34 LONDON
I’ve found her!
Or rather I’ve found the patch of ground that covers her up and a digital clock that is planted on a stake beside her muddy prison.
Clock numbers are ticking down.
It doesn’t take more than a moment to realize it’s a countdown.
00:12:16
Twelve minutes and sixteen seconds. To what?
The end of her oxygen.
I feel the vibration of her fear. It makes every curly hair on my body straighten. The reality of her slowly suffocating has completely cleared my mind of its usual noise.
Instead, my whole body is tuned into one desperate need.
DIG.
So I ignore the feral battles screaming around me and I scrape and tear at the frozen soil.
00:11:02
DIG.
00:09:43
I’m only ten inches down. The soil almost feels like it’s spelled. My faun hands are working only marginally better than my human ones would.
00:07:21
Seven men went to mow, and this is going far too slow. I need help. “BURT! SHANE!”
00:06:55
“BURT!!”
Our wolf lets out a slight whine, he’s hurt—but still a whirlwind of teeth and fury deep in his battle.
00:05:39
“SHANE!”
The super snake's moving slower than normal—like he’s got lead in his coils.
POW.
Both their vibrations suddenly get extra wibbly, making my digging hands falter. I quick glance around and I see they're both pinned down.
00:05:07
Hells bells—I’d like to phone a friend, please.
Wait just a minute…Shane’s new bestie! I’d tucked him away in the oak branches and left him quivering like a cornered quail. But the man has two good digging hands.
00:04:01
It takes precious seconds to retrieve him.
He grabs a sturdy stick, and starts stabbing away at the soil, loosening it.
I’m scrabbling like a dog after the best bone in the world, flinging piles of earth between my goat-legs.
“Here we go dig the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.” My voice cracks.
The song isn’t helping.
00:03:42
Three minutes and forty-two seconds.
The world record time for running one mile—Josh Kerr ran like the wind.
Wind!
“KITTEN!” I scream aloud, and then once again through our special gold bungee cord.
KITTEN!