Wow, it's been a while huh? Sorry about that, I was having a case of writer's block. Hopefully we won't be having that problem again for such a long time…

Chapter 15: Going Further In

Summer yawned. It had been a week since they had found Ember, or had it longer? Out here on the Island, there really was no way of figuring out how much time had passed. Not that she cared really. All that mattered to her was that they survived. John had almost recovered from the tiger attack and he could now walk with only a slight limp. She glanced over at him. John was still sleeping, mumbling something about Chinese food. Let him sleep, she thought to herself as she stood up and stretched.

She crawled out of the cave and glanced over to her right. Tomo and Ember had taken to sleeping together outside. Sure enough, they were curled up together, Tomo's head resting on Ember's back. For the first few nights, Summer had missed Tomo's snoring, but she had grown used to the silence. She whistled quietly, and both wolves raised their heads in unison to look at her.

Tomo was the first to get up. As time had gone by, his fur had darkened into a deep shade of jet black. He shook the dust out of his fur and trotted over to her, pressing himself against her leg. He looked over at Ember and whined softly to her. The red she-wolf stared at him, them got up and took a few tentative steps forward and stopped. Summer held perfectly still. Ember came closer until she was standing directly in front of Summer. "Good girl," Summer praised. This was the closest Ember had ever gotten to her, and she wasn't about to jeopardize Ember's progress by trying to pet her. Instead, Summer turned and walked down to the river to wash her face and to try to catch some breakfast. Both wolves followed, Ember still keeping her distance. Tomo broke away just as Summer reached the river and rejoined Ember.

Summer had to marvel at the two wolves. How different they were, both physically and mentally. While Ember was larger, she was much more delicate and fine-featured than the sturdily built black wolf. Ember was also very shy and a little jumpy when compared to Tomo, who seemed to take everything in stride. Yet the pair seemed to compliment each other perfectly. She watched as Ember happily followed Tomo down to the beach. They waded into the water and stood still, waiting patiently for the unlucky fish that came too close.

"Sure is a nice day, huh?" a loud voice said almost directly in her ear. Summer squeaked and turned around so fast that she lost her balance and slipped on the wet rocks she had been standing on. She started to fell but felt a hand grab her own and pulled her back upright. John was looking at her a little sheepishly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"I was not scared, merely startled," Summer said as she wrenched her arm away from him. But the violent movement once again caused her to lose her balance and she landed directly in the river. John started to laugh. Summer glowered up at him, which only made him go further into hysterics. Neither of them noticed the fish that was coming closer to the girl. Summer shrieked, mostly out of surprise than pain, and the fish bit her fingers. She swung her hand around in hopes of dislodging the fish that was still firmly attached to her. It let go and sailed through the air and landed on the shore at John's feet. John was now rolling on the ground, gasping for air almost as much as the fish was. "Good job. Just do that three more times and we'll have enough to eat for the rest of the day!" he managed to get out. After glaring at him for a second longer, Summer joined him in laughter. The fish took advantage of their distraction and flopped his way back into the river.

Poppy and I looked up from our hunt. A thoroughly soaked Ocean crawled out of the river and collapsed on the riverbank next to Smoke. Both of them were making that happy noise, but a lot louder then I'd ever heard before.

"What on earth is wrong with them?" Poppy asked quietly.

"I have no idea."

-----

Later on, after they had recovered, Ocean put the thing made of logs on me again. She had told Smoke to stay behind, but he had insisted on coming, and it seemed that she had given in and allowed him to join us. Poppy, oddly enough, wanted to come to as long as, and I quote, "they don't touch me, put anything on me, or ask me to do anything stupid. And so we set off.

We traveled back through the old BeachPack territory and up into JunglePack's territory. Each of us kept a sharp lookout, and Poppy would go on ahead of us to look in all of JunglePack favorite hiding spots, but we didn't have any trouble with them. They seemed to have learned from their last encounter with Ocean and weren't to keen on repeating it. Along the way, Ocean would find different things on the ground and would put them onto the log thing. Even though there was extra weight there, it didn't hurt me or make it any harder to move around. But no matter how many times I told her this, Poppy wouldn't believe me.

We made our way through the jungle, although we got lost twice because Smoke believed that he knew the best way to go instead of letting Poppy lead the way. We finally managed to get out of it and into an open space. All sorts of plants that I had never seen before grew there. A few trees dotted the area here and there, but the most intriguing thing to me was how tall the grass was. It easily made it to my shoulder, and in some places even Poppy couldn't see over it. We had to rely on Ocean and Smoke to lead the way for us because we were pretty much walking blind. On the other side of the field was a hill and at the top of it was an enormous tree.

"I've never been in this territory before. Have you?" I asked Poppy.

"No, this is my first time here. JunglePack generally kept to the jungle. As fierce as he is, Rock is afraid of anything new and didn't like to go anywhere unfamiliar," she answered, shaking her head.

We sat there looking out at the grass, listening to Ocean and Smoke talk to each other using words neither of us understood. A movement on my left caught my eye. I looked over at it sharply, but whatever it was, it had vanished.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?" Poppy looked at me curiously.

"Something over there moved."

"It was probably just a rabbit," she said, sounding unconcerned.

I shook my head. "It couldn't have been. It was too big to be a rabbit." I sniffed the air. "Darn it. We're downwind of whatever it was. I can't figure out what it is."

"If you're so certain that there is something to be worried about, we should take turns keeping an eye out for it," she said. She looked out at the field again, a little bit of fear and worry creeping into her eyes. She stiffened suddenly. "We definitely aren't alone."

I looked up just in time to see the tip of a dark brown tail disappear into the tall grass.

"It's kind of nice up here, don't you think?" Summer asked.

"Yeah. I think this would make a good second home. We could build a house in this tree." John pointed at the biggest tree in the field. "The limbs are good and wide, and there's all sorts of stuff around here that would be great for building one."

"You mean, I would build and you would sit off to the side."

"What do you mean?" John looked at Summer, clearly puzzled.

"John, you're leg still isn't completely healed. I don't want you to hurt yourself even more," she answered, pointing at his ankle.

"Stop it, Summer! You sound like a mother hen! I'll be fine. " John tried to reassure her, but Summer wouldn't be deterred from her mission.

"Look, I know that you want to play tough guy, no, you stay quiet-" she cut him off before he could say a word, and John closed his mouth again meekly "-but I saw the way that you were limping to get up here. I offered that you should rest, but you said that you were 'fine'. So I have been silently watching you suffer to get up here, but now I have to put my foot down! I'm not letting you do any hard work until your leg completely heals. Do you understand?" Summer closed her eyes.

"Wow, that's an awful lot to say with only one breath."

"John, please-" Summer opened her eyes again.

"Okay, I'm sorry. At least let me help you with the smaller tasks. Like, I can help you get things up into the tree! When you get up to the lower branches, we can hook up a kind of a pulley system to pull different pieces up. Okay?"

John stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. Summer nodded slightly. "That works, just as long as you tell me when you need a rest when we start working."

"It won't be any trouble at all! I'll be…fine…" His voice drifted off as Summer glared at him. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Come on. Let's get some rest."

They went over to the large tree. Summer curled up between some of the roots, and John sat down with his back against the tree. He looked over at the wolves. They had cuddled up together. Tomo's head was resting on Ember's side. The red she-wolf was already asleep, her breathing slow and steady. Tomo raised his head and stared back at John. His golden eyes glowed eerily in the moonlight, turning to pale fire in the gloom of the night. John looked away from those eyes. They were terrifying to him. They reminded him of how they looked whenever Tomo would stare into the fire back in the cave, how he sat there unblinking looking directly into the heart of the fire. Only this time, they seemed to be looking into John's heart.