Page 9 of Break Out the Girl

“Who? What the fuck—speak English.”

Oh, Burt. Being burly doesn’t always give you brains.

“She’s safe as houses, but wants you and her shivery man, so I said I’d come fetch you.”

Burt lets out a long breath. With that chest, I bet his lungs are ginormous. “You’re sure she’s safe?”

“Yeppers, it will take more than half a crown to fetch her down. Now, let’s get Shane and make like a banana.”

He’s looking me up and down like he has questions, but I’ve no time for them. I want to get back to Kitten. “Come on then, don’t dawdle.” I take a leap and follow my nose down a muddy slope until, aha, Shane’s cave.

“You're a faun,” Burt mutters behind me, “of course you’re a fucking faun.”

“And moon-certified,” I boast.

I mean, the moon gave me a wink, so that’s as good as a certificate isn’t it? Oh, wow. Maybe I want to collect moon certificates, not world-record certificates.

As I poke my head in the cave, Burt puts one of his very heavy hands on my shoulder, making me give a little bleat. Definitely ouchy where the dad scratched me.

“You're bleeding. What happened?”

“Met a fellow in the bushes. Not a happy chappy at all. He’s dead now, so hopefully that will cheer him up.”

Burt makes a noise like a harumph. I don’t think he’s trying to be an elephant, though.

Ooh, new vibrations in my ears. “Don’t want to be a bother, but we should go now. Now, Burt.”

I start tapping my hoof impatiently. I really don’t want anything delaying my return to Kitten and if Burt doesn’t hurry…

Burly lifts his head. “I can hear sirens in the distance, but they’re getting louder.” Poor Burt, he can’t help being slow. Time for London to step in.

“Let's get Kitten, then come back for Shane.”

I pivot on one hoof and bound up the slope. Bounce, bounce, bouncy bounce.

The WEE-ooo, WEE-ooo is getting a wee too close now. The moon is flashing her silver-alert warnings. Double-time time.

I cast a quick look over my shoulder and see Burt scrambling in the mud. That’s a lad. I’d like to shout out encouragement, but if any of our chasers have got lug-holes like mine? Well, they’d hear us—duh. Talking of noises, a funny wet, cracking one sounds from behind me and a second later I’m running beside a wolf. A wolf that is as tall as me.

Burt!

Oh, I wonder if he’d let me ride him like a pony sometime?

The rest of the journey is so fun. We leap over streams, duck and dive around pine-town.

After we hop, skip and jump down the path of twiggy-fingers, we’ll be there!

4: AURORA

My fingers are frozen into claws. But not any kind of interesting ‘innate animal’ claws.

Just cold human fingers that are so icy they can no longer bend.

I’m huddled on a thick, mossy limb of what feels like the tallest tree in existence. I try not to think about the intense, agonizing cramps torturing my calves. Very gingerly, I pull one leg tight toward my chest, flexing the foot to stretch the tendon out, forcing my turnout to lock my hip against the bark so the wind doesn't drop me into the abyss.

Fuck.

What if London doesn’t come back?