Instability

※ 14 ※

Once Danny and I jog a mile into the woods, we hunt. After we stop near the edge of an open field, it takes us a few minutes to hone in on a few rabbits nearby. We quietly walk through the edge of the woods, getting within a 20-foot range of the animals. Raising our bows, we each aim. Danny manages to pick off one rabbit while I miss by a foot. A foot.

"Now you get to skin this thing," Danny taunts, waving the dead rabbit in front of my face. I resist stepping away from the animal, but I insist upon Danny skinning it. Danny laughs, knowing full well that I would be jumpy.

Before we eat, we hike to ahidden location to build a fire. We dig a pit and pile logs, branches, and thin brush into the hole. Danny lights a match and soon enough, we have a skinned rabbit cooking on a stick. Once our meal is done, we put out the fire to stop the smoke, splitting up the amount of meat soon afterward.

I take a careful bite of the rabbit meat, and it tastes just like chicken. Yes, yes, I know, that's so cliche, but it's true. The meat tastes absolutely amazing. As the fat drips down my fingers and chin, I feel like I'm in some form of nature's heaven. Who knew that something so delicious was located merely yards away from a starving society.

After we finish our meal, we bury the ashes and bones from our food and wash our hands in the lake. Danny and I spend the rest of our time scouting out the perimeter of Fort Collins as much as we can. Danny also has me commit to memory a map of the town.

By the time it's ten o'clock, Danny and I are sitting against a tree, quietly playing a favorites game in the darkness. The few streetlights near our spot don't shine onto us. The questions start out as bland in the beginning of the game, but Daniel managed to make them more fun.

"Favorite color?" Danny asks.

"Blue," I reply.

"Red."

"Favorite... no, what's your favorite number?"

"Favorite numbers? That's stupid. All numbers are the same."

"No way," I say. "You have to have a favorite number. For example, mine is 26."

"That's dumb," Danny says. "We're moving on to a new question."

"No, not until you pick a number."

"Fine, I like all numbers equally. Now," Danny says, "what is your favorite flower?"

"Wildflowers. Any kind, really."

"Ha, that's the same thing I said for the numbers!" Daniel exclaims.

"Fair enough." I give in, "Then what's your favorite flower?"

"I'm a guy. We don't have favorite flowers," Daniel smirks.

I groan, but continue with the game. "What's your favorite... ?"

An odd vibrating noise emits from Danny's pocket. Danny pulls the compass out of his pocket, the device softly glowing. It reads 11:58.

"Let's get into position," Danny abruptly says. We stand up noisily and walk quietly to a nearby location. Hidden by the darkness and the plants, I pull my backpack off and unzip the main pouch. I take out some flyers and a roll of tape, slinging my pack on again.

"Remember: the goal is to put these everywhere; we've only got until 5 A.M. Do you know your route, darling?"

"Yeah," I reply, shifting the weight of my flyers to my right hand. I ignore his 'darling' comment, hoping he'll drop the nicknames entirely. Maybe I should just slap the habit out of him; it would be quicker.

Danny's compass says it's 11:59. "If you see someone, shoot them with your gun. The bullets will knock them out until sunrise. We can't risk people reading these flyers earlier than planned."

I nod. Shooting and holding all these flyers will prove to be difficult, but I can always drop the flyers if I need to. Nervous butterflies stir in my stomach even though I'm not really scared. I hate it when my nerves don't listen to the logic of my brain.

Danny's compass vibrates to signal midnight. He shoves the device in his pocket, stifling the sound and the light. We both reveal ourselves to the street, soaked in the faint orange light of streetlamp.

"Have fun, Cardry," Danny says with a smirk. "Don't let the dark scare you too much."

I roll my eyes and wish him luck.

Danny chuckles in response and jogs down the street, leaving flyers on random doors and in the middle of the street. I turn to my right and begin to run up the street. We've both got a lot of ground to cover.

As I jog down a street of run-down residential shacks, I leave flyers on streetlamp posts, doors, trees, and tacked in the middle of the streets. Most of the houses are barely visible through the trees that cover them. Fort Collins makes my home in Baltimore look luxurious.

After running through street upon street of houses, I finally reach the well Danny told me to look for. I decide to use the well as a hotspot for flyers. After all, people come here every morning for water.

I stick flyers around the entire well, using the opportunity to rest after all the running. The streetlight above me flickers, drenching me in darkness for a split second. I continue taping, even taking off my backpack to refill my ever-decreasing stack of flyers.

After pulling my backpack on again, I rise from my bent position and hurry down the street. For what feels like an eternity, I slap flyers onto every clever place I can think of. Just as I round a dark cover, I smack into something and fall onto the ground, spilling flyers. I quickly get up from the cracked pavement and raise my gun in front of me. I find my target still trying to crawling to her feet. The person looks up at me and stands.

"Name yourself," I order the person. Her bright blonde hair and name tag already say what I need to know. My temper creeps up a few notches, and I become very conscious of the fact that I'm holding a weapon and she isn't.

The girl hesitates, eyeing my Renegade-looking outfit frightfully. I press my gun into her temple and force her back onto her knees. "Don't you dare think about lying to me! I'll kill you!"

"I- I'm Taylor," the girl whimpers, her voice giving off in the same place mine would. She slowly raised her hands in fearful surrender. "I'm Taylor Comings."

※ ※ ※ ※ ※

ooh, kill 'em. it's taylor, the renegade killer and daniel's ex-girlfriend.

Question: if you were ashley, how would you react to seeing taylor?