The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

68. Benjamin

Spitta didn't seem to be too far away. After a short night to rest, we had reached the proximity of the dreaded town the next day by the time the Sun began its descent.

Running with the six wolves was uneasy at times, especially when it was my turn to carry the bag. The sunburned item kept dangling against my chest, pulling at my teeth and generally worsening my mood.

After we had crossed the border of Fire Moon, we dared to run for a little while longer, before we decided to switch back to our human forms and mask our scent with whatever ground there was. I didn't allow myself to think about the other things we were covering ourselves with.

Kai - the wolf I recognized from training - had explained that we only covered our scent in Fire Moon itself. If we would march in there with Wise Moon ground on us, and Fire Moon ground and our own Death Moon scent, it would be even easier to be spotted.

And since Wise Moon hadn't allied themselves with anyone in this war, we deemed it safe enough to pass their grounds quickly, without masking ourselves.

Staying out of this war, perhaps had been the wisest thing to do.

The short night we had rested, had been a cold one. Though my thick fur covered me well, and the cold breezes of the nightly wind didn't bother me too much, the impending doom that was awaiting me, surely did.

I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye to Lotta and Jerr. I had just left - and I would never see them again.

Aven wanted me to fight, now. He had made that very clear. If I was to go there anyway, I could fight with them. Why else would I die on that battlefield?

I didn't want to go. It felt like my life had only just begun - and now it would end so soon?

The closer we got to Spitta, the heavier my steps became. The more my body and my mind seemed to fight me on this - urging me to go back, not to meddle in this bloody war. Not to give up my life.

Not to let it end in the place I ran away from.

But then every time, I saw Benjamin's face. I heard his laughter, I saw him kissing his wife whenever she would come into the bar. However busy it was, if Vi would show her face, Benjamin would greet her with a kiss.

I'd see him scolding Sam for whatever stupidity that boy would have performed. I saw him comforting Laura after her friend had called her a mean word in the town square.

I couldn't let them die.

So every moment we spent in our group of seven - just behind that part of the river with the sharp bend - felt like agony.

Even if the men treated me cordially, they were not the company I wanted in my last days.

And when we huddled close together at night, to face the harsh coldness of the night, all I could think was that I wished it was Jerr laying beside me. How I missed his touch - and knowing I would probably never feel it again.

The three days we were waiting there were blurry and uneventful. One of the men would go out to check out the town's borders as closely as they could every day, but they all came back with the same news: whispers were floating around the streets that something bad was happening. That Beckett was acting strange, preparing himself for Moons know what.

We knew what he was preparing for. It made it painfully obvious that those innocent people would meet horrible ends. They would fight battles they had nothing to do with. They would lay down their lives in streets they despised, just as much as I had hated living there.

All of us who lived in Spitta's slums seemed to be cursed. Wherever we would go, we would always meet our end in this dreaded town. There was no escaping it. There was no escaping Beckett.