As long as she lived, Heda would not forget that moment. She flapped her wings and launched herself into the air. With the tree cover, she would not be able to gain much height, but she really did not need to. One taloned foot rose up and tore Daryl Mosely'’s throat out.

The second foot swung sideways and ripped the man's jaw off. Both blows sent sprays of blood cascading across the clearing Like demented waterfalls.

The mist began to clear as soon as Daryl's body crashed into the ground with a grotesque, liquid thump. For a moment that seemed like a lifetime. She could see the blood seeping into the soil, mixing with the veritable graveyard that Daryl had built. Death begat death.

She shifted back to her human form and finally threw up.

Heda heard shouting off in the distance. Her friends. They had come looking for her and -

“Edgar!" she shouted, feeling a shame that felt as endless and deep as an ocean. She had forgotten about her brother.

"Here!" came a shout from off to her right.

Tears were streaming down her face as she moved through the brush, careful to avoid the traps, but still too careless to be smart. She had to get to him. She found him sitting against a tree, his leg peppered by buckshot. Heda sobbed, partially from guilt and partially from relief. A leg wound . . . Ed would be fine. A few shifts after getting the buckshot out, and he'd be all right. She hugged her brother like there was no tomorrow.

“Heda, while I'm happy to see you, I'm bleeding. And this is feeling a tad incestuous, so --"

"Oh shut up," she sniffled.

“Edgar, I'm SO sorry. I shouldn't have ...

I mean, this is all my fault.”

Ed just looked baffled.

"Uhm, this is all Daryl's fault. Remember him?

Psychopath? Speaking of which," he added, looking over her shoulder, “I'm assuming that since you're here, he's ——"

["Dead. I killed him. You almost died because of me, and then I killed him and now I don't know what to do."

Edgar could almost feel his sister falling apart, and he could certainly see it.

"What's wrong? You got the bad guy, we both made it out alive. This is good, right?"

"How can you be so blasé about this? You almost died because I couldn't follow protocol!"

"If you followed protocol, we never would have found him. Heda, I was just as stupid as you were. I came here without backup, and I should have made you wait. I fell into the same stupid trap I pointed out earlier, and all I could do was think that I let you down. You had to fight a madman, and I should've been there."

"If we had waited like you wanted, none of this would have happened."

"He might have gotten away, or someone else would have gotten hurt.

He looked through the woods to where their companions were streaming from, a mixture of animal forms that would normally never be found together much less work together.

“It's about time," he shouted.