Chapter 7

The monotone weather had begun to grate on Jennifer’s nerves, the wind always biting, the snow always swirling, the damn sun stuck hanging just above the horizon, she needed it to change, but she knew it never would. The weather in her city had been no different, there was never a breeze, never a hint of snow, just the setting sun and air that was never quite hot or quite cold. She didn’t miss that weather either, what she wanted was something different, not that she could quite define what different would look like, all she knew was that different would be better than this, it had to be.

She glanced over at James who kept hobbling forward like a champ, never complaining despite the fact that he had every right to. She refused to admit this to his face, but she admired that about him, he seemed to take on every task with a steadfast focus and not a hint of doubt. If anyone had the capacity to find their brother in a world like this, it had to be him. James caught her looking at him and raised an eyebrow in confusion, she quickly turned away and allowed her eyes to rest gently on the road ahead. The road had been a great blessing to her, while cracked, uneven and covered with ice it still beat trudging through the deep snow drifts that plagued the barren icy landscape around them. Thinking about Enoch would be a mistake, she kept telling herself, but every time the wind got a bit to nippy and stung her face, every shiver and every tremor reminded her of how warm she’d felt in his presence. She respected his decision though, he hadn’t done it out of guilt or shame, but out of some peculiar quality Jennifer could not yet name. Whatever this quality was it always lead her mind back to the time spent at that house near the edge of her city, the only time she’d felt a similar kind of warmth. Wanting to take her mind off of Enoch’s pain she figured she’d distract herself.

“So tell me about your city.” Jennifer commanded, catching James off guard.

“Uhhh… What exactly do you want to know”? James seemed preoccupied with some thought, but Jennifer pushed forward,

“Did you have any friends there”?

“Friends”?

“Yeah, ya know, those people that hang around each other and laugh and crap.”

“I know what friends are,” but James seemed a tad bit uncertain, “I had a few, mostly coworkers.”

“Oh yeah, you mentioned having a job earlier, what exactly did you do”? James smiled awkwardly, his arms crossing and uncrossing, going in and out of his pockets constantly,

“I was a writer.” He finally confessed.

“A writer? What kinda writer has coworkers”? Jennifer’d never met a writer, but, from what she’d read about em, they didn’t usually work as a team.

“I had editors, a publisher, and some other writers I work shopped ideas with.” The answer was confident and he seemed quite proud of it.

“Oh…” The answer kinda bored Jennifer, she’d hoped he’d been part of some secret writing cult, but she decided to move on, “So what kinda stuff did you write”?

“Adventures,” James’ eyes sparkled as he spoke, “great tales with heroes, villains, great battles, monsters, but always with some big twist at the end. And… and mysteries! I loved to write mysteries, that feeling the reader gets when they suddenly find out one of the heroes was a villain the whole time, that’s the kind of stuff I live for!” Jennifer had never seen him this excited, she liked it.

“When we’re done with this you should write a story about me, the adventures of big mouth, the girl who talked too much.” She laughed, happy to see that James was shaking his head as he laughed with her.

“No way, you’re way too complex for me, and you don’t talk that much.” He admitted, “look at how much I’ve been able to say without any interruption.” He gave her a sly smile, she stuck her tongue out in response, secretly pleased with his answer. “What about you”? He said, spinning the conversation on her, “I know you didn’t have a job, but what would you have wanted to do”? Jennifer thought about it for a moment, no one had ever asked her that…

“I suppose I’d probably want to be detective…”

“A detective”? Jennifer looked slightly embarrassed at James’ surprise and felt the need to defend herself.

“Yeah! I read a bunch of detective novels and they all seem to have pretty sweet lives. Everyday solving some new crime, piecing together some strange puzzle.”

“I suppose I could see it.”

“Really!” Jennifer hadn’t realized how much hearing that meant to her.

“Yeah, the hardened detective who doesn’t take no stuff from no one.” She laughed at his inability to say, ‘shit.’

“Well, maybe after we find Destiny then I’ll make myself a detective, and you can follow me around and write about our adventures.” Jennifer proposed, the idea excited her.

“A writer and a detective solving crimes together? That sounds utterly ridiculous.” He declared, flipping his scarf back over his shoulder.

“We can work out the kinks later,” Jennifer chuckled, his scarf always made her laugh, it just looked so ridiculous, in a charming sort of way. Silence overtook them again, but Jennifer found it obnoxious so she decided to start another conversation,

“So why would Death keep those things around”? Jennifer had wanted to ask for a while now, but she’d found herself distracted by the whole almost dying thing.

“Not sure to be honest with you, I can’t really understand anything he does. If I had to harbor a guess, I’d say he’s probably looking for Destiny too.” James responded casually, but Jennifer found it less than casual.

“Wait, he’s after Destiny too?! What if he already beat us there?!” Jennifer picked up her pace, frustrated that James hadn’t picked up his. “Why aren’t you more worried about this”?? James shrugged, still in a great deal of pain,

“Death’s not really someone we can outrun, but the fact that the Universe is still here seems to suggest that he hasn’t succeeded yet.” He assured her, not sure what else to say about it.

“I don’t like that…” Jennifer grumbled, “This was hard enough already, now it’s a race against some jackass with superpowers…” James laughed at the description, but that didn’t really lift Jennifer’s spirit. She wondered if he knew what they were doing, if the Deathless coming after them wasn’t an accident. When would he strike next…

Out of the snow rose a series of bodies, each one patched together with ice. Now that Jennifer could get a closer look at them the Deathless really did look exactly like real people save for two horrifying qualities, the obvious being the fact that large portions of their bodies were missing, and the ice used to replace it fit horribly, giving them a patchwork doll quality and the other quality truly chilled Jennifer’s blood. The eyes of each Deathless screamed out in agony, bloody veins crept across the whites of their eyes and congregated within the iris, each eye darted from one corner to the other as if they were searching for something they knew to be lost. They moved like they hated the very act of movement, the only thing I can compare it to is the office worker who, after forty years of working the same job, submits the same spreadsheet, aware that he’ll have to do the same thing tomorrow. They weren’t undead, the undead move as if they defy death, the deathless move as if they want nothing more. Jennifer shuddered as the humanity of these creatures screamed out, different colors of hair, different builds, men, women, all of them likely individuals with hopes and dreams, now reduced to eternally suffering husks marching to the same tune with no end in sight.

Not one of them made a sound as they advance upon the pair, James tried to place himself between Jennifer and the Deathless, but they had them surrounded.

“When I give you the signal I want you to run.” James whispered, “I’m going to make an opening and you take it, do you understand.” Jennifer wanted to fight him, wanted to argue and stand strong, but she couldn’t. She had never felt fear like this, never felt such an overwhelming desire to flee. She watched in horror as the Deathless ripped chunks of ice out of their bodies and formed them into knives. There was no mistaking their intentions. She cursed herself over and over in her head, ‘fight back!’ she shouted, ‘tell James you’ll stand together’ she begged, ‘don’t leave him here to die…’ but none of the thoughts made it to her muscles, which meekly nodded in response to James’ command. She’d wanted to believe she was stronger than this, strong enough to face whatever came her way, maybe believing it to be true wasn’t quite enough though. She thought about James’ brother, she thought about his mission, how he’d never find him. She bit down on her lip until it bled, the blood dripped down her chin and landed with a light plop onto the ground. That’s when the Deathless charged, James pushed Jennifer through a slight gap in their formation and she fell to the ground, forced her body round and screamed,

“JAMES!!!!!” For a second she lost him, his body no longer visible, just the backs of those monsters. She screeched as a hand rested on her shoulder, and she spun round to see a hooded man with a finger to his lips. She had so many questions, but her mouth only managed to utter,

“…Help…” The man nodded and walked toward the Deathless who had not moved since covering James. The man flicked his wrist and the arms of the Deathless flew back revealing their icy knives, each without a hint of blood on it. With the Deathless parted Jennifer could now see clearly to James who sat shaking in the center between them, unharmed. The man walked forward and Jennifer noticed he had a large sack slung over his shoulder with various weapons sticking out of it. Swords, guns, spears, clubs, arrows, all poking out of the top. The man threw the bag down causing the weapons to spill out onto the ground,

“You,” He called out to James, James barely had the capacity to nod in recognition, “I need you to remain deathly still, can you do that for me”? James croaked out a yes and the man got to work. The weapons rose out of the bag, one for each of the Deathless, in response the Deathless dropped their makeshift knives and charged toward the hooded man, he smiled and flicked his fingers toward them causing the weapons to fly through the air and impale each of them. For most creatures that would’ve been the end of it, but the Deathless merely staggered back for a moment and then proceeded with their charge. The man grabbed a sword off the ground and spun in a full arc lopping the head off of one of the Deathless before bringing the sword back around to cut off the arm of another reaching out for his throat. Two leapt toward him and he raised his hand waving them off, in response the weapons, still impaled within the Deathless, lifted them off the ground and flung them a few meters back. One of the guns rose to his side and, as he chopped away at the limbs of the Deathless, the gun shot off any hands that came too close. Each time he lopped off a limp the Deathless would pick it back up and reattach it, the ice on the ground acting as glue to freeze the two back in place. The hooded man didn’t seem to mind though as he continued with his swings, occasionally flicking away a few of the Deathless when they came too close. James sat in the middle of this and yet no blade came close to touching him despite the wild nature of the bout. One of the Deathless managed to get behind the man and wrap his icy arms around him, the man looked more annoyed than afraid and blades shot out of his neck into the Deathless’ arms and then slid back across the arms toward the shoulder, cutting the icy limp entirely in two. At this point the hooded man sighed and dropped his sword and lifted his arms, the bag responded by releasing weapons into the sky, the man brought his arms down and the weapons followed, raining down upon the Deathless and pinning them to the road. Despite all the weapons falling around him James hadn’t even been nicked. With the Deathless pinned to the ground, the hooded man produced a series of hiltless blades from under his coat and cast them out toward the Deathless. The blades made quick work of the monsters, chopping them into smaller and smaller pieces until, eventually, all that was left of them was a pile of ice. Jennifer was surprised to see that there wasn’t a single drop of blood emerging from the Deathless despite the many blows they’d received.

“We need to leave, can you both walk”? Jennifer managed to stand up and run over to James. She wanted to apologize for her cowardice, thank him for his sacrifice, but the words refused to come out, so she helped him to his feet in silence.

They followed the man away from the heaps of icy bodies scattered across the road, Jennifer was convinced she saw one of the heaps move. They walked without saying a word, the hooded man didn’t mind, it was obvious that he’d grown accustomed to silence, for Jennifer and James it was a mix of fear, shame and caution. Anybody who could make such short work of creatures like that merited a certain amount of caution, and it wasn’t lost on Jennifer that this man may have saved them for less than altruistic purposes…

They finally stopped walking when the man halted them and pointed off road toward a small alcove, motioning them to follow he wandered in through the entrance; Jennifer and James exchanged a quick glance and hesitantly followed.

Inside the alcove a number of weapons rested against the walls in a neat and orderly fashion, organized by type and size. A small fire pit in the center quickly sprung ablaze as the man flicked his wrist and two blades clashed together until they produced the sparks necessary to ignite the tinder.

“Rest here for a while,” the hooded man broke the silence, his voice had a deep rich tone, but underlying it they could hear something rough, something pained, “I’m going back out, when I return you two should be on your way.” It didn’t sound like a request. The hooded man rose from his seat and exited the alcove, heading back in the direction of the Deathless.

Jennifer exhaled deeply, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath for sometime now. Though never one to be at a loss for words this series of events had rendered Jennifer totally speechless. Whether it was the fact that she’d been willing to allow James to die for her, the fear that these Deathless were not only real, but the threat was much closer than she’d ever anticipated or, worst of all, the discovery of just how weak she really was. We all have limits, some of us go our whole lives without ever reaching them, but, for those that do, that first moment when you realize that there is something beyond you, something that you cannot handle, a weakness within you that you can’t overcome with mere belief, it’s a feeling few wish to repeat.

She couldn’t even look at James, she refused to meet his eyes. She didn’t see him shaking, coming to terms with his own mortality, and she was unaware of the turmoil inside. With his brother’s life on the line, with James being the only one that could save him, his willingness to sacrifice himself became a willingness to sacrifice his brother as well. Now he could no longer look at Jennifer, she had become a hindrance in his mission, a weakness in his heart, one that he couldn’t be allowed to outweigh the commitment he’d made to his brother. And so they sat in that alcove, silently.

“Are y’all okay”? A small voice asked from seemingly nowhere. The pair jolted upright. They searched for the source of the noise but found nothing, the alcove was fairly empty save for the fire pit, the fire, a small wooden bird statue, a painting of a woman on the wall and the weapons lining the edges. But the fire stood out the most to Jennifer who, upon regaining her wits, ran over to the fire and knelt beside it.

“Enoch? Is that you? Are you okay? Where are you?” She shot off the questions in rapid succession, relieved to break the silence and take her mind elsewhere.

“Who’s Enoch”? The voice asked not from the fire. Jennifer spun back around and scoured the alcove with her eyes, something was missing, but she couldn’t figure out what it was… The bird statue landed on her shoulder, she turned to see a small little bird with a puffy chest and neat blue and red feathers, a tiny beak and blushing cheeks. Adorning the bird’s tiny body was a little brown tweed coat with two big red buttons on the front and a little plaid bow tie around its neck. The little ensemble topped off with a cute little red wool hat with two flaps that flopped wistfully over its little ears. Jennifer would have been more shocked if the little bird wasn’t so gosh darn adorable. “You both seem so sad… You remind me of him.” The little bird spoke in a melodic tone, shaking its little head in concern.

“Who are you”? Jennifer asked, watching as the tiny bird hopped off her shoulder and onto her hand, bobbing its head back and forth as it took in all things Jennifer, “and when you say, ‘him’ do you mean the man in the hood”? The little bird nodded and its eyes lit up, apparently something it saw in Jennifer made it happy.

“Yep!” The little bird chirped, “His name is Slade, he’s sad a lot, kind of like y’all.”

“What makes you think we’re sad”? James interjected from the corner.

“I’m Squawk!” The bird announced, ignoring James’ question, or perhaps it forgot the question, “What are your names”? Squawk inquired, its little wings opening up in a safe and inviting fashion. Jennifer lifted Squawk up closer to her face and smiled at the friendly little bird,

“My name is Jennifer, that one over there,” She said motioning with her head over to James, “is named James. You sure are a friendly little bird, but, to be honest, you’re the first bird I’ve ever met outside the pages of a book…” Squawk seemed to shrug off the depressing implications of that statement,

“Just me now! I haven’t had any children in a while, not really much point with those Deathless running around and that darned blizzard-“ Squawk covered its beak and looked quite embarrassed, “pardon my language… the blizzard always ruffles me up,” Squawk cheeped as it ruffled its feathers to prove its point.

“Children huh…? So does that mean that you’re a lady bird”? Jennifer wondered, not really sure how she should be referring to Squawk and not wanting to make Squawk sad.

“Squawk is Squawk! But I think girls are neat, so you can call me a girl if you wanna!” She smiled at Jennifer, an interesting feat for a creature without lips. Jennifer laughed, the little bird made her so happy, a feeling she hadn’t had the chance to feel all that often. The little bird shone like Christmas lights, beautiful, bright, but one would be foolish not to see the fragility of the lights and acknowledge that the brightness is most appropriate in the darkness. One wonders with such creatures, what are they when the darkness fades?

“Squawk,” Jennifer ventured, “Are you a Form”? Squawk raised her beak proudly.

“I sure am! Squawk is the Form of all birds, big, small, and everything in between!” She puffed out her chest to showcase her amazing status.

“Well Squawk, it’s very nice to meet you.” Jennifer grinned at the pleased little bird on her finger. “So the hooded guy’s name is Slade”? Squawk nodded her little head,

“That’s him, he’s a bit surly most of the time, and I think meeting humans probably didn’t help his mood…” Squawk beeped, lowering her beak.

“He doesn’t like humans”? James asked, jumping back in, “But he saved us from the Deathless…”

“Well of course he did,” Squawk rolled her tiny bead eyes, “he has to protect humans.” The way Squawk said it made it sound so obvious, but neither James or Jennifer could decipher how that could possibly explain anything.

“He’s the form of weaponry, isn’t he”? James stated more than asked, sure that at least that much was obvious. Jennifer remembered back to her days in the city, the guns and swords stuffed in basement cellars, large cannons hidden out of sight from prying eyes. She’d only found them because she’d been the only one who’d ever looked and when she brought them up to her father she saw him visibly shake, as if a memory had been festering in the deep reaches of his intestines, continually being swallowed farther and farther down and the mere mention of it brought a surge of pain throughout his whole body. He left the room quite suddenly after hearing the question, never mentioning it again. Jennifer had, as she usually did, taken the question to the old man who looked equally as pained upon the mention of the discovered weapons, but he managed to push through the discomfort and describe to Jennifer what they were and what they had once been used for. Unable to fathom why such things would need to exist she kept her distance from them at first, but such curiosity could not be so easily satiated and Jennifer soon found herself rifling through the piles of abandoned weaponry, finding something about them so familiar, as if she witnessed their use on more than one occasion. One day, after playing with a small dagger and fighting off some imaginary beast, she put a bit too much weight into a swing and fell, the dagger hitting the ground first followed closely by her arm which nicked the dagger slightly. The pain had been excruciating, up until that point she had never felt anything quite like it. She’d run to the nurse who scolded her for hours as she stitched up the wound and wrapped it in bandages, forcing a promise out of Jennifer to never ever touch those weapons again. Jennifer agreed with tears still welling in her eyes. She’d tried to explain to her father what had happened, but the mention of weapons again caused him to leave the room, seemingly in great pain.

It was hard to believe that she had just been saved by the Form of weapons himself, but something Squawk said didn’t sit right with her, and she pushed to see exactly what it was,

“What do you mean he, ‘has’ to protect humans”? Jennifer asked suspiciously, memories of Enoch flashing through her mind. Squawk considered the question for a moment and bobbed her little head to and fro, clearly not sure if the answer happened to be a secret of Slade’s.

“Well…” Squawk began cautiously, “Slade thinks that his weapons hurt too many people and so he has to protect people to make up for it…”

“So he hurt people with his weapons”? Jennifer demanded, pretty sure she knew where this was headed.

“He didn’t directly hurt people per say… But weapons wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him so…”

“So that makes him responsible for what people do with them?!” Jennifer shouted in exasperation, tired of being the only one who saw this stupidity for what it was. Squawk hopped back nervously, her shouting clearly taking her off guard.

“That’s what he thinks, but it makes him sad and angry so I tell him that it’s not his fault, but he doesn’t listen to me…” Squawk lamented, her little beak lowered in shame.

“I’m going after him,” Jennifer announced as she hopped to her feet and headed toward the exit.

“Jennifer,” James called out, his voice calm and collected. Jennifer had expected him to protest, but she hadn’t expected him to be so serene about it, in surprise she turned to face him, “Just be careful okay”? Jennifer’s eyes widened and her mouth hung open slightly,

“You’re not going to try and stop me…?” Jennifer ventured, not sure how much she should fight this. James raised his arms weakly,

“Would there be any point”? He laughed coarsely, “Besides, I doubt I could stop you even if I wanted to, but do me a favor will you”? His grey eyes grew deathly serious, “If you see danger, run, don’t hesitate, just run.” Jennifer nodded her head nervously, the memory of their earlier encounter still fresh in her mind.

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Catching up to Slade wasn’t difficult, he walked slowly, lugging around his massive sack of weaponry.

“Slade! Hey Slade!” She ran toward him waving her arms and hoping Squawk wasn’t lying about Slade’s policy of not harming humans. He turned around slowly, his cloak flapping in the wind to reveal a surprisingly young face covered in scars. Slade’s red hair fell unevenly across his brow and highlighted his deep silver eyes, one eye boasting a large scar that ran from the upper left side of his face down to the bottom of his nose. He had a strong jaw and a constant frown adorning his already dismal manner. The scars were odd though, most people, once they receive a scar, look to move on, move forward and the scar becomes just another part of their appearance, Slade was different. The way he moved, the way his eyes loomed over his surroundings, like a beaten dog around hens, his mannerisms screamed that he had not forgotten his scars and he’d abandoned any chance of a life without them. As a higher Form his skin was entirely up to him to mold and craft into whatever image he chose, he chose to keep the scars. Did he keep them as a reminder, or penance, even he couldn’t say.

“I told you to rest and then leave before I returned, what part of that did you find difficult to understand”? His voice had no hint of humor or levity, his eyes burned with a cold passion that saw right through Jennifer into something greater.

“I talked to Squawk, she told me why you do it, why you wander around out here fighting Deathless and saving people and, while I appreciate what you did for me and my friend, I can’t sit idly by and watch you make a slave of yourself.” She mustered together all the confidence she had and looked Slade in the eye, the experience was terrifying. Slade didn’t respond, he continued to bore into Jennifer’s eyes with his own, somehow managing not to blink despite the wind whipping against his face. Jennifer figured she’d continue, “You think you need to make amends for the way people use your weapons? That’s bullshit. People are going to use weapons however the hell they want and that’s on them! You are weaponry right? But that doesn’t mean that you have to accept the blame for everything people do with you. You offer them a way to protect themselves, to defend the things they love, they should be thanking you! I know why you hate us humans, why you can’t stand us, and it’s just sad! We always have to blame somebody else for our problems, and we latch on like leeches to anyone who’ll let us blame them for issues that are entirely our own. You’re not the one responsible for all the pain your weapons cause, but you are the one who should get the credit that we have weapons to defend ourselves in the first place! Those deathless would’ve torn us to shreds, but you and your weapons kept us alive, so please don’t think for a second that you owe us anything. You should do whatever you want and forget about all this making amends bullshit for stuff you didn’t do!” Jennifer ended her speech with a large exhale and concerned look at a completely silent Slade. She’d hoped he might give her some sort of reaction, some sign that he’d listened to all that, but he offered her none. The only thing he did say was this,

“Tell Squawk I’ll be back soon, you and your friend should be gone by then.” Jennifer didn’t exactly know what to make of that, but she’d said her piece and that was enough for now, so she turned on her heels and jogged back to the alcove only now noticing more piles of finely chopped Deathless lining the sides of the road.

Jennifer returned to the alcove and heard a relieved sigh from James and a happy little chirp from Squawk.

“So how did it go”? James inquired, doing a visual inspection of Jennifer, checking for cuts or signs of psychological distress, you know, beyond the usual stuff. Jennifer just shrugged,

“I said what I wanted to say, and he seemed to listen to all of it, but I don’t know how much of it stuck. But Squawk,” Jennifer said, remembering Slade’s order, “He said to tell you that he’d be back soon.” Squawk smiled her little bird smile,

“He never comes back this early! I don’t know what you said to him, but maybe, just maybe it helped.” Squawk beeped happily, a little bit of hope shining in her bird eyes.

“He also told us to be gone by the time he returned,” Jennifer mumbled awkwardly as she glanced over at James who looked less than thrilled at the prospect of doing anymore walking.

“I know a place y’all can rest at!” Squawk chirped, flying up to look Jennifer in the eye, “There’s a cave system a little ways to the west of here that’s been a haven against the Deathless for a while now! I used to live there before I met Slade and I’ve always wanted to go back!”

“Can you just leave”? James wondered, “Isn’t Slade expecting you to be here when he returns”? Squawk turned her little head toward James, a small twinkle in her eye,

“Yes, that would be a problem if there was just one of me but…” Squawk fluttered over to a small nest hidden behind one of the larger rocks sitting comfortably on a bed made of chopped up bits of bows and within the nest sat a single bright red egg, “I’ve never had any reason to hatch him before now, but he’d be prefect to show y’all the way!” The egg began to rock back and forth as soon as Squawk landed next to him, her eyes full of pride. A small crack formed and then another and another until, from the egg, a little beak popped out and cheeped wildly. Each cheep made Squawk puff up with joy.

“I’m gonna call him, Chirp,” She declared as the egg fell over spilling the newly hatched Chirp onto the floor of the nest. Jennifer and James, while finding the whole process beautiful and miraculous, did wonder how a newborn chick is supposed to lead them anywhere, but, as if in answer to their unspoken question, the little bird began to grow rapidly. His little beak dipped into a sharp point, his colorless feathers fell to the floor only to be replaced with bright red ones and his little body puffed up until Chirp outgrew his mother. With a couple of test flaps of his wings, Chirp took to the air and shot out of the alcove, Squawk followed with Jennifer right behind. They looked up to see Chirp doing loops and rolls through the air, utilizing the blizzards wind to propel himself forward until he’d fold his wings in, dive bombing the ground only to unfurl them at the last second and allow the updraft to return him to the sky.

After a couple minutes of flying Chirp returned to the Alcove and rested gently on James’ foot.

“He can’t talk sadly,” Squawk chirped, “But I’ve given him the directions to the cave and he should be able to get y’all there safely because, as you just saw, he’s quite the flyer!” She chirped with pride. James and Jennifer thanked her for her help and Jennifer lifted James to his feet and they limped out of the alcove, Chirp perched on Jennifer’s shoulder, whistling a little tune.

The second they left the cave Chirp took back to the sky and flew ahead a few hundred feet and then circled above waiting for the pair to catch up. Once they did Chirp would fly forward another hundred or so feet and the process repeated, as they walked Jennifer’s mind wandered back to Slade, she wondered if he’d heard her…