, and was doing a fine job of it too. She was proud of herself and how much she'd learned, and the fact that she'd brought a rare treat to her sister and their protector. The full fall colors around her just raised her spirits more as she slipped through the beautiful trees on the way to their hiding spot.

When she returned to their little camp almost an hour later, baked goods in hand for all, the smell woke K from her rest. Alarmed, her eyes popped open and she sat bolt upright before she glared between the two girls. "Where did you get the money for that?" she asked them, hoping that they weren't so stupid to go against her rules. Not now. Not when they'd gotten so far. Her heart fell when she realized that she didn't need them to answer. The guilty look on Chloe's face was more than enough. K groaned at the realization, her shoulders dropping as her whole body expressed her displeasure. They had been doing so well.

K's jaw locked and she snatched the wallet off the young woman and rifled through it until she found the card and snapped it into pieces, swearing at herself for trusting the girl to keep to her word before she moved quickly and slipped on her backpack. "Move. We have to get as far away from here as possible now," K growled, throwing their packs at both of them.

Hastily, Zoe did as she was told, though she grumbled to herself about crazy brunettes in the wild. It was clear that the girls didn't understand why K was so irritated. Chloe even thought the woman was insane. She crossed her arms, ready to start complaining about K breaking the card when overhead a helicopter's wash rustled the leaves above and caused the little woman to instinctively crouch. It continued on, black and menacing and not a half mile away it started its silent descent in an open field, under cover of trees, and out of plain sight of the town nearby. K pointed toward it as it landed.