Chapter 11
I woke up in shock, I’d had a dream about the battle last night, it was terrible. I tried to calm myself down, telling myself that everything was going to work out. I had to stay strong, because I no longer had Li to fall back on. Now that he was gone, it seemed like all the responsibility in the world was resting on my shoulders, threatening to drag me down into the black chasm that was death. I woke the pack and we struck out again, hoping that we might find Li soon. As we ran, my mind wondered, I was thinking where Li might be right now and what was happening to him. I had a feeling he was wondering where the heck we were. We needed to pick up the pace, we couldn’t afford to lose anymore time.“C’mon, let’s pick up the pace!” I yelled. I didn’t know how much time we had, but I had a feeling that it was getting less and less every minute.
Chapter 12
The wild wolf pack struck up a howl, Li joined in. The wolves had accepted him as one of their pack, seeing as he had succeeded in bringing down their leader. He now had become their new leader, leading them wherever he desired. He knew that staying with these wolves would make hunting and finding the pack a lot easier. So he decided to stay with them, at least until he found the pack. This had only one problem; if he stayed in his wolf state too long, he could forget about his pack, and become a wild wolf forever.
Chapter 13
We all rested around the fire I built that night. I could control the flames, it was my weird gift, and each of us had one: Li couldn’t feel fatigue, Matt could stand freezing cold temperatures, and Albina could lie perfectly still for hours, seemingly without breathing, Star could see really far, Luca could smell dinner almost a mile away, the air around Rika was always warm while the air around Ciri was usually cold, Kiri could coax things into coming back to life, Ashlyn could speak to birds, and I could tame fire. I flicked my hand boredly, focusing on the fire, watching it mimic my hand’s movements. I then focused on the smoke, twirling it in spirals, making shapes and designs in it that hovered in the air and then disappeared. Ashlyn was conversing with a sparrow; Kiri was restoring dead flowers to their original, colorful state. None of us talked, we sat in silence for some time, and no one spoke but the sparrow and Ashlyn.I was changing the fire’s shape, now a dog, now a cat, all burning with a beautiful orange-blue glow. We couldn’t do much about Li, besides; he always seemed to have a way of escaping just about anything. I had learned this the hard way when we were at a hotel and I had locked us in, sleeping with the key under me in my sleeping bag, Li had insisted that someone be on watch while I had insisted that we were perfectly safe with the high quality lock I had put on the door. I woke up that morning, Li was gone, and I opened the door to find him leaning casually against the opposite wall with a smug grin on his face, tossing the lock up and down in his hand.We laid low for a long time, hunting and running for our lives. Life returned to the way it had been before, minus Li, and this went on for about a month. And things pretty much took a straight down drop from there.
Chapter 14
Li had been with the pack for almost a month now, hunting, fighting, and keeping them in order. The pack had learned to fear him, for of every fight, he was the victor. Li had begun to lose focus on the plan he had made after escaping, began to forget about the pack. All that was beginning to matter was staying alive, staying with the wolves, staying in charge. He had grown, changed in appearance, changed in attitude, he was becoming a wolf. The wolf pack was trotting along, sniffing out the fresh trail of the deer that would be their dinner. They rounded a corner; there was the deer, along with nine wolves eagerly tearing at the deer, filling their empty stomachs. Li stepped forward, growling and bristling, eager for a fight. The obvious leader of this other pack looked up, and then began to growl. Li leaped in, taking on the leader, it seemed to be a female, but fought just as fiercely as any fully- grown wolf would.Li found himself having a hard time defeating the female. This came as a surprise, considering he couldn’t remember ever having to work this hard to come away unscathed. They broke apart and lunged again, claws ripping the air. He noticed this pack of wolves had a similar fighting style to his. He darted in and out, striking and dodging, using speed as well as strength. Li was running out of tricks, constantly being predicted by the opponent. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he found himself on his back, panting heavily, the female wolf’s paw on his throat, the lack of nutrition and the energy used in the fight making him dizzy. The blurred image of the female wolf slowly came into focus their gazes met and something in the female’s eyes changed, Li saw them glow with joy. The paw on his neck became a hand, and the face above his was a human’s. “Li, oh my god, it’s you!” She thrust her arms around his neck and everything came rushing back to him. He remembered that he was Li, one of two leaders of a pack of ten shape shifters. He remembered why they were on the run, and from whom, he also remembered that he could change his shape, which he did now, allowing Arrow to hug him. He stroked her hair and whispered reassurances.
Chapter 15
I was so happy, I had found Li, and everyone was together again. Li stroked my hair and despite my embarrassment, tears rolled down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry Li,” my voice was muffled by tears, “I gave up on you,” my voice was almost a whisper by now, “I promise this will never happen again,”“You know that’s a promise you can’t keep, no matter how hard you try,” he whispered softly.“I know,” my voice was broken by sobs, “I just want the pack to stay together, because that’s how it should be.”I didn’t hear anything from him, and for a while I just rested, calming myself, the tears dried on my cheeks. “Okay,” I said, trying to regain control, “I’m done,”Li put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me away, I spun around, hoping that the pack hadn’t seen any of that. The pack was still fighting, oblivious to what was going on about ten feet away. Li called off the wild wolves and shooed them away. He walked back to where I was checking the pack for injuries and was surrounded by the pack immediately.“Li!” squealed Kiri, she ran up and hugged him as the rest of the pack slapped him high-fives. We trotted along through the woods after having eaten the deer, well fueled and happy. So when trees began exploding around us, it really really ticked me off.
TO BE CONTINUED
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