"An alliance." The witch's smile returned as she nodded her head to Jack and Gus who were watching us with baited breath. "Obviously, we've had less than ideal first impressions of one another and, I'll admit, in the state that my children are now, I could use all the allies I can muster."

"Are you shitting me?!" Jack shot before I could say anything. He raised his arms, now firmly locked in Gus' handmade slings. "It was your damn kids who broke my arms and nearly killed my brother in the first place! You must be-!"

"Jack," Gus said, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder.

Jack fell back against the house, breathing heavily, but one look at his companion had him gritting his teeth, turning his head, and closing his eyes in anguish. "Shit, man, don't say it."

"It's the lesser of two evils," he said.

"You always say that." Jack chuckled as if it was a joke. "But if that's true, I don't want to know what the worse option looks like."

Gus' face fell, somehow making him look even more grim. "You really don't."

"Have we come to an agreement then?" the witch called.

"Hey," I said. I tried to pull my arm out of the shadow's grip, but it wasn't budging. The coldness was spreading down from its hand and sinking deep into my stomach the longer this conversation was going. "Hey, Jack, right? I don't know what your friend is seeing, but-"

"Just shut-up, freak."

That last word spoke to me. Really spoke to me. I knew he knew. I knew he said it intentionally as it did shut me up. I couldn't move or speak as Jack's eyes glared at me like everyone at that school used to glare.

"Let's make one thing clear," the old witch spoke up. "You or your other boys do or say anything that upsets my children, and the alliance is done. I do hope you know what that means in regards to your well being."

I found my breath again when Jack looked from me to her. "And just what are you suggesting, exactly? You got a contract for us to sign? A ritual that involves our blood? You want to pinky-promise on it? I should remind you, a few of those will be kind of hard for me to do right now."

"Simply put, your brother will be the contract. I use my power to make him into a familiar, therefore binding our fates together."

"The fuck you say?!" Jack spat, brushing aside Gus' hands as he shook from side to side against the shack. "You want to turn my brother into another mindless hellspawn?! Fuck that! Fuck you! I'd rather he die drowning in his own blood!"

"Well, that's a shame." The witch seemed to straighten something beneath her layers of furs. She was straightening, growing taller as the skins and fur around her neck and shoulders started to slide off. I caught a glimpse of what looked like bristling white fur before Gus stood up.

"Wait! Wait!" he pleaded, running in front of Jack and waving his hands. "Please! We can work this out!"

"Can we?" The witch grabbed the sliding skins and pulled them up to her neck, covering her body once more. "That boy gives me less than a reason to think so."

"Jack doesn't care about his brother, he doesn't care about me, but he does care about her." Gus pointed at Em who remained partly smeared on the tree, ignoring Jack's insistence that he shut-up. "He made us come all this way for her, just because she wanted to be here and because she was hurting. If you can help her...and if she's even still alive, I can promise on his behalf we will work with you."

"Oh, is that all?" The witch's smile returned. "Our fates are already intertwined then. That was my intention from the start."

"I don't want her to be some mindless puppet that listens to your every beck and call," Jack shot. "I brought her here to help her remember who she used to be. To make you fix her."

"I have no intention of removing the minds of my children. I brought them here to free them from the binds of the witches of Wildwood. That includes the powers that be that keep them from their memories."

"She's lying," I said, trying and failing to break free from the shadow's grip. "Can't any of you see that?"

Jack looked like he was about to tell me off again, but it was Gus who held up a hand and stepped forward, a bit closer to me. "Even if she is, what is our alternative? You cannot save John. You can't help Em."

"Forget help, you almost killed her!" Jack snapped. "You're lucky your-"

"Jack, stop," Gus said and, surprisingly, Jack did stop with a scoff and a 'whatever'. "Point is, she can help us. You can't. If your friends were in the same position as us, could you honestly say you would do things differently?"

"Foxy, this is the right move," Stallion spoke up. "You said you were tired of leading us. Let her lead. She can help us--she can free us. We don't have to keep running anymore."

"We're running so we don't have to be controlled by witches!" I shouted at the horse, not caring that everyone else could hear. "How is staying here any different?!"

"You do not need to fear me, my dear fox. We are on the same side, can't you see that?"

"There aren't any sides. Everyone is just looking out for themselves. I don't know what you want from us, but I know for a fact it isn't to help."

No matter how hard I pulled, the shadow's hand did not budge. The witch was approaching me again, her wrinkled hands reaching for me, her nearly unseen eyes trying to peer at something deep inside me.

"Please," I said to the shadow, trying to grab his arm but only succeeding in chilling my hand when it went right through. "Help me."

John's shadow pulled me aside and stood a little ahead of me, standing just between me and the witch. "Does your offer to save John still stand?"

She stopped moving, but smiled at his question. "If you swear your loyalty to me in return, then yes."

"Please," I said again. "Don't do this."

"How do I know the boy will truly recover?"

"Look around you if you require some examples." The witch waved a hand at Mary, Tusk, and me in that order. "I bet you thought you had scattered her brains when you struck, but still she lives. Just as you believed you had crushed his throat, and yet he still breathes. That boy you are holding was shot through the thigh and had split open enough arteries to bleed out men twice his size, and yet he stands. Your boy will not just recover, shadow. He will be more alive than anyone could ever hope to be."

"He will be under her control," I said, stressing every word. "If you care about that kid at all, then listen to me. Being a familiar sucks. This body doesn't mean a thing if it's being used by someone else."

"Without that body, the boy will die."

"Maybe, then, it's better if he did."

I tried to see if, this close, I could spot anything that looked like eyes. Anything that would tell me what I was speaking to was more than just some shadow brought to life. Could it hear the ache in my words? Could it have an inkling at all what sort of hell I had been through to get to this point?

All because they wanted to make me into a familiar. Because I just so happened to mostly fit the criteria of one witch's demands. It wasn't fate, or destiny. It didn't fulfill some grand purpose. I just happened to draw the shortest straw.

"If you care about him at all," I said again, "don't put him through this."

"I require the boy to live in order for me to exist," the shadow said, turning its head from me to face the withering witch. "Nothing is more important to me than that."

I didn't wait for either of them to say anything else. When the shadow no longer listened, I dropped low and scooped up one of the small rocks that littered the craggy earth. My captor tried to resist my movements, pulling up my arm and dragging me away from the ground, but all it did was give me a better shot.

With a tight flick of my wrist, I threw the stone through the stomach of the shadow and watched it sail straight before striking John. It was with a sinking heart to see it miss, only scrapping against his cheek, but it left enough of a gash to make the shadow gasp in pain. He loosened his grip in reflex, and I wasted no time pulling free and running.

The old witch opened her mouth, but I knew what she wanted to do. As I ran, I cupped my hands over my ears and screamed at the top of my lungs. She was powerful, but she wasn't my Master. She had yet to speak at all inside my head, so I had to guess that she was unable to. It was a gamble that ended up paying off when my arms and legs still obeyed me as they helped put more and more distance between me and the disaster I left behind.

There was no time to stop and see who was following me. Even turning my head would risk missing what was right in front of me.

That's what I told myself. When images of Stallion standing there with Mary helpless on his back and Kat lying in a heap on the ground, I told myself I was escaping to save them. I would come back for them.

I just needed time. I needed more help.

My allies were swiftly fading away, but there were at least two who would still obey me. Since she never came to her familiar's aide, I could only assume Maple and August were still waiting for us where we had left them. It felt like it had been hours since then, but it couldn't have been more than one. They should still be there. They had to be.

For several long, agonizing minutes, I crashed through dense underbrush and against biting bark. I didn't know what her range of control was, so I couldn't risk lowering my hands-or stopping my screams. Though the shouting was little more than ragged, raspy moans as I approached the spot where Maple and August were. It had been too long since I ate or drank anything, and my body was reaching its limit. If Maple and August still hadn't recovered, I would have to make the hard decision of leaving one of them behind.

But, when I stepped through the trees that separated them from me, all I could do was collapse to my knees. I said I hadn't eaten in awhile, but the bile still came easy enough. I thought my throat was beyond screams, but they came back. They came and choked up my throat, fighting through my continued gags and hacks of someone who still wanted to throw up, but now had nothing left inside him.

Maple was gone. No trace of her at all.

August was only partly gone. His body lay against the tree, exactly where we left him. Kat's knife was still clutched tightly in his hand. The only thing that was missing was his head.

Through my blearily eyes and whooping coughs, I could see the tiny things crawling on his remains. Little bugs slipping and chewing and scaling his ruined clothes and the jagged stump on his neck.

Seeing them made things very clear for me. The choice had already been made.

...

*Author's Note*

And there we have it, the end of the first arc. We have journeyed far, a lot has happened, but Foxy has only just begun the final parts of his story.

What will come next? Where will it all end?

Whatever your thoughts, I would love to hear them.