Chapter Ten

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Chapter Ten

Fey scooped Zave onto her back again and bounded down the tree so fast that even she could scarcely keep her balance.

Above them, the sky was growing darker by the second. The once peaceful gray clouds now had tendrils of black snaking through them, as if the night sky was reaching out to swallow up the day. Half a second after her hooves touched the soft, muddy earth, a gust of wind almost powerful enough to knock her over tore through the woods.

Glenn came running to meet them, but whatever he was saying was drowned out by a crack of thunder so loud that it left Fey's sensitive goat ears ringing.

"What?" Zave yelled back, clambering off her back.

"I said get into the plane!" Glenn repeated. "Hurry!"

Fey looked at the husk of what had once been a mighty passenger jet, now nothing more than a twisted hunk of charred metal wobbling back and forth in the mud with every gust of wind.

"There's no way that'll protect us!" Zave protested.

"It's better than nothing. Now go!"

Zave shot a look at Fey, and she nodded to him. Needing no further encouragement, he ducked inside the plane. Glenn waved for her to go next. and she followed, trying not to think about what she had seen in there the day before. Glenn brought up the rear, and he ushered them as far forward as they could go, stopping only when the wall separating the cabin from the cockpit blocked their way.

And then they waited. Fey clamped one hand over her nose. Now that the fires had gone out, it was dark enough that she couldn't see the corpses that surrounded them. Her poor nose, though, was forcibly reminded that they were there with every breath she took.

For a few long, tense minutes, all she could hear was the storm raging outside. But then the sound of wings reached her ears, louder even than the deafening thunder. So loud that she felt it more than she heard it. The ground shook, and Fey didn't need to look outside to know that the thunderbird had landed just outside the wreckage.

Leaning toward the closest window, she looked anyway.

The thunderbird was indeed right outside. Its form was mindbogglingly big, so huge that the voice of reason in Fey's head kept screaming at her that her eyes were playing tricks on her. Lightning split the sky, and by its light Fey could see that it hadn't noticed them yet. It was busy investigating a nearby tree. But why would…

Fey's blood ran cold.

"That's the tree we were just in," she whispered frantically. "And if it knows we were up there, then it'll be able to find us in here too!"

"Just stay calm," Glenn said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Panic is a greater enemy than a thousand thunderbirds."

"I’m calm," she retorted, feeling decidedly not calm. "But we can't stay here. We're sitting ducks—"

Lightning flashed outside.

"Look out!" Zave hissed, grabbing Fey around the waist and yanking her backwards.

Less than a second later, the front half of the plane was, itself, cut in half when an eighty foot tall oak tree crashed down on top of it—right where Fey had just been standing.

"Damn it, I barely had time to react to that one!" Zave whispered, still hugging Fey against him.

"Are you both okay?" Glenn asked.

Fey hadn't moved an inch. This wasn't the first time she'd narrowly avoided death this week by a longshot, but to have been that close…

"I'm fine," Zave said, though he was hyperventilating.

I could have died I could have died I could have died I COULD HAVE DIED I COULD HAVE—

"Fey!" Glenn snapped.

With a gasp, Fey shook herself out of her stupor. "Fine! I- I'm…I'm fine."

"Then stay quiet, both of you!" her old alpha said, pushing down on both of their heads to make them kneel on the bumpy, half melted metal floor. "I don't think it knows we're…"

Moving faster than anything that size should have been able to, the thunderbird appeared above the hole it had just made in the plane.

Zave was still clutching Fey so tight that it hurt. He was shaking—or was she the one shaking? She had always thought she was a brave soul. Cautious when appropriate, but never cowardly. And after facing down the wendigo horde, she had thought there was nothing left on earth that could ever strike fear into her heart.

Looking up at that gargantuan bird as it loomed over them, she realized she had been wrong. She wasn't afraid. She was terrified. Absolutely paralyzed by horror. The thunderbird was death. It was the end. And today it had come for—

Suddenly, the thunderbird raised its head to glare at something in the distance. Before Fey could wonder what it was doing, it had spread its wings and taken to the sky, vanishing not in a heartbeat, but the space between heartbeats. Outside the plane, the storm was still whipping the forest into a frenzy, but with the thunderbird gone it felt as calm as a cool spring morning.

"Wh- Wh- Where did it go?" Zave asked in a quavering voice.

"I don't know," Glenn said, for once sounding almost as rattled as Zave and Fey. "It was like something else caught its attention. Maybe it thought it was you two, since you weren't in the tree."

"Whatever it was," Fey interjected, "we need to get out of here. We may not get another chance to put some distance between us and that thing!"

"Distance?" Zave asked incredulously. "It just flew like fifty miles in two minutes! Unless your horns let you run at the speed of sound, we'll never be able to make enough distance that it can't chase us down like a couple of damn field mice!"

"Zave, do you trust me?" Glenn asked.

Zave gaped at him. "I…I guess so?"

"Do you trust Fey?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation.

"Then trust her to keep you safe," Glenn said, gripping Zave's arm. "And when I say run, you run. Okay?"

Zave looked up at the storm, his eyes wide with fear, but he nodded.

"But before we do anything," Fey cut in, "you're going to have to let go of me, Zave."

Zave's mouth opened, but then he froze, as if he hadn't realized that he was holding her so close that the two of them were practically spooning. He released her and scooted away, refusing to meet her eye.

"Sorry," he mumbled, all thoughts of the thunderbird gone for the moment. "I- I didn't mean—"

"Focus, both of you!" Glenn snapped. "Are you ready?"

Zave hesitated, then looked at Fey. She nodded, and he nodded as well.

"Then go now! And don't stop until you’re out of the storm!"

Scrambling to his feet on the muddy ground, Zave sprinted in the direction Glenn was pointing. Fey watched him go for a second, and then looked in the direction the thunderbird had gone. What had happened? What had caught its attention, and what was unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of that break right now?

"Go, Fey! I'll be right behind you!"

Fey gave her old alpha a nod, and then chased after Zave.

— — — —

The storm had come out of nowhere. Ice cold rain and billowing winds slapped Clueless in the face again and again, obliterating her sense of direction and leaving her standing alone in a maelstrom of chaos.

"Run, you idiot!" Ember's terrified voice cut through the chaos of the storm.

And then the treetops seemed to explode as the thunderbird swooped down for the kill.

NEXT CHAPTER: 1/15/2025