Page 94 of Tracking Snow

"What are you doing?"

I whip around too fast for my feet to keep up. One boot skids on loose grit, and I flap a hand out to catch my balance.

Two leans against the brick, arms crossed, purple eyes blazing.

"Trying to save the cute bunnies," I say with exasperation. It's pretty obvious what I'm doing.

He looks over my shoulder at the cage, his brows cocked with skepticism.

The voices get louder.

"I wonder how many we caught this time."

"It's never enough, the little fuckers breed like rabbits. Ha, get it, rabbits?"

"Yeah, it's really funny how our city has slowly but surely become overrun by these fae wild creatures since they magically appeared in the winter," the other man's voice is dry in response.

I glance at the cage then the direction of the voices headed toward us, and I pull my daggers. An insistent pounding throbs against my skull. All I want to see is red. Their blood painting the ground. I want the life drained out of them.

"Snow?" Two says, straightening, alarm in his tone.

"It's going to get ugly, so feel free to leave," I say, both daggers in my hands now. "They killed Carolee. They want to kill these flutterbuns, they'll have to go through me."

The voices get closer.

Two looks toward the mouth of the alley, then back at me. "You want a fight."

"I want them to pay." I want them to bleed.

"You don't know they are the ones who...did that to Carolee."

"Of course it's them," I shoot at him. "Who else could it possibly be?"

Two steps in close but doesn't touch me. A wise decision because I'm feeling out of my mind with anger and if he physically tries to hold me down, I'll turn on him too. "Six says you are clearly in grief and not thinking straight," Two says. "He says if you go up against them like this, you're going to get hurt, and I agree with him."

"I don't fucking care," I say, baring my teeth, counting the seconds until those assholes round the corner and meet their worst nightmare.

Something sharp crosses his face. "Well, I do."

Before I can blink, he bends, gets both hands under the platform frame, and straightens.

The cage comes up off the ground.

All of it. Platform, padlock, and nearly a dozen flutterbuns. Two's jaw tightens. That's the only indication it costs him anything.

My stance falters. "What are you doing?"

"Getting these little guys and you out of danger before you get yourself killed," he huffs out with effort as he hurries off. When the cage almost tilts out of his grasp, I quickly sheathe my daggers and run to help catch the other side of it before it hits the ground.

"Now help me find a place we can release these little guys that will be safe," he proposes.

The flutterbuns hurl themselves at the side nearest me, and the whole thing sways.

"And pick a place that makes it hard for them to turn around and suck us dry for saving their furry asses," he observes.

"They're just scared." Well, they probably want to suck my blood too, but I'm also an emotional eater, so I'm not going to hold it against them. "And I know exactly where to take them."

Chapter 30