Continuation of Chapter 1:
Blue knelt down beside Black and put a finger under his chin. A low growl filled the otherwise silent cave.
"Not very friendly, is he?" Blue asked, backing off wearily.
Black looked around the damp cave. Darkness spilled through the mouth and consumed their hide out. He prodded at the glowing embers, remnants of what had once been a roaring fire and, reluctantly, he remembered.
A female voice had called out his name.
He had turned to greet her, smiling.
She ran to him and threw herself in his arms, her long blonde hair trailing after.
He looked down into her shining blue eyes and she had whispered, ever so quietly, "Don't leave me here."
He looked back at the town they had grown up in and took her wrist, pulling her gently after him as they left the frenzied villagers to put out the fire that swallowed their home.
That night, they had hid in a cave, much like the one they hid in now. She slept, her head in his lap, as the night wore on, hour after hour.
A stale smell filled his nose and slowly he opened one eye. His ears pricked and he suddenly, he was wide-awake—the drowsiness from only seconds before pushed out by the substance filling the cave.
He shook her awake and pushed her against the wall, motioning for her to be quiet and stay where she was.
He crept up the back entrance, pressed against the cool black rock, silently following the smell.
The voices he had heard earlier were suddenly clear as a bell as they echoed through the cave.
"We'll get 'em this time—and when we do—." A hollow laugh and smoke came threw the mouth in waves.
He chocked back a cough.
"And if the smoke doesn't get 'em," a second voice added, "The fire sure will!"
His eyes grew wide with terror and he ran back to where he had left her.
"What's going on?!" she asked, coughing in between words.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the front of the cave. She shielded her eyes from the smoke as they ran. The smoke thickened with each step they took.
A gunshot echoed through the cave, bouncing off the walls.
He turned and pulled her in the opposite direction. They ran for a few minutes in silence. Finally, he pulled her into a small chamber and threw her down. The chamber, at the back of the cave, was untouched by the smoke.
He pushed a large boulder in front of the entrance, to keep both smoke and hunters out, then returned to her. She had propped herself up against the cool granit rock. They were both breathing hard from the chase.
In the sand he wrote, "It's okay, Sirus, they can't get us in here."
She smiled and looked into his brown eyes, took his hand and placed it on her chest.
A slippery substance covered the left side of it.
"Black?"
The black wolf snapped back into the present. He looked up into the gleaming brown eyes belonging to Toboe, standing over him, beaming like a child on Christmas day. "Have a nice rest?" he asked
Black looked up at him, clueless, from his spot on the cave floor. Had he dozed off? He was defiantly sitting down about five seconds ago.
"Are you listening to me?" Toboe asked.
Black shook his head and got to his feet, looking around for Hige.
"He and Blue went down to the lake," Toboe explained. "And you don't know where the lake is, I think, so I waited for you."
Black put a hand absentmindedly on his head as he walked past him and out the cave entrance, Toboe slipping and sliding after him.
"Wait!" he called, falling face first into the mud. "Stupid rain," he muttered, hoisting himself up on his arms.
Black shook his head in shame and heaved Toboe up by the collar of his shirt. He swung the young wolf effortlessly over his shoulder like a sack of feathers.
"Hey!" Toboe objected. "I can walk!"
Black ignored this remark and continued down the hillside toward the lake, Toboe playfully kicking and screaming all the way.
