Hunting Human - Amanda E. Alvarez [92]
Beth snapped her head toward a faint rustle to her right, tracking the sound through the underbrush.
“You hear that?”
Beth nodded, and then realized Chase’s voice didn’t block the other noises she was processing and decided to try to vocalize her answer, “Yes.”
“Good. Where?”
Beth focused again, pulling the sound to the forefront of her mind, actively muffling the various sounds that were beginning to seamlessly flow with Chase’s voice and their breathing. “A little to our right, moving closer.”
“How big is it?”
“Small, I think…but it sounds loud. Louder than I think it really is.”
“Good. Now, track its movement, and the next time it stops, I want you to open your eyes and tell me what you see.”
Beth frowned, a line of uncertainty creasing the skin between her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could maintain her focus if she opened up another sense.
Sensing her hesitation, Chase said, “You can do this. Remember, you aren’t opening up all of your senses. You won’t drown. Find the noise, focus only on it. When you are certain of where it is, open your eyes. See past everything else—the trees, the grass, everything. Your only concern is what’s making that noise.”
She pushed Chase’s voice out of her awareness. The undergrowth rustled. Closer now. Again. Creeping nearer to where she and Chase stood. She tracked the sound, each crunch and brush of undergrowth drawing her attention like a ping on sonar. When it stilled, and didn’t move again, Beth opened her eyes.
“What do you see?”
“Red.” It moved again, the sound still clear to her, though no longer her primary focus. “It’s small, maybe a cat?”
Chase laughed. “Not out here, look again.”
“It’s in the undergrowth again, I can’t see it.”
“Can you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Then be patient.”
Red fur darted between the trees, a flash of bushy tail. A glimpse of pointed ears. “It’s a fox. A young one.”
“And what do you want to do?”
The reply burst from her without thought. “Hunt.”
“Then focus on the senses you need to do that. On the legs that will make you fast enough, the ears that will hear every flick of his tail against the forest. Focus, and let the shift happen.”
Beth floundered for the first time that morning, two halves of her warring with each other. One half insisted she hunt. The other insisted she had no reason to. “I…”
“Don’t hesitate.” Chase’s voice was a grating whisper that silenced her conflicting thoughts. “Trust your instincts to guide you through the change. You can do this.”
No, I have to do this.
She focused on what she remembered of being a wolf and trained her senses on the noise the fox made as it circled away from them. The pain of the first muscle contractions caught her by surprise. She wavered, then redoubled her focus and slid into the change.
Less than a minute later, Beth stood on four shaking legs, still trembling from the change, but not aching as fiercely as she was used to. Stretching and arching, Beth shook off the last of the residual tension, then inhaled the forest scent that surrounded her. The musty fragrance of the forest rushed through her snout, her instincts separating the interesting smells from the nonessential, the most vibrant standing out like homing beacons. She smelled the way the morning dew dampened the earth, the far off stink of a skunk and the fur of the fox, coated in the earthy smell of his den.
Ears perking and eyes seeking, Beth rotated to where the fox last moved through the underbrush.
A rustle of leaves.
A flash of red.
Instinct took over. Her hindquarters hunched and her eyes fixed on the patch of red, bright against the green of the leaves. She thrust with her legs, pulled her forepaws underneath her and dove into the brush.
She came down hard and unbalanced, the force of her leap and the momentum of her body tossing her hind legs up and over, sending her rolling through the bushes. The fox skittered and raced away, disappearing out of sight. Chase’s laughter rang in her ears.