Page 62 of Feral
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Where’s the fire?”
“North-west, over by the Fucking Tree.”
Damn, I’d forgotten about the Fucking Tree. It was the name high school kids had given a particular tree formation, where a tree had fallen over but remained rooted. Another trunk had grown pressed up behind it, making it look like they were doing it doggystyle.
The Fucking Tree was reasonably close to Lorso’s cabin. Kitten might be herding goats toward home, but she’d head to the cabin as well. I knew it in my bones.
I looked at Eris. “Call your parents. Do not move from here unless they tell you to, or unless we have to evacuate, understand?” He nodded.
I ran back outside, and slid into the SUV, with Darius now in the passenger seat. What the hell did we do with Merrick’s car now? Fuck it. I was going to kick their fucking asses for letting Kitten run headfirst into a goddamn forest fire.
“Call Corvin. She’s at the cabin. I know it,” I told Darius.
I listened as he told Corvin everything that happened, and heard Corvin swear.
“She’ll be going back to save Lorso’s stuff. That old box she used to keep under her bed,” he muttered. “I’ll get her. Don’t worry, Omega. You just get home and take care of yourself. Cooper, pack up our shit. If this goes pear-shaped, I won’t risk Darius and the cubs.”
“Already on it, Corvin. You just bring her home.”
39
KITTEN
By the time I made it to the cabin, I knew I was being an idiot. The smoke was thick and beginning to burn my lungs, but it didn’t make me stop. I ripped open the front door, knowing where I was going even with the blinding smoke. I could have found my treasure box with my eyes closed. I could have drawn a picture of every single thing in there with intimate detail.
I dived beneath the bed, grabbing the handle of the box. It held my last remaining memories of the man who raised me, the last vestiges of the girl I once was. This might have been a gamble, but it was one I had to make. I should have brought it into town earlier, but it felt like it had belonged out here. I was such an idiot.
I took one more look around the cabin that had been my sanctuary, my home, for as long as I’d been alive. I knew that come tomorrow, even if they held the fire back from Maxton, my home would be gone.
I tucked the box under my arm and went back to an anxious-looking Murphy. His eyes were bouncing around the cabin, taking it all in with the eyes of a well-trained soldier. I coughed a little on the smoke, and his eyes darted back to me, his brow scrunched in concern.
“We really need to go.” I nodded, and his face softened. “This was your home? The place you grew up?”
I stepped back onto the porch, then leapt down to the grass. “Yes. Lorso is buried over there. Maybe I should dig him up so he finally gets the cremation he wanted.”
It was a dark joke, and Murphy was looking at me like I’d gone nuts. “Lorso?TheLorso?”
Ah, he didn’t know. “Yep. Old as hell. Crotchety. The best Manix I may ever know, though you only remember nice things about the dead, right?”
“Holy shit,” he muttered, taking the box from me. “Jump on, Kitten. We need to get the fuck out of here before we all get cremated.”
I leapt onto his back, but we didn’t make it far when an ATV pulled into a clearing by the trees. Corvin jumped off, racing toward me, and he looked furious.
Murphy made anuh-ohnoise and promptly dropped me back onto my feet. “Your Alpha looks pissed that we’re out here in the middle of a fucking forest fire,” he whispered under his breath.
“Kitten, are you insane? It’s a fucking wildfire! One shift of the wind and you could’ve been trapped and burnt to a crisp.” Corvin turned to Murphy. “I'll have words with you later.”
Murphy snorted. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Corvin Fletcher. But if it’s all the same to you, I say we get the fuck out of here.”
Corvin bent down and picked me up bodily, sprinting back to the ATV. I could feel the wind picking up, blowing smoke and embers ahead of the flames. Murphy was right; we needed to get out of here, so I didn’t protest being manhandled like a sack of potatoes.
Corvin stuck me on the back of the ATV, and Murphy dropped my treasure box in my lap. He climbed up the front beside Corvin, and we roared away. I watched the one place I felt like me—truly and one hundred percent like Girl, the person I’d been before Kitten—disappear into the distance. That girl would burn with the building, and I was the only person who’d mourn her loss.
We made it back to Maxton well ahead of the fire, but if I was right, the late afternoon breeze was about to pick it up and turn it from a lazy forest fire into a ravenous, insatiable beast.
“You have to drive us to see the Alpha General. He needs to know to evacuate. There’ll be no fighting this once the wind changes. The whole forest will go up like a tinderbox.”
Corvin gritted his teeth but drove toward the Legion building. “Fine. You go in, deliver your warning, and then we get the fuck out of here, okay? No arguments.”
