Left to pick up the pieces

[Aldon Huang]

With a heavy thud, Aldon hit the ground and skidded a little ways. His body left a furrow in the ground. Before he could recover, Josh was on him, teeth snapping inches from his eye. Aldon let out a shrill whine—a sound of defeat—and cringed, fully expecting Josh to tear out his throat the way he'd gone after those rabbits and coyotes. He genuinely thought that he was going to die.

All Josh did, however, was snarl and growl at him. Then, suddenly, the weight of his body left Aldon. For a few more tense moments, Aldon played dead. It worked better against bears than wolves, but he didn't want to take his chances annoying an already irate feral. Sure, he was feral too, but he wasn't anywhere near as savage as Rae or Josh.

"Traitor!" Josh spat acidly at him.

Aldon shifted back quickly and laid naked in the loam, bleeding, scratched and bitten. He was sore all over and he felt extremely hard done by. Couldn't Josh have taken it easy on him? They were long-time childhood best friends, for Christ's sake! Aldon slowly sat up and inspected a bite mark on his arm, glad that he was already a feral. If not, he would've been in for a hell of a long night—longer than this one was turning out to be!

"I'm not a traitor!" He protested, avoiding Josh's gaze. Josh was pacing furiously, clearly agitated. Aldon didn't like his chances of not getting kicked in the face, so he made a small target of himself. "I was stopping you from committing murder!"

"He would've deserved it. That filthy fox and his little lackey witch!"

Aldon mumbled something to his own arm. Personally he thought that nothing was worth a murder rap, but clearly Josh believed otherwise.

"What's that?" Josh snapped, stopping close to him and causing him to flinch.

"Rae wouldn't want you to hurt Alva..." Aldon ducked like Josh was going to smash a fist into the top of his head. Then he started up so suddenly that he startled Josh. "RAE! HE'S STILL BACK THERE!" Then, before Josh could react, Aldon was off like a lightning bolt, a streak of white, paws churning the ground. He dashed through the woods, back the way he'd come, until he burst on through to the coyote den where he had last seen Rae. Sure enough, Rae was still there, and Aldon hastily scrambled over to him to check him out.

"Rae? Rae!" He shook Rae.

"What's wrong with him?" Josh's sharp voice followed behind him.

"He's... just all frozen." Aldon sat beside Rae, baffled. "What'd the witch do to him?" Rae looked uninjured but he was clearly not unharmed. That witch did something to him—Aldon just didn't know what. "What do we do Josh?"

"...drag him back to the truck, you idiot," Josh said impatiently, reaching down to grab one of Rae's arms. "Come on. We'll carry him between us."

"O-okay..." Aldon did likewise, taking Rae's other arm and hoisting him up. He cast a look around, at the three coyote corpses. Two were mangled; one, a large male, was severely injured. Probably dead. It wasn't moving. Aldon studied it worriedly, but Josh was already moving and he had to hurry to keep up before Josh yelled at him. Aldon couldn't stand being yelled at—especially by Josh, whose creative insults always cut deep.

"You think Ry's okay?"

"I don't care."

"..." Aldon shut his trap and kept on walking. He cared! The faster they got Rae to the truck, the sooner he could get back into town to check on Ryland. Aldon wanted to find the witch, too, but not to kill him like Josh. He just wanted to make sure that guy didn't do anything to hurt Ryland! Aldon wasn't the murdering type, but he was still a wolf and still protective of the people he loved.