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59

With every gasp of air, she inhaled a lungful of bittersweet smoke, laced with the smell of burning leaves and something far more unpleasant, something almost profane: the stench of scorched fur and broiling meat. She could hear screams of pain coming from the other side. Terrible, awful, wailing shrieks of people burning alive.

"Salem!" she screamed, holding her arm up to protect her face against the building heat. "Salem!"

Abandoning all thoughts of logic and self-preservation, Bethany stormed headlong into the blazing tree, squinting her eyes down to watery slits. Black branches reached for her face with sharp, smouldering claws and she snapped them by the handful, digging her way through the flame-stripped canopy. She grabbed a burning support post with her bare hands and heaved it out of the way, squinting through the thickening smoke.

The fire was spreading at an alarming rate, eating great, gaping holes into the canvas walls like eyes and mouths; grinning black masks, watching her painfully slow progress with glee.

"Salem!" Bethany plunged her hands through the burning branches and ripped them aside. "Salem!"

She tried to look through the opening she had made, but it was like looking through a window into hell itself, where even the simplest of objects were twisted into vague, unrecognisable shapes. What once might have been a bedside table was now just a brownish shadow covered in a thick curtain of black smoke. What once might have been a chair was now just a smashed heap of sharp, wooden slivers.

Bethany blinked her streaming eyes and scanned the tent as best she could, unable to believe that this was the same place she had treated so many injured Wolves, yelling whenever she spotted one chewing at their bandages. The tree had fallen right through the middle, crushing beds into splinters beneath its bulk. How on earth was she supposed to get past this thing? Many of these branches were as thick as her whole body, and the trunk...

A hand. There was a hand sticking out from underneath the blazing trunk, still partially covered in a blood-splattered blanket. Through the smoke and the fire, it was impossible to tell who that hand might have belonged to. The only thought that shot through Bethany's head as she watched that hand slowly catching fire, as ashamed as she was to admit it, was relief at the fact that it was too large to be Salem's.

Oh, gods, I have to hurry...

Bethany doubled her efforts, breaking branches and letting them fall to the ground so they wouldn't snap back and hit her in the face, oblivious to the blisters forming in the soft meat of her palms. Every step took her deeper into this burning cage, the floor lined with jagged chunks of wood and glowing coals, the ceiling a spiderweb of blazing twigs and leaves, raining droplets of fire onto her head from above. But the trunk was just ahead. She couldn't quit now. She knew that, if their positions had been reversed, Salem wouldn't quit. The thought never would have crossed his mind. So what if the fire was closing in all around her? So what if she could barely breathe? So what if the branches were getting too thick to break? She had to keep going, no matter what. She had to thread the needle, because threading the needle was her godsdamned job, and she was supposed to be good at it!

Bethany wiped the stinging tears from her eyes, and when she lowered her arm, she saw something that could only be described as a demon straight out of hell.

It was a creature covered from head to toe in thick, black layers of soot and grime, so that only the eyes could be seen peering through from the other side of the flaming trunk; vicious and wild. It was crawling along the branches, scratching and clawing its way right through the flames, its muzzle wrinkled back into many folds, revealing rows of bright, white teeth. It was clutching something with one, long arm, something hanging underneath its body with limp, swinging limbs and flowing hair, and...

Renna!

The illusion shattered. That was no demon, that was Aisa, and she was cradling her daughter underneath her body with one arm while dragging herself along with the other, trying to protect the child as best she could from the encroaching flames and collapsing branches.

"Aisa!" Bethany called, waving her arms. "Over here!"

The Wolfess turned her head in the direction of Bethany's voice, peering through the ever thickening curtain of smoke, and her eyes... by the gods, her eyes...

She was in agony.

There were scorch marks all over her body, glowing rings in her clothes, smoke rising from her fur in random tendrils, and yet Renna was almost completely untouched.

"Beth-Kai..." Aisa whimpered, dragging herself along with one hand, her knees scraping through a thick carpet of coals and sharp, flaming slivers of wood.

"Aisa!" Bethany screamed. "Here! Quickly! Give her to me!"

For a second everything seemed in doubt. Past the flickering yellow tongues of fire, Bethany saw glimpses of Aisa struggling to her feet, her progress broken into still images by shifting patterns of light and shadow. She staggered closer, blood streaming down her forehead, holding her daughter out like some kind of offering to the gods.

And that's when she tripped.

"No!" Bethany lunged forward, slamming her body against the red hot glowing bark of the trunk and thrusting her hands through the wall of flames, reaching blindly, grabbing on pure instinct.

Something heavy landed in her burning hands, something that nearly pulled her all the way over to the other side. Grinding her teeth and leaning back with every ounce of strength she had, Bethany fell flat on her back with little Renna right on top of her. Coughing and wheezing, Bethany rolled over, sliding the girl to the ground. The poor thing was as limp as a hollow pelt, her slender body more like a puddle of water than flesh and bone.

"I'm so sorry, dear, just hang in there for one second, okay?"

Bethany scrambled back to her feet, squeezing her eyes down to slits. She shielded her face with one arm and reached through the flames with the other. "Aisa! Grab my hand! Quickly!"

There was no response from the other side, and after a few moments Bethany simply couldn't take any more. The fire was crawling up her arm like a swarm of stinging insects, and by the time she pulled it back she was engulfed up to her elbow in scorching, blistering flame. She dropped down and smothered her arm in the folds of her dress, moaning in pain, feeling like every gasp for breath would be her last, that she would simply keel over and pass out and that would be the end of it. The only thing that kept her conscious was the little girl lying right in front of her, covered in soot and ash, the knowledge that, if she were to give up right now, Renna would surely die, too.

Just one little needle and one little thread. Come on, it's easy, just don't be an idiot... don't be an idiot...

Bethany looked around for anything she could use. She didn't know what that 'something' might be, but she was confident she would know it when she saw it, and she was right.

An old crumpled bedsheet, torn and frayed. Bethany seized it, gave it a smart snap and tossed it over the trunk, smothering the flames, giving this particular hellmouth a decidedly gap-toothed grin, like it found this whole torrid affair frightfully amusing.

She hurled herself onto the sheet as far as she could manage, looking for all the world like a toddler trying to clamber out of its crib.

"Aisa!" she called, peering through the smoke on the other side, already beginning to feel the heat on her stomach. "Aisa, where are you!?"

She looked down and spotted the Wolfess collapsed at the base of the trunk, her face all but smushed against the bark and her hands reaching over her head. She wasn't moving.

"Aisa, gods damn you! Get up! Get up now, you bitch!" Bethany considered dropping down, but how was she supposed to haul an unconscious Wolfess up over this burning tree all by herself? And there was Renna to think about, too. "Aisa! Gods damn it! Don't make me leave you down there!" She reached down as far as she could and her fingertips just barely brushed the tips of Aisa's claws. "Come on, come on!" She reached a little farther, but only succeeded in pushing Aisa's hands down lower.

The sheet underneath her body was catching fire. Flames licked at her sides, scorching her dress. Thick, aromatic plumes of smoke billowed past her face. She could feel the heat pulsating against her stomach in rhythmic waves, like the heartbeat of a living thing.

"Damn it, Aisa! Renna forgave you for everything you've ever done, but if you don't grab my hands this very instant, I can promise you it will be the _one_thing she will never, ever forgive!"

Straining against the heat, straining against the pain, Bethany pushed herself a little further, a little further...

Aisa's hand suddenly closed shut over hers. The Wolfess looked up, blinking the blood out of her eyes. "Beth... Kai?"

"Get up, bitch!" Bethany screamed, locking her fingers around Aisa's wrist in turn. "Get up 'fore we all burn to death!"

Aisa tried her level best, but kept slipping on the detritus at her feet. It was like watching a freshly born doe trying to take its first steps, except on fire.

"You can do it, Aisa! Come on! Renna is right here with me!"

That seemed to give her the final push she needed, and she somehow managed to straighten her wobbling legs.

"Here!" Bethany reached out with her other hand, barely noticing the piebald scorch marks in her fur. "Hurry!"

The instant Aisa grabbed hold, the sheet beneath Bethany's body finally burst into flames. It happened all at once. One moment, a line of fire at either side, slowly eating their way towards the centre, and the next, the whole thing was ablaze.

"Beth-Kai!"

Gritting her teeth, Bethany planted one foot against the trunk (her shoe sizzled like a rasher of bacon on contact) and pulled back with every ounce of strength she had. At the same time, Aisa launched herself over the trunk and through the flames, and they both crashed down on the other side in a tangle of burning limbs.

Bethany extricated herself and immediately began to roll back and forth in this cramped space of reaching, skeletal fingers, beating furiously at her smoking dress only to realise that her dress wasn't the only thing smoking. It was the fur on her stomach - ordinarily a creamy white, now scorched into short, blackened bristles.

Get up, Bethany! Get the hell up!

She could feel the heat against her skin as if the flames were still there, eating their fill, but she forced herself upright, knowing that the roof of this whole blasted place could come crashing down at any second, wrapping them all up in a burning shroud they would never escape from.

"Aisa! We have to get out of here!"

The Wolfess looked back over shoulder with little Renna cradled against her chest, and nodded. Bethany took her by the hand and, holding each other up like a pair of drunkards, they both staggered away from the growing wall of fire that was the trunk, following the crude path Bethany had cleared through the canopy - a surprisingly short distance. Once they were clear of the reaching branches, they both collapsed to the ground, coughing and wheezing.

Aisa tried to get up almost immediately, but barely managed three tottering steps before dropping down again, hugging her daughter to her breast. She coughed and spat and cried all at the same time, running her grimy fingers through the little girl's hair, whispering her name over and over again, but Renna showed no reaction at all. She was completely limp, and her arms simply hung straight down like a pair of broken wings.

"Let me see her!" Bethany said, crawling up beside them.

"Bethany-Kai..." Aisa's eyes were bright red from all the smoke, but she wasted no time handing Renna over.

Bethany took a moment to examine the girl's face (dark lines of soot across her cheeks, deep scratches on her brow, a bleeding lump on her forehead), then quickly pressed her ear up against her mouth.

One second passed. Then two. Then three.

There was no warmth. She wasn't breathing.

Bethany laid the child down on her back, then glanced in the direction of the exit and the warring throng of people still trying to push and shove their way outside. They would be no help whatsoever.

"Beth-Kai?" Aisa pulled on her sleeve. "Is she all right? Please tell me she's -"

"Give me a moment!" A thousand thoughts were racing through her mind; charts and diagrams and figures, pages upon pages from books read so many years ago...

Focus, Beth!

There was a technique she had learned from her mother back when she was a teenager, a technique used to save drowning victims, but she'd never had any cause to use it before tonight. Would such a technique even work in a situation like this? It should, shouldn't it? Drowning in smoke couldn't be all that different from drowning in water, right? But would it work on a Wolf? And should she use the the child version or the adult version? Renna was just a child in Wolven eyes, but in size and stature she was closer to an adult Fox. And what if -

Just thread the goddam needle!

Bethany took one breath. Just one, single breath...

And began.

She tilted the girl's head back and pinched her nose shut.

"Beth-Kai? What are you doing?" Aisa fretted in the background, shaking all over, wanting to grab her daughter but not quite daring to do so. She had already done all she could.

Bethany carefully opened the girl's mouth, bent down, and formed a tight seal with her lips, something she might not have been able to pull off with a full-grown Wolf.

Not too fast. Just thread the needle, nice and easy, no problem...

She blew some air into Renna's impoverished lungs - not too much, and not too little, not too hard and not too soft - for exactly one tick of the clock. The girl's chest rose a tiny bit, then began to sag down again.

"Beth-Kai?" Aisa was wringing her hands, not knowing what to do.

Bethany took a quick breath, reformed the seal, and blew into Renna's mouth again, being very careful not to go overboard.

Bethany sat up, sweat running down her forehead. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would rip itself apart. Renna was still lying there, completely motionless. No change.

She bent down and pressed her ear against the girl's mouth again.

No warmth. No breathing. No change.

"Beth-Kai, please!" Aisa was very close to the breaking point now.

I have to do this. I have to thread the needle. Come on...

"Come on, Renna..." Bethany whispered, pinching the girl's nose once again. "Come on..."

As she moved closer, an image flashed in Bethany's mind. It was Renna as she had been on the day they first met, sitting atop her kitchen table with her legs dangling over the side and her fingers in her mouth, chewing her claws down to stubs, looking around at all the strange and unfamiliar things - the knife rack, the furniture, even the walls and ceiling. She had been so afraid, but more than that, more than anything else, she had feared for the life of her friend. For Hezzi.

Come on!

Bethany formed the seal and forced her breath down the girl's airway, counting exactly one tick of the clock, trying her very best to push any other thoughts away, but finding it impossible.

Oh... how her face had lit up when he came staggering through that door, drunk out of his mind on cheap whiskey. It was like watching a flower bloom in an instant, or seeing the sun break through the clouds after weeks of hard rain. That smile... That gorgeous, innocent little smile...

She wanted to see it again. Maybe just as much as her crying mother, she desperately wanted to see it again...

Bethany waited for the girl's chest to fall, then tried again, gently blowing air into her mouth.

They had been so happy at the party. Hezzi and Renna, the two of them sitting together by the fire, feeding each other all the little tidbits they had never tasted before. They were so cute that virtually no one could pass them by without breaking into a smile. The way she laughed, the way she turned her head away and covered her face in embarrassment when Hezzi licked the sauce off her cheek. Bethany would do anything to hear that laughter again...

Please, Renna... Please...

Bethany could feel the tears start to run down her face as she pushed her life's breath into the dying girl's body for the fourth time.

Her chest rose... and fell, but her eyes remained closed.

"Beth-Kai!" Aisa seized Renna's hand and raised it up to her forehead, as if in prayer. "Please help her!" she begged, tears streaming down her face. "Please, Beth-Kai! I...I haven't made things right yet! Please! I've given her so much hate! So much pain that she didn't deserve! I have to balance it out... I have to make it up to her, so please! Please..."

Just take the thread...

Bethany's hands were shaking as she pinched Renna's nose between her fingers.

... and pass it through the eye of the needle.

She lowered her head, formed a seal over the girl's lips, and blew...

"Please save my baby!"

Renna's eyes flew open and her chest heaved as a convulsive cough burst through her slender body, rocking her from head to toe.

"Renna!"

Her cough suddenly took on a gargly tone and Bethany turned her head smartly to the side just as a foamy stream of vomit shot out of her mouth and splattered all over Aisa's knees, not that she seemed to mind.

"Beth-Kai!" she screamed, absolutely beside herself, reaching for her daughter with shaking hands.

"Don't touch her!" Bethany yelled. "Not yet!"

Aisa looked at her with the most crestfallen look Bethany had ever seen, her hands hovering just a few inches above the girl's head. But, after confirming the stern look on Bethany's face, she reluctantly pulled her hands back and compulsively began to chew on her claws, perhaps in an effort to force them to stay put.

Although Bethany didn't look it, her heart was racing as she pulled Renna's vomit-soaked hair out of her face. There were dark grey streaks in it, like the stuff that always floats to the surface after you dump a bucket of water over a camp fire.

"Renna, sweetie? Can you hear me?" The girl blinked a few times, but showed no indication of hearing her, so Bethany carefully slipped her arms underneath Renna's shoulders and helped her into a sitting position. "Renna. I need you to look me in the eye. Can you do that for me?"

Her eyes were completely unfocussed, just wandering aimlessly about the shredded ceiling of the tent. A thick scum of foam was drying in the corners of her mouth.

"Hez..." was all she could manage before her eyelids dropped and her body went limp once again.

"Beth-Kai, is she...?"

"She's still breathing," Bethany assured her. "Just passed out."

"Oh thank you!" Aisa threw her arms around them both, hugging them with scary ferocity. "Thank you so much! Oh thank you, she's all right! Thank you, thank you!"

Bethany carefully handed the girl to her mother, who pulled her into a one-sided embrace, rubbing their ash-smeared cheeks together. "Thank you..."

Bethany gave them a moment out of pity, but a moment was all they could afford. "This is no time to rejoice, Aisa."

"Wh-What?"

Bethany glanced at the exit and the throng of Wolves and Foxes still trying to force their way through there like a herd of panicky cattle. Aisa had said the girl was 'all right', but was she really out of the woods yet? Were any of them? Where should they go from here? They couldn't stay put, that was for certain, but even if they did manage to work their way through that stopper of bodies (which was only just now beginning to thin out) they'd still end up blundering into the middle of a warzone.

She looked back at the wall of fire, slowly spreading to the ceiling in liquid pools of upside down flame.

Aisa followed her gaze and stared, wide-eyed. "Beth-Kai, don't tell me you're -"

"I need you to tell me if anyone else is still back there."

"But Beth-Kai -"

"Tell me!"

The Wolfess blinked her watery eyes and tried her best to collect her thoughts. "I don't know... It was just... everything happened all at once! I was so afraid, and then the sky just... Renna was talking to Hezzi when that thing came down! She tried to protect him, and this big chunk of wood slammed into her head! I don't -"

"Who is still back there, Aisa?"

"I don't know!" Aisa screamed. "I just grabbed my daughter and ran! It was all I could do, don't you understand that!? I threw her away once before, but not this time! I'm not going to let her go this time! This time I'm going to keep her safe! I'm going to keep her right with me! I'm going to... to..."

She broke down crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks, slowly turning black with ash. Bethany did not know this Wolfess, but at the same time she knew everything about her. She knew she had done something wrong in her old life, and that she was desperately, desperately trying to make it right again. She knew she would do anything and everything to protect her family. But most of all, she knew this Wolfess was a mother, and that, if nothing else, was something she could understand with all of her heart.

The love of family.

Bethany got up and started back towards the burning tree.

"B-Beth-Kai?

"Keep Renna low to the ground until you get outside. Try to find someplace safe to hide."

"But what about you, Beth-Kai? What are you going to do?"

Without turning around, she said, "The same thing as you, Aisa. I'm going to protect my family."

As if daring her to come and try her luck, a branch broke free and fell to the ground with a tremendous crash, shooting a flurry of embers into the air.

And here I thought his pipe would be the death of him, she thought.

"No, Beth-Kai!" Aisa screamed. "Wait!"

Bethany took a deep breath, covered her face, and charged back into the gaping hellmouth.