Page 86 of Break Out the Girl

No time to investigate now.

I have a prize to win, and then present to my woman.

Afterwards, I’ll come back and kill them all.

30: LONDON

The first drop of rain hits my nose with a cold splat, followed immediately by the hundreds of its friends.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.

And that’s a good thing. Anything to help drown noise and smells, though I’m one hundred percent secure in Kitten’s anti-musk-magic.

With a push of my thighs, I launch myself from a thick birch branch, swooping like a swallow before landing on a high pine bough thirty feet above the forest floor. Seeing as my hooves don’t have claws, I’m pretty chuffed at how they still manage to grip so well.

And up here in the canopy, the trees sway, as though they’re nudging me along.

Alright, alright, I’m moving.

But first. I tilt my head, my ears twitching and chest vibrating as I scan the gloom below.

There.

Fixed to the trunk of a massive oak is a black cylinder with a blinking green light. Something tells me it’s not a nest, not even a cuckoo’s.

It has a small camera lens angled towards the forest floor.

Not for long.

Slipping through the upper branches like a shadow, I drop onto the oak, then hang upside down like the battiest bat. But I’m not being batty at all. I know what to do.

Breaking the camera would let the watchers know something's gone pear-shaped. Instead, I reach out and gently swivel the mount. I don’t know if these things have sound, so I blow out a breath, like the wind is shifting it. Slowly, carefully, I click the camera upward by three millimeters.

Perfectamondo.

Now they’ll get a lovely view of the woods, eight feet above the ground.

Burt, who’s been hiding in the underbrush, looks up with his big doggy eyes and I give him a thumbs up.

His wolfy-head does a shake, which is the opposite of a human yes, but probably an agreement in canine terms.

So on to the next one.

I push off the trunk, ascending back into the high canopy, leaping from branch to branch as I head closer to the center of the woods.

Suddenly, the ping-pong-pulses in the air change.

The scent of pine and wet loam is cut by vibrations that are thick, bitter, and entirely human.

Fear.

They shudder through my belly, making me feel awful and sad; awfully sad in fact. I don’t like that at all.

Scurrying along, I drop onto a heavy mossy branch directly above a small clearing. My stomach twists at what I see.

A heavy iron post is driven deep into the mud, and next to it a girl.

I’ve always had a hard time guessing ages, but this poor lass can’t be older than sixty, but most likely around sixteen. She’s shivering violently in a thin silk nightie that is already soaked through by the rain.