(Dianne) Fox Writes

Ross was the first to wake up, or he thought he was until he saw that Lindy was the only one on the couch with him. He didn’t remember feeling Tau get up, but Tau was gone, and there was a piece of paper on the coffee table that hadn’t been there last night.

“Lindy.” Gently, Ross shook her awake. She blinked at him sleepily. “Tau’s gone. Did you hear him leave?”

Lindy struggled to sit up, shaking her head. “No. What? Where’d he go?”

Ross wriggled around to sit up, too, stretching his wings out over the back of the couch with a low groan. Keeping them folded up while he slept always made them cramp up. He reached across Lindy’s legs and got the note Tau had left. “To find Kgosi’s men, I think,” he said, showing it to her.

Her already pale face got even whiter. “Ross…” She passed the note back to him. “He’s going by himself? That’s… That’s like suicide. There are at least two of them. What if there are more that the bears didn’t know about?”

“I don’t know.” Ross balled up the piece of paper and threw it across the room.