Page 53 of Raw

As much as I enjoyed waking up this way, it made me remember last night and confuse me even more than I already was.

He had tied me yesterday after I woke up, and now that I was touching my pad from the outside, it felt dry.

Had he changed it? Because it surely wasn’t me.

I would’ve remembered going down the tree and grabbing a fresh pad in Papa’s cabin.

“Ugh!” I whined as that stupid voice in my head laughed at me.

It was still playing tricks on me, making me think things I wasn’t even sure of.

I needed to somehow get my thoughts under control.

After climbing down the ladder, I saw Papa standing there with the chainsaw in hand, cutting up the last big trunk we pulled to camp.

“Good morning,” I greeted him with a smile, walking over to him in the snow.

“Morning, sweetheart. You’re up early today,” he pointed out.

“Early enough to go see if that deer is still running around close by?” I asked.

“No, you’re too late for that. Fennec went, but he said he couldn’t see it at its usual drinking spot.”

“Where’s Fennec now?” I asked, looking around camp.

“Back there,” Papa replied, nodding toward the cabin.

I pulled the sleeves of my sweater over my hands and walked toward the cabin to pass it until I was able to see Fennec standing there, holding a knife.

I was positive he had heard me move closer to him, and he surely must’ve seen me out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look up.

There was blood on his face, making me remember the dream I had last night about him smearing my blood underneath his eyes.

And as much as my brain was trying to deceive me again, making me turn a simple coincidence into something more, I wouldn’t let it.

“What are you doing?” I asked, watching as he walked over to a tree where I was then able to answer my own question.

A fox was hanging head down, pinned to the tree through his cut-open stomach.

My jaw dropped and my heart sank, seeing the one animal I made them promise to never kill, cut and gutted.

“It was hurt. I either killed it, or it would’ve gotten killed by another animal,” Fennec explained, not looking at me.

“Where was it hurt?” I asked in a shaky voice, stepping closer to him to inspect the fox.

“Had a bullet wound on the side of his belly. Probably got shot by a hunter but got away.”

Fennec didn’t seem half as fazed as he should’ve been, knowing that foxes were the one animal I never wanted to see dead.

“Where did you find him?” I took one more step and placed my hand on its tail hanging down the side of his body.

“I went to check if that deer was by the river, and on my way back I saw it laying by a tree. He was halfway gone anyway, Vespyr. I put him out of his misery.”

If that was the case, I didn’t blame him.

But the thing with Fennec was…I started to believe his words less with each day that passed, no matter how much I loved him.

I brushed along the soft and fluffy tail, then along its ribcage and down to its head.

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