Bitterroot Valley Old ways won't open new doors.

In the cult they had taught her that the best way to find someone, to track someone down, was to get in their heads and become them. When hunting, Jasny found herself making use of this old but reliable habit. She scolded herself everytime she found herself falling into that mindset. Her father and his family was behind her now. But she could not help but drag little pieces of them with her (was freedom really this constricting and heavy?).

There is an elk ahead of her, but she is far enough so that her presence is not obvious. She sees that it looks weak and thin, and she sees that it is distracted for now by its hunger. Jasny breathes and imagines herself as the elk: she would be tired, perhaps for days she had been living on desperation instead of grass. It was the desperation Jasny was most worried about. She had seen what animals could do when they were stretched to the extreme, so she stands still, unsure, though the sharp light doesn't leave her eyes (as if in her mind, she had already killed her prey and was feasting on its entrails).