Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 92

it! I was being quiet! How did he hear me with all
their loud talking? After a few moments she heard the
man talk again. “That trap is around here somewhere.
Do you hear that whimpering?”

“No!” She screamed and ran through the bush.
Both men turned in surprise, the boy pointing the
gun straight at her neck, ready to shoot. Angwenth
grabbed his arm, and with her shoulder slamming into
his chest, tackled him to the ground. The gun slid a
few feet away. She pushed herself up to pin him to the
ground, but he wriggled around too much for her to
get a good grip. “Stop moving!” She growled.

Straining she tried to listen for the whining, but heard
nothing from this far away. The boy gave out a loud
cheer. “Haha! We caught one! Let’s see if it has any
friends with it for the games.”
The other man let out a chuckle but muffled it with a
hushing noise. “Keep it down. Don’t want no damn
company.”
Her chest tightened in anger as she heard that, wondering if they meant the dog fighting games. As they
started to walk again she let out a breath and forced
herself to slow down instead of racing in to tear them
apart. Peeking around the tree she saw that they were
gone, the edges of a bush fell into place where she assumed they disappeared. Angwenth pushed away from
the tree and inched her way to the bush.
Through the spaces between the leaves and branches
the two men were standing with their backs to her,
looking down at the ground. Now that she was closer
she could hear the whimpering of a wounded animal
mixed in between growls of protection.

She threw a first toward his face and he dodged it. Her
knuckles slammed hard into the forest floor. Growling,
her face hot, she grabbed at his hair to keep him still.
The older man, Jack, stood off to the side as if paralyzed with confusion. He frowned and stepped in to
help his young partner, muttering. “Damn crazies.”
Angwenth felt a hand on her hair, yanking her back
from the boy’s face, one punch slamming into his
jaw before she was pulled too far back to hit again.
The kid groaned as he pushed himself up. Angwenth
reached up to grab the man’s hands who held her hair,
but his grip was too far away. Damn long hair! I knew
I needed to cut this off.
“Ray, kill the dog. I’ll deal with this one.”

“Looks like we got ourselves a new contender for the
games.” The older man said.
He reached down to pick something up but a loud
snarl and growl were heard. A wolf. The man jumped
back, pulling his hands away from the animal. “Damn
bitch.” The older man muttered.
“What do we do, Jack?” Mumbled the younger man as
he moved nervously back and forth on his heels.
“Kill it. We don’t need the bitch, just her pup.”
Pup? Angwenth opened her eyes wide and realized
what they were doing. They’re trapping the mothers,
killing them, and stealing their pups? For dog fights?
No! Angwenth’s heart began to race and when she saw
a gun in the young boys hands it was too much.

Ray nodded and rubbed his rapidly bruising face as
he glanced around for the gun. Jack watched him, and
when Angwenth noticed his attention was elsewhere,
she yanked her head forward. He toppled over in
surprise. Angwenth pushed up and got out of his way,
as he fell to the floor. She ran towards Ray, his attention on the dog as she grabbed his arm and slammed
it over her knee. A loud snap echoed against the trees,
followed by Ray’s high pitched scream of agony. Definitely hadn’t hit puberty yet.
He fell to the ground, grabbing his arm with his unbroken hand, tears running down his face. Angwenth
turned back to face Jack. The handful of hair dropped
from his hand, letting it fly away in the wind. “Now
you’re starting to piss me off.”
“Good, because I’m way beyond that point.” She

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