Big Salmon Lake And the grass all smells the same

Hey… what kind of giant mutant baby deer is this?

The fawn outweighed the girl.

And Needle was already flying through the air, mid-bite, when this realization hit her.

It hit her two ways; the second way hurting a lot more than the first. It felt like running pell-mell into a tree.

For a moment, she went entirely numb. She could feel every blow to her body, felt it being battered – crushed – by the fawn’s surprising heft, but there was no pain at first. Those gangly legs were far stronger than they looked, and Needle took many glancing blows in her shock, yet the stinging didn’t hit her right away. She fell from the tangle of desperate limbs, only tangentially aware that he was there – somewhere above her.

Needle was on her feet again, gasping, begging for air, as her bulging eyes swiveled about wildly to regain her bearings. Their gazes locked, one hard sunyellow gemstone to two swollen, weepy lemons.

Kill.

His hellish voice hissed through her, reverberating deep down, down to her marrow. Harsh. Commanding. Galvanic voice. Feral eyes looked to where his body pressed down on the fawn, locating the throb of an exposed throat, pumping with blood and fear and life and death.

She dove for it, teeth-first, and wrenched loose the hydrant’s bolt in a rush of bloodwater. And she clamped down hard, stymieing half as much as she spilled.