GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 73: FACE TO FACE

'And if you're ever tired of being known

For who you know

You know, you'll always know me

Dorothea (ah-ah)'

*DOROTHY'S POV*

Knock knock.

The taps on the window next to me pulled me out of Spencer's article, which he'd asked me to re-read after the few word modifications he'd made– as if 'supposed' or 'presumed' could change something to his great writing style.

Well, at first, I didn't even lift my head from the paper, as I'd just sat down on the plush armchair, and I told myself it must have been a branch. But when the knocks continued more insistent and impatient, I resigned myself to get up, the hair across my body being pulled up too as I realized the night was already falling, and I couldn't see anything through the square of darkness.

Who could even be knocking? Spencer and Blade had gone out to put the animals to bed and grab some logs, and we didn't have many neighbors, at least not human, so it could only be...

"Cluck."

"Saturn! What are you doing here?" I gasped as the two golden eyes appeared through the darkness, her beak hitting the window again and again. "How did you get here?"

That was something I would never know, unless the hen started to talk, and I wouldn't have been surprised, as Saturn was special. She always managed to sneak out of the henhouse and end up in the weirdest places, like the sill of this high window, and I would definitely miss this feathered outlaw, along with Moonlight and Jupiter, when we would go back to Subrose.

But we couldn't carry them through the one-day drive, so we had agreed to put them back where we'd stolen them, and it was for the better. We would each find back our own families and friends. We couldn't get away forever, neither I, nor Saturn, even if the fierce hen kept on trying, and before she could escape again, I quickly opened the window, ready to scold her about going out at night when there were dangerous things lurking in the shadows.

Yet someone else's voice was already arising. "Are you crazy?! Put that gun down! It's–"

"Dorothy's sister, yeah, I guessed. I've seen the photos in the living room."

I was so used to hearing Spencer's annoyed gasps and Blade's unfazed sarcasm that I needed a few seconds to process the words 'gun' and 'sister', my wide eyes meeting Saturn's as if she could tell me I was hallucinating. Yet her 'cluck' sounded more like a 'no', stopping my heart, almost as much as Blade's dangerous tone when he continued,

"But that doesn't mean I trust her when she was sneaking in the shadows with a gun."

No matter how much I was craning my neck to see something, with my small height, I couldn't glimpse more than the thick foliage, and that made my mind and heart reel with each word.

'Sneaking in the shadows with a gun', it didn't sound like my sister. Just being here in this 'muddy', dark place she'd always hated didn't sound like her. Yet Spencer had seen her enough to recognize her even in the dimness. Now, the question was: could Blade be threatening my sister with a gun?

In spite of the strange situation we were in, it wasn't the best way to make a good impression on his possible in-laws, but could Blade do it?

I already knew the answer, and it was what made me rush through the back door without even grabbing my shoes, my socks gliding on the wet ground as soon as I stepped outside.