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“Oh, my God!”

A foxtail was hanging from one of the branches, looking rough and dirty. Then I spotted a second one hanging from another branch, making my breath hitch at the sight of it.

As shocked and confused as I was, no words came out of my mouth.

We kept staring at the tails, wondering how they got up there.

“Too close to camp for hunters to have done this. Plus, they would’ve taken the tails with them to sell,” Papa said, stating obvious facts.

“But who…” I whispered, turning to look at him. “You promised you wouldn’t kill them!”

“Shit, Vespyr, it wasn’t me! You know I would never break my promise.”

I turned my head to look up again, and with teary eyes, I searched for clues of other animals who might’ve done this.

I didn’t wanna believe that Papa or Fennec did this.

No way.

“They look like they’ve been up there for quite some time, Ves. Birds must’ve picked on them.”

“How did they end up there?” I asked, taking a step around one of the trees and sure enough finding another tail hanging up there.

“Here’s another one,” Papa said, but he wasn’t talking about the one I had just found.

He was standing a few feet away, where a fourth tail was hanging from a branch, tied with a thin rope.

They all didn’t look as if they had been put up there in the past few days, and some didn’t even have much fur on them either.

“Papa,” I cried, walking over to him and letting him pull me into his arms.

“I’m sorry you have to see this. I promise it wasn’t me, but I don’t think it was an animal either.”

Which would only leave Fennec to be the one who’s done it.

“Why would he do this?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Do you want me to take them down? Would that help any?”

No, it wouldn’t.

Those foxes were dead already.

I shook my head and looked up one more time, and in an instant, I had this overwhelming feeling inside of me.

I wanted to scream, kick and hit something, but thanks to Papa’s arms around me, I was able to stay calm and collect myself before straightening my back and holding my chin up.

“I want to confront him about this,” I told Papa.

“No need to scream and shout though, all right? There must’ve been a reason why he did it.”

I gave him a quick nod and promised myself to stay calm, no matter how mad I was at him.

I tightened my grip around the bucket’s handle and started to walk back to camp with Papa following close behind.

Fire was crackling and smoke was rising from the fireplace in the middle of camp, and when I didn’t see Fennec anywhere, I set the bucket down and put my hands on my hips, looking up at the treehouse.

“Fennec!” I called out, my jaw clenching as I tried to keep my own promise of not raising my voice toward him.

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