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The cat hissed one more time, bared its impressive teeth, and then took Earflaps by his ruined neck and began dragging hi away until the cat de his breath as he waited for the telltale breaking of twigs that signified the cougar h It was still out there Watching hian to treit well

"Ty!" It was Zane’s voice, so out of the darkness Ty could hear rustling approaching fro the benefit of calling out versus being eaten "Garrett!" he called back after a few seconds His voice was filled with panic and near-terror He backed away another step The shotgun shook in his tre hands

There was an immediate shift of direction in thetoward hiht distantly Ti hard, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before Zane skidded to a stop not too far away and called his nah his voice was still shaking with fear and adrenaline

Zane went still for a long , one step at a tiun held ready "What the hell?" Zane said under his breath, surprise and so"

"It ate hi Soly stupid But it was the best he could articulate

Zane, for some reason, didn’t act like it was odd at all Maybe it was the stunned look on Ty’s face, or the fact that his entire body treet back to ca so his back was to Ty’s as he looked at the darkness around the up until his back was pressed against Zane’s "Count of three," he said shakily "We run" He remembered the last tiuns Ty had used Zane as a distraction, as a hu in his hands subsided suddenly He’d take on that mountain lion with his bare hands before it touched Zane; he knew thattwelve," Zane said to hi to three o’clock" Ty nodded in acknowledght as Ty watched it He sed hard and said a shaky, "One"

Zane shifted his weight in preparation to move "Two"

Ty spared the dark woods one more careful look before he reached behind him and pushed at Zane’s hip "Three!" he shouted, and they turned and ran as fast as they could through the darkness

Zane led him back to the camp, where Ty knew the fire and the scent of more people would provide safety Adrenaline still rushed through hi hurt yet, at least He just knew they needed to get to safety before the cat cah trees and into the circle of light and warht and a large hunting knife As Ty stuun out of his hands; Deuce stood with his shotgun drawn, looking out into the woods, ready to fire at anything that carabbed at the end of one of the sticks in the fire, turning with the fla hard as he waited For whatever reason, he felt better with the branch than he had with the shotgun Probably because he’d un the first ti came out of the woods after him A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, and another happily answered the call The fire crackled merrily, and the only sounds were Zane’s and Ty’s harsh breaths as they tried to pull air in

Finally, Ty lowered the stick in his hand and looked down at it abashedly before tossing it back in the fire The others lowered their weapons and turned to look at hiht have finally had that

"I’m okay," Ty one," Ty said flatly, cutting Deuce’s question off

"Gone? What happened?" Deuce deht played over Ty, and Earl stopped it at his hands "Jesus Christ, boy," Earl grunted as he caun into his waistband, putting a steadying hand against Ty’s back

Ty looked down to see that blood was dripping down his fingers, running freely and obscuring the sources so they couldn’t see how many punctures there were or how badly his hand was torn up His entire front was covered in blood, in fact So froed to the dead man

He held his hand up and peered closely at it in the wavering firelight "Fuck, ot that out of a cast," he said in annoyance "Bring that light," he requested as Earl stopped in front of hiht down on his hand He could discern at least four separate punctures, one of which was so deep that Ty thought itup quickly, and his hand was beginning to throb The knuckle of his ring finger ollen and turning blue "Hell," he cursed in defeat He supposed he was lucky that he still had the hand at all, considering he could have yanked out the cat’s tonsils at one point

"What happened?" Deuce demanded

Ty shook his head as Earl yanked the buff off Ty’s head and used it to h tourniquet around his forearh, and Zane went to dig in his backpack

"What’d you do?" Earl asked as Ty tried to cal

"Cat jumped us," Ty answered in a surprised voice "Ate hiar?" Earl asked in shock

"Yeah," Ty answered, still in disbelief He held his hand up as it began throbbing angrily, trying to slow the blood flow to the wounds

"I thought cougars in these parts was just hearsay," Earl said in surprise<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>