The light was starting to fade, both from the sky and the dying campfire in front of him.  Peter watched the setting sun in wonder, amazed that one world could contain both such beauty…and such hatred.  Around him, some of the children talked in low voices though most had fallen asleep, exhausted, slightly less hungry than before, and their spirits lifted by the return of two members to their ranks.

            Tracy and Jones's revival had been pretty anticlimactic.  Jones had simply sat up, out cold one moment, perfectly coherent the next.  Complaining of only a slight headache and his inability to see clearly due to the subsequent loss of his glasses, he had gladly joined in the feeding frenzy around the campfire.  Several minutes later, Tracy followed suit.  Their presence made the group feel a little more complete, and Peter couldn't help but noticing that the children's morale seemed better as well.  However, peace didn't last long.

            Still sulking, Amara had refused to eat.  She was grumpy and snappish, and was starting to look as if her hunger made her regret the fit she'd thrown earlier.  Although getting shot down by Rhane again could have accounted for that as well.  See, when the rabbits had finally finished cooking, Amara had noticed that Rhane wasn't eating either, so she smugly asked,

            "What's that matter, Rhanie?  It's good enough for the little kids, but it ain't good enough for you?"  Amara was clearly feeling very triumphant when Rhane had casually responded,

            "No, I'm just full from the squirrel I ate earlier."  At that, Amara had turned six shades of green and walked away from the campfire's warm glow.  She'd been sulking ever since. 

            The second issue arose after the kid's, finding their stomachs full, started complaining of being thirsty.  Personally, Peter was impressed they'd gone as long as they had.  But still, it had taken wolf-Rhane and twelve Jamie clones almost an hour and a half before they found a source of moving water that was clean enough to drink.  It took even longer for Rhane and Peter to alternate taking small groups there and back.  And now, exhausted from lack of sleep and food (for two badly roasted rabbits aren't nearly enough to fill up ten starving kids) he Pete content to just watch the sun fall below the horizon and think back to happier times.  But life, keeping up with its recent pattern of chaos, had other ideas.  There was a crunching of leaves coming from behind him, and moments later Rhane plopped gracelessly onto the ground beside him.

            "Peter?" she whispered tentatively. 

            "Hm?" he grunted in reply.  What he would've given to sink like the sun, beyond the horizon, and end up somewhere far away from here, away from his heartache and worry.  But clearly that wasn't going to happen.

            "Peter, I need to tell you something."

            "Hm?" he grunted again. 

            "When I left…I didn't really go out hunting.  That was kinda just an added bonus," Rhane confessed, wringing her hands in her lap.  That got Peter's attention.  He stared at her through the darkness, fuming silently.

            "What?" he demanded, his face an inch from the nervous girl's.

            "I…," she stuttered, twining her hands like she thought she'd squeeze the truth from them if she just twisted harder.  "I went back."
            "Back where?" Pete asked, feeling that he already knew the answer.

            "To the school," she admitted.  "Back home."  Seeing the anger in her companion's eyes, she threw up her hands, "No, let me explain," she said quickly.  Peter's mouth snapped closed on whatever lecture he was planning to give, and he nodded. 

            "Look, I…I wanted to see the damage in the daylight.  I wanted to see if anyone had, maybe, comeback.  If they were looking for us."  She got up and began to pace back and forth.  Her restlessness was one of Rhane's most wolfish qualities.  "Worst case scenario, I was hoping to maybe find someone's wallet, or a pair of shoes, something to help us."  She stopped walking and looked Peter square in the eyes and, he was surprised to admit, he saw tears shining in the corners.  "But I couldn't get myself to go inside…there was…there was this bloody handprint on the door at the back entrance and," her voice quivered, "I…I just couldn't do it.  I was afraid of what I'd find if I did."  She shook her head, looking lost and younger than her thirteen years.  "I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it."  Peter felt his anger abet, and he did the only thing he could think of: he got to his feet and wrapped her shaking body in his arms.  She buried her auburn head in his shoulder, sobs wracking her narrow body as she clung to him weakly, releasing all the terror and pain and frustration that she'd kept locked since last night. 

            Peter had no idea how long they stood there for, but after a while Rhane's sobs calmed.  She sniffed and pulled away from him a little, wiping her tears on the back of her hand.  

            "I'm sorry," she admitted finally. 

            "Shhhhhh!" Peter silenced her, wrapping his arm comfortingly around her.  "You're not the first girl to cry on my shoulder."  Judging by her look, Rhane hadn't expected to hear that.  "You know," he said, peering down at her tear streaked face, "you remind me a lot of my sister."
            "Really?"

            "Yeah.  I wish she was here right now," he muttered distantly.  "She was always so calm and sensitive.  I really with I could talk to her…"  Rhane stiffened under his arm, and he shot her a wry glance. 

            "Peter…there's something else I need to tell you," she admitted.  He pulled her away from him and held her at arms length so that she looked him squared in the face.

            "What?"

            "As I was coming back…I ran across a few scent trails that I didn't recognize," she murmured, looking serious.  "I thought they might be the teachers for a little, but then I picked up another scent."

            "What?" Pete demanded again.

            "Sulfur residue," she said, then in response to Pete's blank look, added, "from automatic weapons."  It clicked I his head almost immediately.

            "The soldiers?"
            "Yeah," Rhane muttered.  "They're working their way outward in waves, starting from the mansion."  Peter pushed her aside a little roughly and began pacing in a clever parody of Rhane's movement moments before, running his hands through his hair.  "Pete?"

            "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" he demanded suddenly, rushing at her.  She backed up, frightened by his swift motion.  "Why?" 

            "Look, I didn't want to worry-," she stuttered.

            "-Worry.  You didn't want to worry me?" he shouted, enraged.  "Well I guess you should have thought of that before you made me leader, huh?!?"  He turned and began storming back to camp.

            "Peter," she called after him.  "Wait!"  She rushed up next to him, jogging to keep up with his long strides.  "What are you going to do?"

            "Get everybody up," he told her coldly.  "It's not safe to stay put tonight-."  Now it was Rhane's turn to cut him off.

            "Now, hang on just a sec.  That's a pretty big distance to cover, they'll never get that far while we sleep," she explained, jumping in front of him to stop his forward progress.  "Besides, how do we know they'll even be able to find us?"  He stopped and turned towards her in the oncoming darkness.

            "Did it ever occur to you, Rhane, that they might be tracking with animals?"  She didn't speak; she had no idea where he was going with this, but thinking back, she had smelled something similar to her own wolfish scent.  Probably dogs, big deal.  They could handle some old German Shepards.  "Now those tunnels extend pretty far beyond the school, that might have bought us enough time before they picked up our scents.  But now, with your scent going right up to the school, and straight back here, we've lost that cushion."  Rhane's stomach twisted up inside of her as ice filled her veins.  "You've led them straight to us," he said, and with that, he shoved past her, knocking her shoulder slightly as he stormed back into camp.

            Rhane's knees hit the damp forest floor, shaking beneath her.  No, she couldn't have done that…how could she have been so stupid…she, of all people should have been aware of that possibility…The thoughts tumbled around in her brain as the protest of sleepy kids filled the air behind her.

            "Pete, what's the deal?"

            "It's too dark out to go anywhere…"

            "What's'matter?"

            "Shhhh!" Pete ordered, quieting the masses.  "I know it's dark, but we've got men on our trail again, and we can't let them catch up to us-,"

            "What?"

            "They found us, they're gonna get us all!"

            "What are we gonna do???"

            "Shhhh!" he ordered again.  "Everyone's got to be calm," Peter assured them all.  "We've got some breathing room, but we have to keep moving.  Now everyone up, we gotta go.  Amara, you and Josh put out that fire, everyone else, on your feet."  There were shuffles and moans, but no one protested out-loud.  Rhane, however, stayed right where she was, lost in a world of here own guilt.  She jumped reflexively when she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder.  "Rhane?" 

            The anger was gone from Peter's voice, but he couldn't mask the disappoint it carried.  "Can you get up?"  She nodded weakly, standing but not looking at him.  This was no time to be feeling sorry for herself, she chastised silently.  "That river we went to earlier, can you find it in the dark?"  Another soft nod.  "Good, we need you to lead us there.  We need to lose our scent by wading along for a while."  It was a good plan, Rhane knew, and their best chance at this point.  She nodded a final time, calling up her mutation and letting the fur spread across her body and her ears prickle up her head.  On all fours, she padded silently ahead, the others following behind to the dim light of the fireball contained in Amara's hands. 

            Jamie was exhausted, physically and mentally, and so were his copies.  And every time he integrated with one of them, its hunger added to his own, it's fatigue wearing him down, it's pain making his even greater.  But with Tracy walking bravely by his side once again, he felt stronger.  So, though he was running on empty energy-wise, Jamie still managed to produce another two duplicates to play bodyguard on this little hike.  Whether it was one of them, or the original Jamie who spotted it first is a debatable topic, but one of them sent up a cry after a few hours of walking in the bone numbingly cold water.

            "Hey!" the shout pierced the silence and Peter, walking in the lead, stopped and doubled back to the tail end of the procession.  Jamie, as well as everyone else, was peering at something through the shroud of trees.  A dim, stumbling silhouette, barely visible in the moonlight.  Its head was moving rapidly, and it appeared to be leaning heavily on a tree for support.  "What the hell is that?" the Jamie asked.  They all watched in wonder as the figure tried to step away from its support, failed and crashed to the ground with a weak cry.

            "Stay," Peter ordered everyone else, grabbing Amara and pulling her along, gesturing for Rhane to follow as they cautiously approached.

            It was no soldier, Peter realized with a small sigh of relief.  He crouched next to the defiantly feminine figure, and rolled her over gently, from where she lay on her side.  His hands came away coated wet and sticky.  Confused, he gestured Amara forward, need the light she offered.  As the shadows receded and the face emerged in thee darkness, a gasp went up from Amara and the now human Rhane.

            "It's Kitty!" Peter cried.

            And she, like Peter's hand, was coated in blood.

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A/N: Dun Dun Dun!  Evil cliffies.  BTW, I'm ignoring that section of the book that has Kitty and Syrin in the grocery store when the Cerebro attack happens, mostly because it's a very random paragraph, and not that long.  Hey, my story, my choice.  Also, I was informed (Thanks!) of a blonde-moment mistake I made because Artie gets captured that night and I had him wandering along with our little escapees.  I corrected that in the last chapter and he has been replaced by a younger version of New Mutants, Vol. II's Josh Foley, who has a healing touch.  Just to let you know.  And yes, now that I'm back from vacation there won't be so long between updates…that is, if you people continue to review.  C'mon, hit that little purple button!  Make my day (or flame me, if you want, whatever floats your boat)!  Do it, do it, do it!!!!!!!