Hideaway Strath If I look back, I am lost.

Her shoulders shook as she vented her misery, aware that she was probably making her brother feel awful. But she really couldn't help it. Besides, both of them should've expected this to some degree. Towhee had been a Redhawk her whole life, nearly two-and-a-half years, and she couldn't just prance off into the sunset as if none of that mattered. Leaving was hard enough on its own, then there was all the extra complications of the various reactions. Towhee saw Raven's dejected face in her mind's eye and sobbed harder.

She felt the press of a tongue against her earlobe and turned swollen eyes toward Phox's face in the dark. Towhee found she couldn't hold his gaze and her eyes dropped again as she said brokenly, "It's just hard." She inhaled, sniffed, deaf to any reply her brother made as she gazed at the forest floor. "A lot harder than I thought it would be."