Chapter 10: Chapter Nine

“I’m going to do another perimeter check; you try to get some rest before we need to get moving again,” Renn says as he gets up.

Gabi nods, leans her head back onto the tree, and closes her eyes. Taking slow deep breaths and trying to allow herself to fall asleep, she sees the image of the black wolf that she saw during her MoonKeeping Rite. She starts to walk toward the wolf again, and as if she was looking in the reflection of a mirror, she sees herself walking up to the wolf only from behind. Gabi stops for a moment and tries to grasp the situation that is happening in front of her. The girl did not look exactly like her, but they had similar features. She had the same curly dark hair, only hers was shorter. She had the same height, but she had a more athletic build. As the girl got closer, Gabi noticed that the girl’s eyes were darker than hers; they reminded her of her father’s fierce dark eyes. Gabi inhales a deep breath when the girl is able to put her hand on the black wolf and starts to pet it as if they knew each other.

Before Gabi can get closer to the girl, she is shaken from the dream and hears Renn call her name over and over as he is shaking her shoulder.

“Gabi? Get up!” he whispers loudly. Once he sees that she is awake, he moves to start grabbing their things.

“Renn, what’s wrong?”

“We need to get moving quickly.”

Renn helps Gabi up from the tree and starts pushing her. She grabs her bag from him and follows him through the woods, weaving in different patterns to throw whoever is following them off their scent.

They reach the top of a hillside and see a town at the bottom of the hill.

“Let’s head closer to the town; that way, they will have a harder time catching our scent,” Gabi suggests.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t know how these humans will react to us. For all we know, it could be filled with Lumineers that want to kill our kind.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here, or they will catch us for sure.”

Renn thinks for a moment and then answers, “Alright, if we stay close to the border of the town, it should help mask our scent.”

Gabi nods and follows Renn as they make their way closer to the small town.

***

Baine loved roaming through the forest in his wolf form. His wolf had a keen sense of smell, and his speed was swift. He was one of the highest trackers in their clan. If Baine had to choose who would be the best delegate to take over the clan from Dyrk, he would easily pick himself. Baine hoped that finding Renn and Gabi and dragging their weak pathetic selves back to Dyrk would definitely earn him a lot of respect from Dyrk and the elders.

“They went through the river,” he calls out to his brother Dane and Carl.

They follow the river to find a shallower spot for them to run through rather than shifting back into their human form. Baine saw a spot and started rushing through the cold water. Once finally across, he realized it would be a bit of a distance traveling back by the river before he would be able to pick up their scent again, and it was already starting to get dark.

“Dane, go find something for us to eat for tonight. We will settle down and camp here for the night. Carl, go grab some wood so that we can get a fire going.”

Carl transforms back into his human form and starts to fiddle with his lighter as he walks into the forest.

Baine rolls his eyes once he shifts back into his human form. “Stupid Pyro,” he says in a hushed tone.

Baine starts to look around to get a better bearing on where they are. They are definitely far from the clan’s territory, but he hasn’t quite figured out how far just yet.

He hears a howl not too far off in the distance and smirks. Looks like Dane has found dinner for them.

***

The sun is starting to set as Renn and Gabi make it to the outskirts of town. They can hear lots of laughter and noise as they make their way through, trying to find the right spot to settle down and rest a little more.

“I wonder what’s going on tonight,” Gabi says as they creep behind the trees and bushes without being seen.

“I don’t know. Sounds like a huge feast,” Renn says as he pauses for a moment and starts to rub his knee.

Gabi looks down and notices his knee.

“How’s your knee doing?”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Renn snaps at her.

Gabi jumps at the response a little. She knows he was always self-conscious about his knee, especially when he was younger when he was constantly teased and tormented for the limp. The teasing settled after his MoonKeeping Rite when he was able to transform into his wolf.

“Sorry,” Renn says quietly.

Gabi nods. Renn gets tense and quickly puts his finger to his mouth as he hears something.

Gabi starts to listen to see if she can sense what he is hearing when she hears a voice that she recognizes.

Wait, I know that voice.

She starts to move towards the noise.

“Gabi, NO, STOP! What are you doing?” Renn whispers loudly after her.

Gabi doesn’t stop.

Renn shakes his head and quickly moves to catch up with Gabi, trying to figure out why she would choose to go towards the noise instead of waiting until he had a better sense of the situation.

As Gabi gets closer, she can hear the voices better and recognizes them as Jamie and Holly. Gabi still stays out of sight as she listens to the girls talking, feeling relieved to know that they are safe. Now if only she could find out if the guy was okay. What was his name again?

“Dan, would you hurry up.”

That’s what it was: Dan. Gabi let out a sigh of relief, knowing now that he made it out okay.

“I’m coming. You know, it’s not easy using these things,” Gabi hears Dan respond.

She tries to get a peek to see what he is talking about. She is able to get just a slight glimpse of him, and he has two pieces of metal that he is holding under each of his arms that helps him keep his balance while he stands on one foot and the other foot is wrapped and kept off the ground.

“That’s what you get for being clumsy. It was your idea to go out that far into the woods.”

Gabi believed that to be Jamie’s voice.

“Jamie, stop giving him a hard time. At least we all made it out of there alive and that wolf didn’t chase after us and hurt us or, worse, kill us.”

Yep, if Baine had the chance to kill them, he would have. Luckily, Mori had stepped in when he did. She smiles as she remembers seeing Baine coming out of the water soaking wet and smelling like wet dog.

Renn starts tugging on Gabi to get her to move back from the humans.

“Renn, no, it’s okay. I know them.”

Renn looks at her as if she has grown two heads. It is then that he remembered how she had been reprimanded by his brother Dyrk for talking with a human and instead of killing them on instinct.

“I still think it’s better that we stay back and keep our distance.”

Both of them don’t realize that they are talking louder than they should have been.

“Hey, who’s out there?” Dan says.

Renn gives her a fierce look and turns to start making his way farther back before being seen by these humans that he had no idea if they were nice or killers. Especially the guy who has two sticks that he is carrying under his arms. They can easily be used as weapons. Renn looks around to see if Gabi is following behind him when he hears a thud and a yelp.

“GABI!”