Ander - Part 1: Subchapter 20
20
It was the smile that saved him. It was the first thing Ander saw, and he knew no other Wolf would be smiling like that. Even as the bowstring straightened out and the arrow shot forward, Ander shifted his aim. But even so, it was a very close call. The arrow ended up flying off into the night.
Right over Hezzi's shoulder.
Hezzi yelped and flinched away from what must have been the sound of death itself, whizzing by his left ear.
"Hezzi!" Ander shouted, furious. "What in the name of - I could have shot you just now! You could've been dead!"
"Well how was I supposed to know you had your bow drawn!?" Hezzi shouted right back.
Ander sighed and slung his bow across his shoulder again. He could feel Kiana squirming around back there, so he took her legs in his arms to help steady her.
"So you did steal her!" Hezzi said, noticing Ander's passenger, his near-death experience apparently forgotten. "Oh wow, Father is going to kill you! No, Mother is going to kill you! Actually, I'm pretty sure everyone is gonna kill you!" There was an odd kind of admiration in his voice, as if having the entire village out for your blood was something to be proud of.
"Do they know already?"
Hezzi shook his head, hard enough to make water droplets fly from his ears. "No, not yet. I went to your tent because I thought you might be... er, you know. Brooding again..."
A giggle from Kiana. Ander rolled his eyes.
"... but you were just gone. So then I thought you might have gone to talk to that Fox -"
"'That Fox' has a name, you know." Kiana said.
"Oh wow, she really can talk!"
Ander turned slightly so they could have a better view of each other. "Hezzi, this is Kiana. Kiana, this is Hezzi."
"Hello," Kiana said.
"Hello!" Hezzi replied, then went right on with his story. "So I went to the cage, but it was empty. You gone... Fox gone... Oops, I mean 'Kiana' gone... It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened."
"So then you decided to follow us," Ander finished for him. "Hezzi, if you were followed yourself -"
"Why does everyone always assume I'm some kind of idiot?" Hezzi said, folding his arms. "I waited for Darrow to go wake Klinnek for the next guard shift, and then I climbed one of the towers and jumped from there. No one saw me."
"Wait, 'jumped'?" Kiana said.
"Yeah, that's my little brother," Ander said. "Jumping from towers, wondering why his people think he's an idiot..."
"Hey, it wasn't that far down," Hezzi said and threw a playful punch at his big brother.
Ander shrugged it off, then got serious. "Hezzi, what are you doing here? Really?"
"What else? I came to help you!"
Oh, great. Just what he needed. Another one to worry about. "You can't help us, Hezzi. Not with this."
"Sure I can!"
"How?"
"I could carry her for a while. I'm much faster than you are."
"You're also half my size. Kaina's too big for you."
"I could support her when you get tired?"
"I don't intend to get tired."
"I could scout the way!"
"We already know where we're going."
"I could... I could... um..."
"Go home, Hezzi."
"But! I want to help!" That crestfallen look on his face, with his eyes turned up and his ears lying flat against his skull was usually enough to get Ander to temporarily let go of his better judgement, but not this time.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Hezzi. I really, really do. But there's no reason for the both of us to get in trouble over this. Please, just go home, all right? For me?"
"But, Ander -"
"I'm serious!"
Hezzi sighed. "I should have known this would happen. You're always alone in whatever you do. Even when you're surrounded by the other Wolves, you're alone."
"This isn't about me!" Ander said. "If they find out that you helped me, or even if you just knew what I was doing, what do you think will happen? Your punishment won't be any less severe than my own, and I don't want to be responsible for that! Not on top of everything else!"
The rain dripped from Hezzi's face, his hands, and in the dim light Ander was struck again by how much his little brother had grown over the past year. It seemed like just yesterday he was too young to join his brothers in the hunt.
"I understand, Ander," he said.
"Thank you, Hezzi. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"If you don't get killed."
"Don't worry. I don't intend to die, either."
"There's a lot of things you don't intend, but they happen anyway."
Not sure how to respond to that, Ander watched his brother disappear among the trees, his footfalls slowly fading away until they were lost among the ceaseless chatter of the rain.
This has been the twentieth subchapter in my serial novel, "Ander". If you enjoyed it, please help keep my face un-mauled by irritable ostriches by dropping me a donation. Thank you! ^_^
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