The slush from Lanse's boots ended with his last footstep in front of a tree. He hung his head so his forehead touched the coarse bark, and the rotten egg in the air was suffocating.
He wanted to shut his eyes and appear inside his room, but he kept them open. With his racing heart echoing inside his head, he needed his sight to stay alert.
The thoughts from his recent actions drilled a deep hole in his chest and he clenched the shirt over his heart. Should he have done it?
He tsked with a twitch at his lips. That witch deserved it. Maybe that'll get her to stop pestering him. He listened through his racing heartbeats for her scream that had long gone out behind.
When nothing came, he held his telecom to his face and activated his holo-map. It took two minutes of staring at Tess's location tag before he concluded she was not moving. But there was no way a meager drake could have taken her down. Did she defeat the oversized reptile already?