Sharon’s Note: There’s a corruption of an old proverb I heard when I was a child that made a huge impact on my life. A lady accepts what she cannot change and changes what she cannot accept. My characters almost always have this same philosophy. Warning: Character refusing to accept no for an answer.
“Damn it!” I shrieked. They could have at least left the coms on so I could hear what was happening.
Another hunter I didn’t rememember the name of hobbled in wearing one of those boots for a broken leg, gun drawn. “What?”
“My team’s going after a werewolf at Weeping Lake. There are civilans at risk. Is there anyone, anyone at all, who can come to back them up?” Hy heart was stuttering in my chest and for the second time that night I was crying.
“I think everyone that can be spared is dealing with the wolf downtown. I’ll ask around though.” She looked back at the chaos that was the bull ben mid-emergency.
“Yeah, do that.” I turned my back and started going through team reports to see if there was anyone left I could call. There had to be someone. I couldn’t leave my team stranded, even if they were being noble idiots.
Seth rolled in with his etenal perfect timing. “What’s going on?”
I recounted the situation and Seth frowned. I knew him too well. This wasn’t his unhappy or angry frown. This was the frown that he had before he gave bad news.
“Joy, we can’t spare anyone to help. Even if we could, I’m not spilling good blood after bad by sending another team after them.” He put a hand up to stop me before I could even start to argue. He knew me as well as I knew him. “Relax. They might not even need the help. Maybe they’ll wise up before they get into the park and just hold the cabins. It’s also a really big park. There’s a good chance they won’t even run into the wolf.”
There was a chance they wouldn’t run into the wolf. It was about as good as them growing a brain and not going in after the hikers. I was not that lucky. The fact that Seth wouldn’t give me another team was proof of that.
He patted me on the back. “Wait until they radio in again. If they need help and the incident downtown is cleared up, I’ll see if anyone is willing to go in after them. Until then, we don’t want to pull anyone off thier current mission.”
There was no way I was just going to sit and wait while my team got itself killed. One of the core rules of being a hunter was to ask forgiveness, not permission. Even though I would never see the field again, I was still a hunter at heart. When Seth rolled away I waited a minute to make sure he was out of earshot before picking up the coms and calling up my old team mate.
Hard Hunting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6 Pt 7 Pt 8 Pt 9 Pt 10 Pt 11 Pt 12 Pt 13 Pt 14 Pt 15 Pt 16 Pt 17 Pt 18 Pt 19 Pt 20 Pt 21 Pt 22
Gray Matters: The Works of Sharon and James Gray 