Hoshor Plains junebug, what have you done? [m]

He didn't feel sorry for the mother. Or the man. Just the girl. 

Laurel had been a girl once. 

Riley's throat began to burn. His mouth dry. Just a girl. 

He realized the mother's gaze - so desperate and full of grief - was on him. Riley backtracked, trying to figure out what it was she had asked just seconds before. 

No, He answered baldly, looking back at the male who now looked as if he might kill the next thing that walked into the glade. Riley tried to remember if he had noticed anything other than blood. I found her like that. Weren't here long before you showed up. I came from there. He motioned to the grass path where his tracks and scent were still present.

It felt uncomfortably hot to Riley. Oppressive. The scent of blood -- of fluid that wasn't blood was so inexplicable it turned his stomach.. He nearly blanched, turning in time to see the child's fearful, sorrowful eyes were upon him. In that moment he froze, his fur gradually growing on end as the iniquity of what had happened to her truly came over him.

He was not in the best state physically, but it did not stop the words that slid from his throat, much in the same dark tone Esme's had been only a few days before. "I'll help you kill him."

Riley's stake in this game had been minimal -- but he only needed to think of his mother, to think of how he had been born, and it was enough to set his sails in motion. The girl was lucky - she might be young enough she would not remember.

If she was lucky, she would never know at all.