Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

— Léon —
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
Léon averted his eyes and tried not to look as Count Cae cleaned his bloody fist on a rag.
Cae shouted again, "Tell me what you fucking know! Someone here is protecting that monster, and I won't stop until I discover who."
Dammit. Léon's stomach churned and turned, and his throat constricted with that old feeling of regret. He shouldn't have stayed behind.
If Léon had been there, he could have protected Phillip and stopped the child-thief. Since he wasn't, Cae was now punching answers out of innocent people, another kid was taken, and Phillip was bedridden, burning in a fever that wouldn't go down, no matter what he tried.
He closed his eyes.
Why the hell had he stayed behind?
You didn't want to use your powers, Léon. You pathetic, little thing, he thought.
"I t-told you, already!" the villager barked at Cae. He coughed and spat on the ground. His hands were tied and his knees on the dirt, but the villager still managed to keep his head high. "The children always come back cured of the sickness, bringing a handful of weird seeds. We plant them, they go back to normal—that's all I know! That's all any of us know!" He coughed. "We don't have any idea of where the Druid hides."
No. It was more than not wanting to use his powers. Léon couldn't use them.
What could he have done if he was there with Phillip? There was no way he could fight, right? With barely any power left and only one tiger, he wasn't a super anymore. He was little more than a civilian.
Shit. He wanted so much to be nothing more than a civilian.
Léon shook those thoughts out of his mind and quickened his pace back to the shack where he, Modraniht, and Phillip would spend the night.
It was late, and the new moon outside was of no help to the weak lamps inside, só Léon crossed the small living room and entered the main bedroom in darkness. He paused. Vanessa's presence in Phillip's room was just as shady as the night sky outside.
And even shadier was the way she cupped Phillip's cheek and leaned in.
Léon shuffled his feet and sighed. As he opened his mouth to ask what was happening, Phillip jerked to life, pulling Vanessa and saying things that were meant to him, not to her.
Phillip was apologizing to Léon. Again.
"Shit," he whispered. And as touched as Léon would normally feel hearing a heartfelt apology like that, something twisted inside him.
Phillip was still caught up in the past, and Léon had no idea of what he should do about it.
Léon cleared his throat to announce his presence, and Vanessa peeled herself off of Phillip, reeling a step.
"Honestly," she mumbled. Her eyebrows squished together, and she opened and closed her lips, no words coming out. Vanessa released a lungful of air in a huff and placed her hands on her waist. Her eyes flicked to Léon and bore into him, studying him like an opened carcass in a dissection table. Her words grew heavier. "Listen, man. You better tell Cae about this. If you don't, I will."
Heat flushed through Léon's body as his muscles tensed. "Cae has nothing to do with my personal life; I won't tell him anything."
Vanessa shook her head. "I'm not talking about Phillip being your ex or whatever; I'm talking about the hallucinations. This"—she pointed at Phillip—"isn't normal. Worst, this is something I've seen before. What happens next isn't pretty."
Léon licked his lips and covered the small distance from the entry door to the side of Phillip's bed. Vanessa's words were heavy and harsh, and Léon wasn't sure how he should answer them. Did he want to know what would happen to Phillip? Should he ask Vanessa for more information?
Would she tell him the truth?
"What is normal in this damned place?" Léon's voice was low and bitter. Vanessa found that pretty funny, but Léon didn't join in her laugh, and he didn't try to school his glare. Léon bashed the water jug on the nightstand and sat down on Phillip's bed. "I thought I had said I wanted you and Cae's people out of here. Modraniht and I will take care of him."
As if to prove his point, Léon took the wet handkerchief on Phillip's forehead and dipped it into the water jug.
"Take care of him all you like—far from me from wanting more work." Vanessa sneered. "I have more than enough on my plate."
Léon furrowed his brows and wrung the cloth in his hands, slapping it on Phillip's forehead like raw meat in a hot pan. His fever was so high, Léon thought the rag would sizzle too.
"I needed to check in on this bastard," Vanessa said. "He kinda saved my skin. Hum. Modraniht's not around here, is he?" She looked around. After a moment, she shrugged and dragged a wooden chair to Léon's side. When Léon shook his head no, she sat down and crossed her legs, her right ankle propped on her left knee. "I know you don't want to hear this from me—"
"No. I trusted you once, and I'm not about to make the same mistake."
Vanessa clicked her tongue. "Yeah, good for you. Interrupt me again, and I swear I'll cut your rations in half tomorrow."
Léon pursed his lips and huffed. His cheeks warmed up.
"As I was saying, you have to be careful around here. You can't help Phillip dearest, not if he has what I think he has." Vanessa crossed her arms and leaned back on her chair. Her leg slipped, and she stomped the ground. "What did Modraniht say?"
"Not much, but..." Léon stopped himself. When he and Modraniht talked, moments ago, the doctor's face was anything but calm. Léon felt it in his bones: Phillip's condition was beyond serious. "What do you think he has?"
Vanessa got up—not an ounce of worry in her expression—and slid her hands into her pockets. "The same thing as the trees."
Holy fuck.
"If this reaches Cae's ears, I'll deny it—but I think you should talk to the people in the village. There's a reason why the barbarians are occupying this place, and it goes beyond the fact that the missing kid was last seen around these parts."
"No. No, this can't be. The trees? Melting inside? Dying? And this will—" Léon's eyes rested on Phillip. "But Phillip, he... he's improving, he can't. He can't."
Vanessa bit her lower lip and averted her gaze to the side. "This is not something you should know about, so be careful around the others. Around all the others." She gave him a meaningful gaze and turned her back at him. "And consider this information payment for what Phillip did. Telling you this puts mine on the line, so we're even now."
A shiver crawled up Léon's back. He rubbed his face, sighed, and let his sight rest on Phillip. What the hell did you get yourself into?
"Be smart, and you might manage to save him." Vanessa opened the entry door. Her shoulders jumped when she met Modraniht's raised hand, ready to knock.
"Everything okay here?" Modraniht asked.
"Yeah. Just making sure the guy is still alive." She jerked her chin to show Phillip. Vanessa nodded a silent goodbye and left the room, not giving him any time to respond.
Modraniht entered the room and closed the door. He stood a moment in silence and pressed a finger to his lips, listening. Once satisfied, he faced Léon and said, "She's gone. And we need to talk about your friend." Modraniht took in a deep breath. "If you wanna help him, we need to get the hell outta here, kid."
Took them a while, but Léon and Modraniht finally managed to sneak out of Senibetama.
It was harder than Léon had thought since they had to stop by the small first-aid post and make the villagers talk, but they were lucky enough to, afterward, find an almost-deserted path that cut directly to the limits of the forest. If Vanessa was responsible for that or not, Léon couldn't say—but he had an inkling to believe she was.
For the past day, Léon and Modraniht had taken turns with Bonee to carry an unconscious and feverish Phillip through the dying forest. The strain on Léon's shoulders was still constant; he felt Bonee's tiredness as well as his, and no matter how urgent the situation was—and how desperate Léon was for a cure—he reached a point in which his body simply gave in.
He fell hard on the floor, his kneecaps jabbing the dry earth with a full clack.
"Yeah..." Léon huffed and puffed. "I think we have to stop now." He crackled and massaged his neck, letting Phillip's arm slip down from around his shoulders.
Modraniht held Phillip's waist so he wouldn't fall on the ground. The old man's face was red and sweaty like Léon's, but he still managed to curl a broad smile on his lips. "What? Tired already, kid? This guy isn't even that heavy."
"Oh, he is." Léon huffed and reached for the map half-tucked in Modraniht's chest pocket. "Can I?"
"Suit yourself." Modraniht grunted as he turned Phillip around and placed him on the ground, seated with his back against a tree trunk.
Léon took the map. The sky was starting to darken again, which meant they had probably walked around sixteen hours. That explained the pain in his legs.
"Are you sure that Franz guy told us the truth?" Léon asked. He unrolled the map in his hands and studied the most horrific calligraphy he had ever seen after Rob's. "It feels like this place is just a copy-paste version of our entire path here. Everything looks the same." He furrowed his brows. "What did you write here? Pegasus?"
Modraniht narrowed his eyes and looked at the place Léon was pointing. "Passage. How did you read pegasus in there, son?"
Léon shrugged. "According to this, we still have half a day of walking ahead of us." He let out a deep sigh and sat down at Phillip's side. "How did you convince that guy to tell you the right place, anyway? He didn't tell Cae anything, even with all the beating. Why would he tell you?"
"Cause I'm a doctor, not a barbarian." Modraniht shrugged. With meticulous, calculated movements, he folded his sleeves up and let his backpack slide down his arms. "My name has quite the weight around these parts. Also..." He hesitated. With a chuckle, Modraniht rubbed the back of his neck and smiled. "I didn't ask for the druid's hiding place."
Léon furrowed his brows. "No? But I thought you said only that weird child-thief could help Phillip."
"That's what the villagers said, yeah—but when I asked them to describe them, one of them told me the child-thief was using a cape covered in green moss. Cae must've ignored this, but we're inland now; the only place dark and wet enough to grow moss is this." Modraniht tapped a finger on the map, circled many times with a red marker.
Léon raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know all this?"
Modraniht let out a deep sigh. "Cause I used to live here. In Aíbetama, to be more precise." He shifted in place and cleared his throat. "But don't tell that to anyone, all right? It's sort of a taboo around these parts."
A crease formed between Léon's eyebrows. "Why?"
"Eh... you'll see, kid." Modraniht made a face. It was a grimace mixed of hesitance and something so painful, Léon couldn't bring himself to insist on a proper answer.
They sat in silence, doing nothing but to stare at each other. Life was a weird series of coincidences, wasn't it? What would Modraniht say if Léon confessed he was from Aíbetama too? And why did he refuse to talk about what had happened in the village?
When the silence started to feel uncomfortable, Modraniht got up. He cleared his throat and jerked a thumb at his back. "We should rest. I'll build a fire."
Léon nodded. He rested his head beside Phillip's and closed his eyes.
As if on cue, Phillip started trembling. "I'm cold," he whispered. "Cold, so cold."
"It's okay." Léon rested a gentle gaze on Phillip, patting his shoulder. "You're feverish. We have some medicine. Let me—"
Before Léon could say anything else, Phillip rested his head on Léon's shoulder, trying to find his warmth. With a click of his tongue and a shake of his head, Léon slid an arm around Phillip's much broader shoulders, caressing his arm.
"It's okay, Phil. We'll help you."
Yeah. He really hoped they could.