Lonewolf: The Hell You Say

CHAPTER 22

A/N  Sorry for the delay.  Things are demanding over here.  I think in the future I will aim for posting every other week.  

 CHAPTER 22

Most of the Gammas took off at a sprint. Marissa and four Gammas waited briefly before running for the trail head. It turned out that she and the others were smart. The rush created a bottleneck at the entrance to the trail. The majority of the fast starters had to slow and let the group organize themselves into the trail. Dan just smirked in his head and chuffed lightly as he followed along. Marissa turned her head and chuffed back and flopped her tongue in a wolfy grin. Just as the trail entrance cleared, Marissa put on a burst of speed and passed the last two Wolves before they could get into the trees.

Soon, she was passing Wolves on every straight stretch, sometimes two at a time. Marissa was running hard, but not as hard as Dan knew she could. Saving some for later was a good idea. This was not only a speed run, but also an endurance run. Dan wondered how far the long course was. Dan was basically just loping along behind her. He wasn't stressed at all. He decided that she needed to run a little quicker and growled and snapped his teeth together a couple of times close to her rump.

Marissa dropped her butt and shifted to the side avoiding the snaps and sped up, catching the hint. Marissa passed two more Wolves on a wide curve in the rail. Ten minutes later she saw five more Wolves running in a line, pretty much nose to tail. They were coming to a cross trail and a Wolf was standing there like a pointer: tail straight out, one fore paw raised, nose pointed to the right. This Wolf was trying to have fun with his job today. Marissa caught the last Wolf in line and all six Wolves slowed and turned, paws scrabbling for grip as they shifted course.

Dan slid to a stop and just stared at the pointer Wolf. He dropped his head and shook it as he laughed. Then he took off to the right and ran to catch up to Marissa. She had passed the group of five and was pulling away. Dan caught them and cut to the inside around a corner and passed them.

Marissa ran hard now. Dan nipped again and she sped up some more. No one was in front of her, she didn't have any reference to her speed. She had passed all of the Gammas now. She had to focus on the trail and look for the trail monitors for indications of when to turn.

After a while, she spotted the gray tail of a Wolf going around a corner ahead as she herself rounded a corner. She thought to herself, Huh, I wonder if that Delta is falling to a Gamma and needs to work harder, or if I am Delta fast.. It gave her a boost and she pushed herself faster. Dan trailed behind her not looking winded at all.

Soon, Marissa caught the Delta and passed her. Before too long, she began seeing other Wolves. Slowly she started passing them too. Then Marissa noticed that a corner Wolf held up a hand with five fingers. The next one held up four fingers. Dan started growling and nipping at her haunches. Three more corners was the implication. Sure enough, the next one held out three fingers and Marissa was panting hard and gaining on more Wolves, Dan hard on her heels and pushing her for more.

Corner two fingers was a hard switchback to the left. There was a Wolf right in front of Marissa that was hogging the trail. Marissa looked ahead and saw something that looked promising. She figured what the hell, might as well try something different. She was hard on the Delta's tail, and as the Wolf slowed for the corner, Marissa leapt and twisted sideways. She had aimed carefully and hit a tree. She hoped it would work. She landed and pushed off the tree for another tree, and then another. She 'pin-balled' around the corner off of the trees, hardly slowing. The Delta slid around the corner and was shocked when Marissa landed in front of him and accelerated even more, pulling away.

Dan was shocked and pleased with her ingenuity and bravery. That was a very advanced move to make. Any number of things could have gone wrong, but she pulled it off. The corner Wolf had had to duck a little as Marissa careened around the corner, he had a shocked look on his face.