Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,49
fuck did that matter in the grand scheme of things? He’d calmed down about the amputation because he’d been sure it only happened to the fox. But what was he to do now?
Yev licked his lips, pale as the sheets had been before Radek’s sabotage. “You’re in shock. Please, sit down.”
Radek couldn’t breathe, and his aching throat turned his inhales into wheezing. This was not his life, not his body. He, Radek, the human, never got caught in snares.
An uncontrollable shudder rocked his body as Yev’s face blurred in front of him. Then, he dropped to the floor with a whimper.
It took him half a second this time to understand he was a fox again. All the furniture was massive, as was Yev, but this time Radek didn’t feel like settling into cuddles. He was terrified of the repercussions of Yev finding out who he was, and freaked the fuck out that the things that had happened to his fox body had real-life repercussions on who he was as a human.
Afraid of what Yev would do, he dashed between his legs and down the stairs.
“Ember!” Yev called out after him, but Radek’s mind was on high alert and insisted he ran, ran, ran. He gave a useless whine when his small body collided with the locked door, but once Yev’s footsteps echoed on the staircase, Radek dashed to the kitchen, and then behind the washing machine, into the dust and cobwebs stretching between the cables and tubes.
In the darkness of his hideout, he curled up and wished the truth away, but his heart beat so loudly he feared Yev might track him down if he followed that noise.
“Ember, come on! Where are you?” Yev called out from the living room, moving some furniture.
Radek had to bite back a whine, shattered to the core by the foul perspectives offered by the brief glimpse into his future. He had no idea what would happen to him now, and he couldn’t have felt tinier and more insignificant. His carefree existence had come to an abrupt end when life had catapulted him into a wall, leaving him as fragments of who he used to be. No matter how good it had felt to be Yev’s pet, he wasn’t really a fox, but he didn’t want to be the boy with no hand either.
He froze when Yev came into the kitchen, closing in on him, silent as a predator looking for his lunch. Radek longed to cry and feel tears roll down his face, but he was a fox now, and sorrow did not work that way.
“Come out of there, please.”
Radek expressed himself the only way he knew how. He whimpered, again, and again, in hope it would communicate how sorry he was, and how much he regretted some of the things he’d done in the past. How he wished this wasn’t his reality.
The gentle roll of a familiar palm down his back made him stiffen, but must have pushed his long arm in there and was now petting his back over and over. “I’m sorry. Ember, please, come out. Do you want to watch TV?”
What Radek wanted was to forget his own reality and never have to deal with it again, but at least it was becoming abundantly clear that Yev wasn’t about to snap his neck, so he turned and nuzzled the warm hand.
He whined a ‘no’ as he crawled toward the gap between the washing machine and cabinet, where the arm had snuck through, and peeked out at Yev.
The firm shoulders hunched as Yev took away his hand and sat cross-legged, wordlessly inviting him closer. Radek moved through the narrow tunnel with his head hung low, but with Yev not shooing him away, he crawled into the safety of his lap. Even Yev’s scent was calming, firewood and a bit of smoke always sticking to his hair.
Yev’s fingers pushed into Radek’s fur, massaging his stiffened flesh, as if nothing had changed. “It doesn’t matter now, okay? You’ll turn back eventually. I will help you.”
Help him how? Nothing would ever be the same. Radek yowled, because he couldn’t say you don’t understand!
He had a vague feeling that he might change again soon, or that he was beginning to understand how the shifting might work, but he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to see the stump. Didn’t want to think about not being able to write anymore.
Yev sighed and picked Radek up, pulling him close to his chest as he moved