Sparrow

He was stirring, restless, but I turned my back to it, still angry at the way he spoke to me last night. The icy ground and ache in my bones did nothing to sweeten my sour mood, and the constant hole in my heart at Oak's absence only made me a bitter shell.

"No."

Confused, and startled by the sudden sound of his voice, I sat up, hearing my joints pop with every motion. God, why am I always the one injured?

"Avery, what are you going on about?" I questioned, irritated. Rubbing my sore eyes, I peered through the darkness, wishing the sun would rise so I could see. Without the campfire, the dark sky of the early morning left my sights lacking.

Grumbling from the man meters away refused to allow me to just ignore him and go back to sleep. Doing something I hadn't done since our forced separation, I reached out to my shadoe, needing her naturally advanced abilities in this moment.

A beautifully familiar warmth swelled in my heart at the small connection. It was a feeling I related so closely to a luxury of my past—the feeling of a home.

With Oak's sharp night vision, I was able to clearly see the distress on Avery's face as his fists clenched at his sides. Something's wrong. It reminded me of the time, just before we left Camp Exodus, when he was trapped in a tether. I had never experienced such a thing, but I was beginning to think it was not so uncommon. At least, not for Avery and Beau.

Moving as quickly as I could to his side, I grunted in pain before not so gracefully falling to my knees.

"Avery, wake up," I said, shaking him by his shoulders, wondering if I'd be able to break him free like I had the last time. Removing my gloves, my fingers were numbed by the frozen air, but I gripped them around his covered arms, trying to get him to open his eyes. "Come on."

Picking up on voices in the distance, with the aid of Oak's advanced hearing, I began to grow anxious. Perhaps if I wasn't injured, I would be more fearless, but with my current state and the amount of voices I heard, I needed this infuriating man to come back to me. I needed him.

"God, let him go, Beau," I begged, pressing my fingers against his cheek, feeling a spark of heat burn my fingertips at the touch. It was more intense than the first time, most likely because I took my gloves off. Still, the heat was a sign in the right direction, so I pressed my palms against him, cupping his face. The fire radiating between us surged all the way to my toes, the sensation stronger than before and I wasn't sure why, but I wondered if it would only intensify with each time this happened.

"Rekko took Alice, says he found what may be a shadoe bear on the mountain." The voice was the closest one I could pick up on, and while I could sense that they weren't dangerously close, they were still too close for comfort, and my heart raced, especially when I had good hunch that the bear they spoke of was Beau, and that whoever this Rekko and Alice were must be the cause of Avery's trapped state.