The Children of Destiny

Chapter 18 - Wow, She's Strong

The next morning, I woke up next to Scout. We had headed back to the cave after I was done crying and Scout let me cuddle with him so that I'd fall asleep easier. I told him it wasn't necessary, but he insisted, so I decided I couldn't argue with him and just went with it. Now, I was hugging Scout from behind as he slept peacefully beside me. I looked around the cave to see that Roxie was still curled up, fast asleep next to my bag, which I had placed there the night before as a makeshift pillow for Maxine.

Wait, where's Maxine?

Clearly, she wasn't anywhere in the cave, and I began to freak out. The last time I'd thought I'd lost someone, it was Scout, and I went insane until he told me where he was. Now, it was Maxine, and I was not in the mood to go out looking for her that early in the morning. The sun had just begun to rise above the horizon, and I didn't have the energy to get up. Plus, I had no intentions of waking up Scout or Roxie. I looked around the cave for a moment longer until I realized I'd have to announce Maxine's disappearance before something bad happened to her. I woke Scout and he sat up sleepily, looking over at me with a smile on his face.

"Morning, handsome," he yawned, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Okay, I love how affectionate you are, but Maxine's disappeared," I said, getting straight to the point.

"She what!?" Scout exclaimed, all signs of drowsiness now gone.

His exclamation woke Roxie, who began snarling as if there was something in the cave with us.

"Sorry, Roxie," Scout apologized. "Evander just told me that Max's gone."

Roxie suddenly stopped snarling and began sniffing the area where Maxine had been.

"You smell something, girl?" I asked.

Roxie grunted in response and began sniffing her way out of the cave, flicking her tail as if telling us to follow her. I took Scout by the hand and dragged him out of the cave, following Roxie as she sniffed the ground intently. She suddenly stopped in her tracks and pointed with her nose at an animal carcass. It looked like charcoal, but I could still tell what it was but the way it's body was positioned. It was a fanged rabbit with it's fluffy, half-burnt crest out and bloodstained teeth poking out of it's mouth menacingly. Clearly, it had just been in the middle of an attack, but something stopped it.

Maxine...

"She's been here," I announced. "Look at that rabbit. It was killed by a flame, but there's no fire to be seen. Maxine must've killed it."

Scout nodded his agreement and Roxie sniffed the rabbit. She took a small bite of it as if to taste test it and coughed it right back up.

"She really burnt that thing, huh?" Scout remarked.

I nodded as Roxie continued sniffing for Maxine. Every so often, she'd stop in front of a charred animal carcass. The further we went, the more dangerous the animal was, and the worse it looked.

"What happened?" I wondered. "How'd she kill all these things?"

"I'm as clueless as you," Scout shrugged. "I'm still trying to figure out how she even managed to find all these things in the first place."

Finally, Roxie stopped and sat down as if she'd reached the end of the scent trail and looked up at me. So, I began looking around and calling for Maxine. Scout did the same. We both knew we could not risk loosing one of the children of the prophecy like this or we and the rest of the world would be royally screwed. After a while of looking, I was just about ready to give up when Scout called me, saying he'd found something. It was a small pond with what looked like fresh water. Seeing that, I knew exactly where we were.

"Please let this thing still be frozen..." I muttered hopefully.

"I doubt it," Scout replied. "Those things can survive being frozen alive, and we're in the height of summer, so I'm pretty sure it's thawed out by now."

"Not helping!" I hissed.

"Sorry..." Scout muttered.

I looked around the pond to see Maxine, but she was unconscious and not moving. I was about to freak out when I saw what was in the pond. The floating, charred body of a crocodile. At first, I was so shocked I couldn't move. I never knew someone like Maxine was capable of something like... this. But I snapped out of my trance after a moment and bolted over to Maxine to check her pulse.

"She's alive," I announced after a moment. "And breathing, thank the stars."

"Great! Now we've just gotta wake her up," Scout said.

"Scout, don't you see what she just did?" I asked. "She deserves some sleep, don't you think?"

"You're just afraid she'll kill you if you wake her up, aren't you?" Scout asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," I admitted. "Let's just head back to the cave, shall we?"

"Alright," Scout shrugged and I picked Maxine up.

We headed back to the cave where Roxie fell right back to sleep beside Maxine and Scout and I decided to continue sleeping as well.