Thursday, January 16th, 9:15 PM
North Point Residential District, Vale City
Looking outside the driver's side window, Blake had a clear view of the soft snow drifting down from the night sky and onto the street below, which already had a nice, white layer of snow blanketing it already. It was the type of gentle snowfall that always came at the onset of winter, before the winds became rough and would turn the gently falling tufts of snow into icy ballistic shards.
Blake leaned her head against the driver side window of the car as she stared out absentmindedly at the wintry scene outside. The car she was in, a 2016 model Porsche Cayenne with a glossy black finish, was the only car on the street. Only once did she see another car on the street, slowly crawling through the freshly fallen snow and leaving behind ghastly tire marks on the otherwise unperturbed snow behind it.
Blake could feel shivers as she sat in the dormant vehicle as the plunging temperatures outside was finally starting to make its way into the car and into her bones. That being said, she had remained parked on this street waiting for Fennec to finish up his sermon and come out to the street for at least an hour now. It made sense that the cold would eventually make its way into the car.
Blake took one more glance at the street around her. It was still dead quiet, with the only motion in sight being the falling snow. A row of streetlights on the street stood as the only beacons of light on the street, as all the apartment buildings had long gone dark earlier in the evening, their occupants undoubtedly turning in for the night.
The apartment buildings on this street, and the whole surrounding "North Point" neighborhood as well, were all definitely the best and most expensive Vale had to offer. All the buildings were made from a combination of red brick and concrete in a way that made the apartment look rustic but not dilapidated, and the exterior walls were lined with artificially grown vines to further the faux-aged appearance. A majority of the apartments also sported large patios with covers, and had chic-looking window sills. The whole neighborhood looked like it was trying desperately to give off the "old neighborhood" atmosphere, but the gaudy and modern additions to the apartment broke that appearance after the first glance.
One building that broke this mold was the church that loomed above all the other apartment buildings on the far corner of the street. The church was definitely gothic in architecture, with dirty, smudged cobblestone making up its towering foundation. From its appearance, Blake could tell that this was the only building in the neighborhood that was actually over 50 years old.
Blake felt another shiver coming as she began to hug herself in a desperate attempt to hold in some amount of heat. The black turtleneck she was wearing would ideally have done that for her, but clearly, the top was made more for fashion than practicality. In fact, the same could be said for the rest of her outfit, as the sleek olive-green chino pants she had on was scratchy and paper thin, so even the smallest gust of wind felt like a blast of cold air, and the slip on shoes she was wearing cramped her toes together and wore out her soles. In fact, the only thing on her outfit that wasn't actively making her uncomfortable was the soft, silky black ribbon she had tied in a neat little bow on her head to cover her cat ears.
Still, Blake acknowledged that her high-end get up was necessary to deflect suspicion. Blake knew that any Faunus openly walking around in the North Point would attract attention from humans at best, and was essentially target practice for the police at worst, so the only way to navigate through the neighborhood was to blend in with the locals and seem human. Since the North Point was essentially the most affluent neighborhood in Vale, this meant looking like you had just come off the runway at all times, or you might be outed as a "dirty, poor Faunus."
"Well, it got me this far," Blake admitted in her head as she reached towards her back to scratch one of the thousands of turtleneck-induced itches currently plaguing her. Blake knew that helping to light the fires of a Faunus revolution wasn't going to be comfortable, but she wished could at least wear something less...itchy.
Blake sighed, and looked at the time again on her watch on her wrist.
"9:18," Blake muttered to herself. 18 minutes later than the usual time that the hulking, oaken doors of the weathered church down the street would burst open, and a crowd would leave, chittering away about the "powerful" sermon they just received from the minister. And, once everyone had filed outside, Minister Fennec Albain would step outside to see his congregation off into the night. But so far, no crowd and no Fennec had stepped outside the church.
The First United Church was the only church that let Fennec preach in the North Point, and almost always relegated Fennec to night mass, where attendance would almost certainly be lower. Still, Fennec always took those night masses, since it would give him an opportunity to start spreading the word of the White Fang in the North Point, and also because the rich churchgoers always gave larger tithe payments than other districts.
Blake once again turned her focus to the snowfall now blanketing every surface of the street. Growing up in the Mountain Glenn slums, this type of snowfall was viewed by others as an omen or with dread, since it meant that a hard winter was beginning. It was hard winters in Mountain Glenn that almost always took the lives of the elderly and occasionally a small, feeble child, especially for families that didn't have access to heating. But here, in the middle of the developed world, in a neighborhood of excess, comfort and status, and without the fear of freezing, all Blake could feel was some odd sense of serenity as she watched showers of white begin to fill up the street.
The creaking of old wood and metal quickly drew Blake's focus from the snow as her eyes focused back onto the church entrance. The gigantic wooden doors of the church had finally opened and given way to the late-mass churchgoers shuffling out of the church and into the bitter cold. Most of the worshippers were elderly and draped in fur coats, sleek trench coats and other expensive outerwear. All of them were lightly chatting as they walked out into the quiet winter night.
It was a good 4-5 minutes before the flow of people out of the church began to taper off and eventually cease. Blake watched the flow of people like a hawk for any sign of Fennec, but so far, there was no sign of him anywhere. Asides from Blake, he would practically be the only Faunus in North Point, so there would be no chance for Blake to miss him.
As if on cue, Blake saw Fennec amble out of the church by himself, the rest of the congregation already long gone. Fennec was dressed in his long, silky black minister robes made for faunus priests back in Menagerie, which was custom-fitted for Fennec so that a red hood could be pulled over his head to hide his Faunus ears, which he was doing so currently.
Fennec looked left and right down the street, then, seeing that he was alone, slipped out a carton of cigarettes from the pocket of his robes and picked out a lone cigarette that he just as soon stuck between his mouth. In a smooth, almost robotic fashion, he put the carton back in his robe with his right hand and took out a matchbox with his left. Blake watched with keen eyes as Fennec struck the match, a small flame seemingly erupting at his fingertips, before he cocked his head down and brought the flame to the end of his cigarette.
There had to have been at least a dozen rules in the clergy prohibiting smoking, but Blake knew that wasn't going to stop Fennec from smoking, since she had always seen him with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth every time he was standing on the corner in Mountain Glenn. This was long before Fennec had become a priest, when he used to wear flashy sports coats with colorful pants that were never coordinated with his coats or shirt, but it didn't matter, since he was trying to make a statement that he was on the White Fang payroll, and he was not to be messed with.
Fennec removed his cigarette from his mouth with a pinching grip before letting a plume of smoke blow out of his mouth. After looking left and right again, Fennec began to walk down the street, away from Blake's direction.
Blake took a deep breath and opened the car door. The cabin of the car briefly lit up with a dim glow from the overhead lights, but returned to darkness just as soon as Blake had shut the car door with a gentle slam and she stepped out into the snow. Blake could feel her chest tighten as her feet started moving and she headed towards Fennec.
As Blake hurriedly walked towards Fennec, she could feel how cumbersome and clumsy she must've looked in comparison to Fennec, who was now gracefully walking down the street in a slow stride. His swift motion, combined with his flowy, silky black robes, gave him the appearance of a black ghost traversing through the fresh winter snow.
Blake had finally made it into earshot before Fennec had heard Blake's footsteps and turned around as he made eye contact with his pursuer. Fennec had a look of shock on his face as he saw who it was.
"Miss Belladonna," Fennec said in his monotone voice.
"Brother Fennec," Blake returned back as her greeting.
"What brings you to the North Point, Sister? I hope it was not to attend the sermon I was giving this evening, as I have already concluded-"
"Fennec, I-," Blake paused. "It's your brother. He's been shot."
Blake watched as Fennec's jaw began to slowly drop and his eyes widen.
"Corsac's been shot?" Fennec exclaimed.
"Yes. It happened about an hour or so ago," Blake said, in a shaky voice.
"Wha- Is he alright?" Fennec asked.
"He was shot in the leg, his right shin. It might've shattered a bone, but he's alive, yes."
A wave of relief visibly set into Fennec's face, before it hardened into a hard gaze.
"Who did this?" Fennec said in a low voice. "And why wasn't I informed of this earlier?"
"Police have ears everywhere, Brother, Blake said. "Some things are better said off the phone. As for who did this, no one is sure. He was in our restaurant in Riversport when someone shot through the window. Before we could see who it was, they drove off."
Fennec then let out a heavy sigh.
"My brother...where is he right now?" Fennec inquired.
"He's at an underground clinic outside of Vale city limits. He's with a doctor that the White Fang can trust," Blake said.
"I'm going to head to that clinic now, then. Allow me to take the subway back to my apartment, Miss Belladonna, and I will retrieve my car-"
"No need, Fennec. I have your brother's car here. We used it to drive him to the clinic, and I drove it straight here after we dropped him off. I can give you a lift over there," Blake said.
Blake hoped she hadn't come off as too pushy or desperate. However, Fennec seemed like he agreed.
"Very well then," Fennec said. Blake nodded in return and began to trudge back towards the Cayenne parked a few paces behind her.
The Cayenne was one of the many "gifts" Corsac had given himself after he was appointed to the role of "Treasurer of the White Fang." Suddenly being placed in charge of nearly all of the funds the White Fang had stashed away in safehouses or sitting in offshore bank accounts meant that Corsac was able to indulge himself here and there, so long as it wasn't too large of a purchase for anyone to notice. Of course, the car never sat right with Adam, who always rightly suspected that it was a result of Corsac skimming funds off the top.
Blake got into the driver side of the car and started the engine up with a push of a button (the car had state-of-the-art keyless ignition, so no keys were required), while Fennec slipped into the passenger side of the car. After Fennec shut the passenger side door, Blake threw the car into "Drive", checked to see that no cars were coming, and then slowly pulled out onto the street, the car's tires crunching under the snow.
"I know it might not mean much to you right now, but Corsac was in high spirits through it all. He seemed to be managing the pain well," Blake said as the car began to cruise down the snow-covered side street. All she got in response was a small nod of acknowledgement.
"That sounds like the Corsac I know," Fennec said.
Blake nodded back in agreement. Growing up in Mountain Glenn, she had seen Corsac and Fennec tending to their gunshot wounds after someone had jumped them, back when they were just muscle. Given that they initially were the enforcers and debt collectors for the White Fang, they were often the most despised by the White Fang's enemies, whether it was the police or human supremacist gangs. Either way, many had shot the brothers while the two were hanging out on the street, but none had succeeded in killing them. Often times, that would be the last mistake they ever made, as the brothers would give the would-be assassins bullet holes of their own.
Nowadays, though, the two didn't have to fear that as much, since Corsac had been promoted to treasurer and Fennec took on his role as the "spiritual" face of the White Fang. It was an open secret at this point that the White Fang was no longer just a "force of revolution," as it currently had its hands in gun-running, drug manufacturing and selling, racketeering and extortion, but Fennec had the job of trying to put on some semblance of decency for the organization, that they were more than just petty criminals. Since taking on his new role, he's written several theses about the struggle of the Faunus since their mass exodus from a devastated Menagerie, and has been making the rounds around Remnant preaching about "forgiveness" and "acceptance" towards Faunus.
It's a far cry from sticking guns in people's faces when they didn't pay up, Blake thought to herself.
Within a few minutes, Blake was on the expressway heading eastbound out of Vale. The road was slick with grey, clumpy snow that had been treaded over by the dozens of cars heading out of Vale as the night drew to a close. Blake felt the car lurch forward as she pressed down on the gas pedal to match the speed of the zooming cars on the expressway.
"Miss Belladonna, if I may ask, was my brother sitting in the seat I'm currently in right now, when you drove him to the hospital?" Fennec inquired to break the silence.
"Yes, he was," Blake responded. "He was in the passenger seat while I drove him to the hospital."
"And where is this hospital, exactly?" Fennec asked.
"Well...Somewhere in Forever Fall," Blake responded.
Blake snuck a glance over at Fennec as his brows began to furrow.
As Blake continue to speed down the road, the wide, bustling expressway gave way to a two-lane highway leading towards the Forever Fall forest. They were far outside Vale at this point, and the scenery on the sides of the road had transitioned from twinkling lights from apartment buildings to crooked, jagged branches from a sea of trees that had their leaves stripped by the winter cold.
Blake had heard the tall tales when she was a child about the Forever Fall forest being where creatures of the night lurked. No one has ever seen them, but they only come out at night, and their dark, shadowy figures made them hard to see, with only their glowing red eyes announcing their presence. They could look like fearsome wolves, or large, swooping eagles that came down from the skies to snatch their prey. Lots of people came up with varying descriptions for these creatures, but they always painted a terrible, grim picture.
Now an adult and having been initiated into the White Fang, Blake knew that there's no creatures lurking in the Forever Fall forest. She knew this because this was forest where the White Fang would bury their victims, far from any road or building, under the cover of night. As far as Blake knew, no White Fang member has ever reported being snatched up in the jaws of some creature while they were digging the graves of some poor bastard they just shot in the head.
Blake looked over to Fennec's direction once more. She could see that he looked even more troubled than before they left Vale city limits.
"Something on your mind, Brother?" Blake asked.
"Yes, Miss Belladonna. Why is it that you're trying to kill me?"
It took a good second before the words that Fennec had just spoken was fully registered by Blake. When she did, Blake felt like the floor had opened underneath her and she was now freefalling.
How the hell did he figure me out? Blake silently asked herself.
"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean, Fennec-"
"Don't play stupid with me, Miss Belladonna. I know plenty of doctors in Vale that were miles closer to your warehouse that could have treated my brother," Fennec said. "That is, if my brother was actually shot in your warehouse. If he truly was, am I correct in assuming that he would have bled at least a little during the car ride from the warehouse to the clinic?"
Blake said nothing in response, mainly due to being petrified with shock.
"Then why is it, Miss Belladonna, that there is not a single drop of blood where I'm sitting?" Fennec asked. "Was my brother not sitting in the very seat I'm in now, as you said?"
Blake said nothing again. She physically couldn't bring herself to words. Her eyes were wide open with disbelief, locked on the road ahead. She knew she was caught red-handed, and all of this was because of her complacency. If only she had come with a better lie, she might have actually fooled Fennec.
"So, Miss Belladonna, were you underestimating my reasoning, or are you that absent-minded that you couldn't concoct an adequate lie? Perhaps, it was a little bit of both?" Fennec sneered.
Blake turned her head slightly towards Fennec to catch a glimpse of him through the corner of her eye. Fennec was now smirking.
"Don't fret, Sister, I'm not armed. I'm sure I'll make easy prey for you yet," Fennec said in a mocking voice, dripping with venom.
Even in the end, he's going to be a smug prick, Blake thought to herself. Still, it was relieving to hear that Fennec wasn't armed. Maybe this is all still salvageable, Blake thought. But can she really trust Fennec that he was unarmed?
Blake took a large and audible gulp as she felt her now-dry throat constricting. Blake knew there was no way of denying this to Fennec anymore. And plus, she was willing to take Fennec up on his word, and return his honesty by telling him the truth...
"Alright, Fennec," Blake said with a heavy sigh, "You're right. I am here to kill you."
A large smile began to creep across Fennec's face. "So who was it that ordered my demise?" Fennec asked.
"It was Adam," Blake said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Fennec let out a loud scoff.
"Of course. Brother Adam's solution to everything is a bullet between the eyes. Always quick to have someone killed for his own mistakes," Fennec said.
"Fennec, I'm sorry. But I cannot disobey Adam's orders-"
Fennec quickly turned towards Blake, which made Blake jump a little.
"Of course, you could never betray your beloved Adam, could you Blake?" Fennec spat, his sneering tone now replaced with pure vitriol. "Do you even know why Adam wants me dead?"
Blake opted towards silence once again. Blake didn't know how to answer because, the truth is, she wasn't even sure why Adam wanted Fennec dead. The only instructions she received from Adam was to make it appear like Fennec was killed by his brother, hence why she was driving around with his car.
Fennec let out a long, deep and audible exhale before he opened his mouth to speak again. "Brother Adam wants me dead because of my criticism of him in recent sermons. An insult, where I rightfully call him out as nothing more than a gangster."
Blake's brow furrowed as she tried to understand what Fennec had just said. Fennec had been talking poorly of Adam behind his back? What was the reason for this sudden betrayal of the White Fang, after Fennec had been loyally serving them for over 20 years?
"Adam Taurus has doomed the White Fang to a future of arms smuggling and drug distribution," Fennec said. "Even after my brother and I have profusely warned him against all this, he let his ambition and greed get the better of him as he risked the future for Faunus everywhere that your father worked so hard to create."
Fennec sighed and sunk back in his seat.
"Of course, your Adam wouldn't want you to think that of him, would you?" Fennec moaned.
Blake shook her head. "Even if everything you said is true, Fennec, you know the rules more than anyone. You know that if you speak ill of Adam, he wouldn't take kindly to it."
Fennec scoffed. "So this is what you've become, now, Blake? A scared animal with your tail between your leg because of one man?"
Fennec let out a sickening laugh as Blake could feel her blood begin to boil. She already has had enough of Fennec's arrogance for tonight.
"How far you've fallen, Miss Belladonna," Fennec sneered. "To think that your father thought that you could have the courage to lead us after him. Ghira would be rolling in his grave right now if he could see you-"
Hearing her father's name, Blake could feel her blood boil and something in her snap as she turned to face Fennec.
"You keep my father's name out of your goddamn mouth-"
Not a second after the words left Blake's mouth, she saw Fennec had capitalized on her blinding rage by lurching forward and grabbing the steering wheel with his left arm. Blake's eyes widened and every nerve in her came alive as she realized that the situation had now escalated and she needed to act. Blake quickly grabbed ahold of Fennec's left forearm as he gripped the wheel, but she felt him pull his left arm back towards him, causing the wheel to jerk right.
The reaction was instantaneous - Blake could feel the air whoosh past her briefly as the car began to swerve into a sharp right. A split second later, Blake could feel her head slam against the driver side window, the jolting pain from the impact soon replaced with an onset of nausea and screaming pain in her temple from the trauma. Blake could hear the car skidding as she saw the surroundings outside the car window spinning by, the tires underneath kicking up snow off the road in a mad flurry. Out of the corner of her eye, she also saw Fennec's body being thrown around.
Out of the corner of her eye, Blake saw the car was heading straight for a snowbank. Blake tried to slam her foot on the brake, but in her disoriented state, she just couldn't find the brake pedal.
Not a few seconds later, Blake felt a jolt as the car hit the snowbank, and she no longer heard the screeching of the tires underneath as she suddenly felt as if she was lurched upwards and then suddenly felt weightless. Blake knew that the snowbank had launched the car up in the air, and her and Fennec were now at the mercy of gravity.
Still reeling from the wave of disorientation from slamming her head against the window, coupled with the feeling of literally floating, Blake watched in a stupor as the interior of the car suddenly became almost like a zero-gravity chamber, as spare change and a water bottle from the cupholder and other loose debris began floating up in the car's interior and around her face.
For a split second, Blake thought that this was what a peaceful death should be like.
That split second was shattered as Blake could see the ground approaching upside down as the car hurtled back downwards. The roof of the car hit the ground first, landing with a metallic, screeching thud and followed by the windshield splintering and then shattering. Blake shut her eyes as the turquoise glass shrapnel came shooting towards her and felt their scratchy, icy embrace on her face. At the same time, Blake could feel her body being thrown in every direction, the whiplash amplifying her nausea and disorientation tenfold. The pair of limbs that whipped back and forth from the right of her field of vision indicated to her that Fennec was also similarly being thrown back and forth. Blake braced every impact with a wince as she felt the car tumble around and around, each impact with the ground releasing a loud clanging boom that deafened her more and more before, almost in slow motion, she saw the top of the steering wheel approach her face as she was thrown towards it. Blake felt her head connect with the steering wheel, and that was the last thing she felt before everything went black.
Occasionally, a soft ringing sound or far-away sounding clang would rouse Blake out of the darkness, but she would just as soon slip back into unconsciousness. It wasn't until Blake felt the piercing, stabbing pain in her temples that the black cloud covering her vision was lifted and she began to slowly open her eyes. Now fully conscious, Blake felt her whole body jolt awake as she breathed in sharply, like she was drowning and desperately coming up for air.
She was seeing double, and her vision swirled around as Blake laboriously tried to turn her head to discern her surroundings. A throbbing pain was beginning to set into Blake's head and a loud ringing deafened her ears as she realized that her arms were outstretched over her head. Curiously enough, gravity didn't seem to be pulling her arms down towards her side like she expected, but rather felt like it was stretching her arms further over her head. In her dazed condition, Blake was confused by this for a second, before she realized: she was upside down.
At that moment, Blake's vision began to clear up and the floating, swirling images in her vision began to align themselves, revealing the interior of the car, except mangled and bent in horrid, different angles. Little bits of glass lay on the roof of the car, and snowdrift had begun to pile up on the roof of the car's interior. The ringing in Blake's ear also began to clear up, as she heard a mechanical whirring through the windshield, coupled with the whistling howl of the winter winds picking up outside. Blake realized that the mechanical whirring must be coming from the engine sputtering out the last of its life, meaning that the crash couldn't have been too long ago.
Well, I suppose I'm not dead, Blake thought to herself as she craned her neck to look directly below her, towards the roof. A layer of snow peppered with tiny glass shards still lay on the roof of the car, however, red blood was now beginning to seep into her field of vision.
It took a good few seconds for Blake to register that it was indeed blood underneath her right now before the fright began to set into her. Is this my blood? Blake feared as she mustered all her strength to bring her arms to her torso and make sure she was still in one piece. It hurt to press down on her ribs, and she audibly winced when she pressed her fingertips there through her turtleneck, but it was clear that she was intact. Blake was puzzled still by the blood until she recalled the events directly before the crash and then craned her head to her right.
Blake almost gasped in terror at what she saw next: Fennec lay hanging next to her in the passenger seat, his arms outstretched over his head just like Blake, however, he wasn't moving, and his eyes were wide open. A thick stream of dark-red blood was running from his mouth and nose. The blood stream was moving upwards on his face, and was dripping off the top of his head and onto the roof below. Underneath his head, a large pool of blood was increasing in size, which Blake deduced was the blood that she saw creeping underneath her.
In a panic, Blake raised her right hand to the right side of her hip, fumbling around for the car's seatbelt release before she felt the button on her fingertips and pressed it. The minute she did, she felt herself suddenly hurtling towards the roof of the car as she let out a loud oof as her body hit the ground. The impact sent shockwaves of pain through her body, and it was that moment that she became aware of how every bone in her body ached like hell.
Now suddenly right side up, Blake groaned as she reached out her arms towards the driver side window and grabbed ahold of something to pull herself out of the car through the window. Blake could feel the cold snow brushing up against her aching body, which gave a small sensation of relief before she stepped out into the cold.
A blast of winter air instantly greeted Blake as she crawled away from the car, stinging all the cuts on her face, and then strained every muscle she had in her legs to get herself back on two feet. Using her hands to steady herself as she stood up, Blake readjusted herself to gravity and standing straight, even as her head continued to pulse and swirl with pain and disorientation. All the time hanging upside down in the car had clearly put Blake's balance off center, and she had to muster all her strength to not topple over. Once she finally got her bearings, she then instantly took 3 or 4 steps backing away from the car.
Blake took in the whole state of the car. One of the rear wheels was completely missing, and the back side was practically entirely smashed in. None of the windows were intact. The mechanical whirring was beginning to subside, and only the sound of the creaking metal and howling wind was left. Through where the windows should be, Blake could see Fennec still hanging there, lifeless.
Blake could feel her legs beginning to buckle, so she decided to slowly lower herself into the snow-covered ground. Blake took the rest of her surroundings at this time, and realized the car had flipped over into a ditch, about 3-4 meters or so from the road. Past the ditch was a sea of dead trees that clearly made up the bulk of the Forever Fall forest.
As Blake continued to gaze upon the heap of metal wreckage before her, she realized that the car was the only way that she could have gotten out of Forever Fall, but now that it was wrecked, she needed another way out. That's when Blake remembered the phone in her pants pocket…
Blake quickly slipped her hand into her right pant pocket and felt the phone she had tucked away in there before: a "burner" phone that was just a pre-paid flip phone. Untraceable and for use in emergencies only, Blake marvelled at the fact that the phone had escaped the crash largely unscathed. Blake quickly flipped open the phone and the screen flickered to life, where she proceeded to punch in a series of numbers on the phone's keypad before pressing the "dial" button. With the dial-tone now ringing, Blake held the phone to her right ear, closed her eyes and prayed for a response. Not long after, the dial-tone had cut out, indicating someone had picked up.
"Yo?" asked the male voice on the other end of the line.
"Sun, it's Blake," Blake croaked out. "I-I need help."
"Oh, shit," Sun said in a tone much different from the lighthearted, teasing one he usually had. "Uh, okay. Where at?"
"It's somewhere on I-65 heading eastbound out of Vale and through Forever Fall," Blake said. "I'm somewhere in the middle of the forest. Just follow the highway out of North Point and you'll come across me eventually."
"Okay," Sun said, the sound of rustling in the background indicating that he was now getting up and scrambling to head towards Blake's location now. "Are you alright? Are you hurt or anything?"
"No, I'm fine," Blake said. "Just, I need you to hurry, alright?"
"Got it, I'm on my way now. Sit tight, alright?" Sun said.
"I will," Blake said, before the line went dead.
Blake slapped the phone shut and then slipped it back in her pocket. As much of a goof-off Sun could be at times, she could at least always count on him to help her when it hit the fan. Still, she hoped that he could get to her before the winter winds froze her to death, or if someone came along and happened to see the accident scene…
Blake laid down on the ground, her arms outstretched like a snow angel. Some of the throbbing pain in her head had begun to subside, but her body still ached all over.
I could still be much worse off, Blake thought to herself as she remembered Fennec, still in the vehicle. After thinking of him, a sudden wave of guilt began to creep into Blake as she realized that she had done what she set out to to do: she had killed Fennec.
She could convince herself that it was Fennec who killed himself by crashing the car himself (why he even thought that was a good idea in the first place, Blake didn't know), or that Fennec was a bad man and he won't be missed in death, or she was just following orders; Adam's orders in particular. But in the end, Blake knew that because of her, Fennec was still no longer alive. And if everything Fennec said was true, he died over a stupid, banal reason: a bruised ego.
Blake began to close her eyes and let her fatigue take over her for a bit as the winds whipped her face and she patiently awaited a rescue that, quite frankly, she didn't know if she wanted.