(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 48: arrows

It was silent one moment.

The next, Tisper was ducked behind the stump of an old toppled tree, her bow pressed tight to her chest—the only thing she could find security in to keep her grounded.

Bailey had led them deep into the thicket, but after days of searching, the woods had all started to look the same. Things here were denser and the trees tangled and knotted into a thick boscage. Moss was on every organic object, trees, boulders, moss. Moss on moss. She hated the slimy, spongy stuff, but she was nearly face-first into it, crouched low while she listened in on the confrontation beyond the bark. They started as quiet bays, distant but near enough that before anyone could formulate a reaction, they were closing in.

Now she huddled to herself behind this rotted stump, listening to the quarrel on the other side of the clearing. The warbling, cautionary nips and cackles of restless wolves.

The others were encompassed—Leo, Bailey, Quentin, Elizaveta, and Izzy, backed into one another in a standoff with the beasts. They were smaller—much smaller than Quentin and his pack in wolf form. And in a way, they almost seemed frightened, chortling to one another and charging forward, only to back up again, wary of getting too close.

Across the clearing, she found Matthew, tucked safely behind a tree and wearing his signature stumped look. Why aren't they doing anything? he mouthed.

I don't know.

"Bailey," Quentin was quiet to speak, sealed back against his sentinels while the wolves closed in, snarling and snapping and bouncing back again on their paws. "In my bag—flares."

Bailey reached behind him, felt along the zipper on Quentin's backpack blindly because he knew better than to turn his attention from the creatures. He shoved it open just enough to reach inside, and after a moment of feeling around, he returned with two sticks in his fist, passing one back to the right of his thigh, where Quentin's hand outstretched in waiting. Bailey kept the other for himself.

"At the same time," Quentin said, fingers slowly slipping into his front jeans pocket. "One... two,"—he returned with the lighter and gave the flint wheel a strike, sparking a small, wind-licked flame—"three."

Quentin lit the end of his stick. Bailey struck his own against the hard underside of his boot. They both ignited in glaring flames, so bright Izzy cowered into the circle and even Leo stiffened away from the light.

The wolves lowered—each of them, snarling in fear of the fire. They surged back in a wave as Quentin swung the flame before him, smearing the red haze in what once was darkness. Bailey stalked towards his own snarling creatures, fierce blaze hissing, spitting sparks and smoke from the ignited end of the stick.

It started with one wolf, turning begrudgingly away, and then another. One by one, the wolves loped off into the darkness, tails tucked between their legs and ears pinned in shame.

Once she saw the last bushy tail disappear into the thicket, Tisper rose slowly from behind her tree, shaky fingers fiddling with the string of her bow. "What the hell was that? Why'd you guys just stand there?"

"They were wolves," Izzy inhaled deeply, her arm still locked with Elizaveta's

"Real wolves," Quentin said. "They're sacred to us; it's against everything we stand for to—"

"To protect yourselves?" Matt crept out from his cover.

"Our society ain't like yours," Leo grumbled. "Killin' a wolf is killin' your own kind. A punishment worthy of death."

"So one of those comes after you, there's nothing you can do?"

"There is fear," to Matthew, Elizaveta hissed. "Fear is worthy weapon."