Ketch. “What’s he worried about this time?”

Ketch stared at her with a coldness that made Chase freeze. “He deserves more credit than you give him. He’s afraid for Taya’s protection, and yours. He’s worried that if Steele sees Taya and him together – her being Steele’s daughter and him being Balto’s son – that it will cause trouble for both of them, but especially Taya. He’s also afraid that since Steele got you on his side last time, he’ll try to get you to play traitor again. So, killing two birds with one stone, Copper decided that I should watch out for Taya while he looks out for you…Respond carefully.”

Pressure squeezed Chase’s ribcage until she could barely breathe. Anger at her brother’s betrayal surged up and down her sides, and with every aching breath she silently curse, ‘Traitor…traitor…’

A distant howl split the quiet in two. Kaila rushed to the cave entrance with Aniu not far behind. “Northern Hills wolves!” Kaila cried, “…They’re surrounding us.”

Another howl made shivers crash up and down Chase’s spine. If they were attacked now, she would fight, but without her leg she was no real warrior.

“There’s not much danger of them attacking tonight,” Aniu said confidently, “Dark Moon, their leader, is not known for night attacks.”

“Fine,” Kaila said, her eyes not leaving the darkness beyond the cave, “But–”

“But we need more lookouts,” Cheyenne jumped in, “And if we hear them getting any closer we should all go in the cave Copper and Taya found.”

“I knew that cave would be good for something,” Copper said, nodding his approval.

Kiowa leaned against her daughter for support. “What happened to Nilak and the others?” She whispered. The cave was silent as everyone listened to her soft-spoken voice echo quietly against the stone. “Were they captured? What happened to them?”

“No one knows, Mom,” Cheyenne said in a low voice, nudging Kiowa’s face comfortingly. Her golden eyes burned, and suddenly her expression grew hard. She threw back her head and howled, the sound slicing through the air and out over the tundra, searing every animal’s ear for miles around. It contained pride for Nilak’s bravery and his sharp military planning, but also anger for leaving their mother in such a wretched state. The howl was not cold or completely enraged, yet it seemed to freeze time itself for a few seconds.

Cheyenne inclined her head and listened to the dying whisper of her voice as if calculating if she had passed on the message correctly. Everyone bent their heads to listen, for at the same moment they all realized that the missing group must have heard Cheyenne’s howl, so if they could they would howl back. They all waited with baited breath, even Chase, who had no familiar connection to the missing wolves at all. She just wanted to hear some signal, some sign that the group was alive enough to answer Cheyenne’s call…

Two minutes passed. Three.

Ketch’s ears drooped sadly. “Nothing.” For all they knew, Lakota and his fellow spies had been killed.

Kaila’s jaw clenched. “NO!” She ran to the entrance, lifting her head to catch a scent, and slammed her paw angrily against the ground. “They have to be out there. Lakota wouldn’t go down so easily.”

“Who said it was easy?” Cheyenne muttered.

Kaila whirled around and glared at her. “And I guess it isn’t easy for you to shut your trap!”

Cheyenne scowled, and helped Kiowa over to a corner to rest. “Anyone want to be on lookout?”

Without a word, Kaila snapped around and sat rigidly at her ‘post’.

“I’ll be lookout,” Chase heard herself say. She smacked her lips shut immediately. Where had those words come from?

Cheyenne’s eyebrows shot sky high. “You?” Her eyes automatically traveled to Chase’s missing limb.

Chase fired a glare she only wished would hurt Cheyenne physically as much as the red and black female had just hurt Chase’s pride.

Cheyenne stared at her. “Okay, okay, don’t kill me.”

Kiowa moaned, and suddenly stiffened. Cheyenne turned back to her mother, only to call in a fearful voice, “Aniu?”

Aniu gave Chase a look Chase didn’t fully understand, but as Aniu padded over to attend to Kiowa, Chase heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Ketch standing almost shyly before her.

“Sure you don’t need any company in your new position, scout?” He jerked his head toward the entrance where her ‘post’ was.

Chase shook her head with a bleak grin. “Thanks, Ketch, but I think I can handle my sister.”

Ketch’s hazel eyes sparkled with empathy. “Alright. Hey, um. I don’t know if it would be safe to talk to her right now, but since you’re her sister…” He shrugged. “Tell her Lakota’s okay. I know I only knew him for a few minutes, but I know when I see someone who will come back no matter what.”

Chase’s eyes laughed up into his. “And you’re never wrong, right? Never?”

“Ever.” Ketch grinned at her, but then he seemed to falter. “Yeah…thanks. Well…good night.” He bent down to embrace her, and Chase was hit by a warmth she loved and needed. Struggling to lasso her emotions into a respectable position, she was jolted by shock when Ketch’s mouth brushed her forehead softly as he straightened up. Through the flashing storm of her emotion she noticed his mouth left a warm spot where it had touched, like a star had struck her across the head. The pleasure only lasted a moment before a tornado of embarrassment twisted her insides. What had he been thinking? Why had he done that? Most important and most gut-wrenching of all, why had she enjoyed it?

With no other weapon but her anger, she turned her back on him and marched to the entrance, where she plopped down next to her sister. Kaila barely acknowledged her presence, flicking her gaze over once and then back to the distant landscape. Her determined trance made Chase uneasy.

“You know, no matter how hard you stare, they’re not going to pop out of the hills or anything,” Chase said, chuckling dryly.

Kaila’s eyes darted skyward in a heaven-help-me look before reassuming their fixed position.

Chase scratched out a pattern in the dirt beyond the mouth of the cave. It was a sketch of the moon and stars, which hung suspended above them in a perfect royal blue sky.

Kaila twitched at every extra-loud scratch of Chase’s claws against pebbles and wood in the dirt. Chase noticed, and dug her nails in deeper and deeper so the scratching became irritably loud and obnoxious. She could see Kaila was struggling for composure, and grinned gleefully at the thought.

Taking the role of annoying little sisters to a whole new level, Chase scooted back a few inches and brought her claws down on the hard, smooth stone of the floor, dragging them so they made a grating, irritating screeeeeeeee.

“WILL YOU QUIT IT?” Kaila lunged at her with fire in her eye, and Chase rolled to avoid the attack, laughing appreciatively at her own joke.

“Sorry. I guess I’m having too much fun.”

“You just don’t care, do you?” Kaila snarled, “You’ve never cared. About anyone. Nobody but yourself.”

“Hold the phone,” Chase cried, rolling back, “ I had enough problems of my own, okay?”

“You always tried to solve them by yourself,” Kaila spat, “Didn’t you ever think that if you helped other dogs and cared about other dogs, that they would help and care about you?”

Chase forgot all about laughing. She gave her sister a cold-as-steel glare. “I didn’t need anyone’s help. You’re the one who needs help…in more ways than one.”

Kaila threw back her head. “See? You don’t understand! You never have. Sometimes I think you were taken from some place where they keep cripples and weaklings and dropped on this family as a punishment. You’ve never been anything but trouble.”

Chase felt as if she had been knocked unconscious, yet she still felt herself floating, somehow alive, in a reality that had ceased to exist. Kaila’s words sliced her to the core, cutting through skin and muscle and bone to bury itself deep in the caverns of Chase’s heart. There it set, the meaning of Kaila’s remark seeping out to turn the heart to ashes, and the blood that still managed to pump from this was black. Chase felt the hate spread through her like a disease, and she watched with quiet pacifism. Her heart beat slowly, hesitantly, dead except for the hate that was its sole source of life.

Chase raised her eyes to Kaila’s. Calmly she watched as her paw came up and in slow motion flew towards Kaila’s face. Her claws were out and gleaming, and she wanted to kill Kaila, she knew Kaila deserved to die…

At the last second Chase’s paw curled in on itself, the claws barely grazing the skin. Chase bit her lip as she took the pain that was meant for her sister. She could rise above her hate. In this time of war, hate was the last thing anyone needed more of.

Kaila’s face was sickly white under her brown-gray fur. She stared in horror at Chase’s hovering paw. “Chase, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that…”

“If you didn’t mean it, then why did you say it?” Chase hissed, “I know I’ve been trouble. But what do you call the situation you’re in now?”

Kaila stared at her, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry, Chase. I really am.”

Chase accepted the apology with a grudging nod, and after a minute she said stiffly, “Ketch wants you to know he thinks Lakota’s okay. He says Lakota’s the kind who will return no matter what, so he’s sure he’ll come back. And Ketch isn’t wrong very often.”

Kaila smiled softly. “Ketch seems like a good guy. You’re lucky to have him for a friend.”

Night wrapped protectively around Chase, and the darkness gave her a sense of security she never had during the day. “Sometimes…he seems like more than just a friend.” Her face flamed, but strangely the dark made sharing secrets easier.

Kaila shifted to a more comfortable position and perked up her ears. “Tell me about it.”

Words poured out of Chase like a waterfall as she described her growing affection for Ketch, and love and fear surged through her as she allowed herself to examine the details that seemed too difficult to think about during the day. She talked on