Hey everyone! Long silence, I know, and I'm sorry! So much going on. But, I'm at home for a couple weeks, which I'm sure you can all guess why, and the kind comments and reviews I still get for this story made me come back Thank you so much to everyone that has taken the time to drop a note. And to the reader who told me they are translating the story into Spanish so they can enjoy it more, you have no idea how cool I find that! I've always wanted to learn Spanish, and it would be so amazing to see some of my work translated! So awesome! Okay, enough of that. Story time.

After a bit of sleep, Clarke got breakfast, such as it was, around for the kids. Jari woke up on his own, surprisingly bright eyed. Kids and their ability to heal. And go without sleep.

Apparently an ability Thom did not have. She woke him up to eat, and then melted some snow and washed the rags she'd used to stop Jari's bleeding. They were drying by the fire by the time she'd decided she'd stalled long enough.

"Boys."

Both of them looked her way instantly, halting whatever conversation they'd been in the middle of.

"We need more meat. We're going to give those things that tried to kill us a chance and see how bad they taste."

Thom giggled. "Food's food."

Well that was very practical for a kid. But completely true.

"What do you need us to do, Clarke?" Jari asked.

He was such a good kid. How had he ended up that way on his own? "I just need you guys to be the lookouts." If Jari felt like he was useful, he'd be much happier. No reason for him to know his little brother was actually going to be watching him.

Thom's face froze. "Because of the monster? The one we heard last night?"

He remembered. Too bad. Of course it was too much to ask that he would have been sleepy enough to forget whatever noise that was in the night.

"Not specifically for that, but that's a good thought."

"You aren't fooling them, Clarke."

Yeah, I know. Kids were way too smart.

"Let's just get this over with." She grabbed some burning sticks out of the fire and handed them to Thom before moving over to Jari and sliding her arm under his uninjured side, steadying him. Madi watched, but didn't say anything. They shuffled up the tunnel together a little ways, before getting close enough to the entrance to start feeling the cold.

"Okay, kid." Clarke deposited Jari on the smoothest section of floor she could find. Even in the dim lighting his face shone white in the dark, his mouth tight. She fussed with his bandages for a second. Maybe moving him hadn't been a great idea.

"I'm fine." Jari caught one of her hands and smiled a little, pained smile. "Really."

She ruffled his hair. "What would I do without you?"

He leaned back against the cave wall, his smiled growing. She ground the end of the makeshift torch into the mud close to him. "I'll be back as quickly as I can. Yell if you hear or see anything. I mean anything!"

He rolled his eyes, but nodded.

Leaving him, so small, injured, in the near dark broke her heart. She threw an arm around Thom's scrawny shoulders and marched forward, Madi trailing behind.

Once they were just within sight of the torch, she stopped. "Here's your post, Thom."

His lip quivered as he looked up at her, tears filling his eyes. "I'm scared," he nearly whispered, looking over his shoulder like he thought Jari would hear him admit that all the way from where he was sitting.

Clarke squeezed his shoulder. "It's okay to be scared. You'll learn to function anyway." She leaned over and bumped his forehead with hers, getting a watery grin in response. "You've got the same instructions that Jari does. If you see anything, hear anything, you start yelling, okay?"

He nodded.

"And if you don't hear back from me right away, come and get me, got it?"

He nodded again, this time a little more vigorously.

"Okay. You got this."

Another squeeze, this one to reassure herself, not him. She was doing the right thing. They'd be fine. She wouldn't be gone long. She reached down for Madi, making sure she was still bundled up, and walked toward the cave entrance.

Blinding. She threw her free arm up to cover her eyes. The sun on the snow after being in the dark of the cave was enough to make her see stars. Madi must have felt the same way, she buried her face in Clarke's shoulder.

"I know, kid, I know." She waited a second and then opened her eyes a slit, squinting into the light. Light was good. Sun was good. Sun came, then spring. With three of those dead things, they'd be set for meat for awhile. They might all end up with scurvy, but they wouldn't be dying. Nope, things were going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

After mostly adjusting, Clarke waded forward through the snow. The first body wasn't far from the entrance to the cave. If she hadn't known to look though, she wouldn't have found it. Snow had covered the dead creature, leaving it to look like a drift. She sat Madi down and went to work uncovering it.

The job was unpleasant, the snow melting into her clothes. But it didn't matter. Finally the snow was cleared. She kicked at the body. It didn't budge.

"The blood has frozen to the ground, Clarke."

Clarke groaned. Of course this wouldn't go easily. She'd have to make a fire and thaw out the ground under the thing before being able to move it. Finding sticks and limbs to burn wasn't hard. She went back to check on the boys, and borrowed Thom's torch to light the pile she'd gathered, before taking Thom his torch back. The boy was shaking in the semi-dark, terrified. Her heart clenched at the fact that she couldn't do anything to help him. She gave him a hug and went back out without a word. Nothing she said would make him feel better right now.

Getting the frozen carcass free from the bloody ice took far longer than she was comfortable with. But leaving it half done wasn't an option. It would just refreeze if she left it.

The smell of the edges of the meat cooking nearly made her gag. But in a good way, if that was possible. If this worked, they would have real food tonight. She could butcher the thing and leave the extra out in the snow to refreeze, taking part of it to smoke and replenish their long term stores.

Grabbing a stick, she bent over, prying the thing from the ground section by section. Alie fretted beside her, obviously frustrated that she couldn't help. Pausing to take a breath, her exhale puffing out in front of her, she squinted at the sun. Almost lunchtime.

Dragging the huge beast required every iota of strength she had left in her starving body. She tugged and pulled until she was in yelling distance of the cave.

"All good in there, Thom?"

"All good! Can I come out?"

"Go check on Jari first."

"Okay!"

Clarke eyed the carcass on the ground. Butchering the thing couldn't be much harder than the deer she'd lived on during the time she'd isolated herself from Sky Crew, could it? "Time for the real work to begin."

Getting the kids to sleep that night should have been a pain with how scared they still were about the beast running around somewhere in the caves.

But the warm fire and full bellies won. They were passed out in a heap near the fire, Thom's head carefully laid against Jari's side and Madi fully sprawled across Thom.

She should have been just as tired. Was just as tired, really. But also far too restless. The threat of the cold, overcome. Starvation? No longer a problem, for now. The amount of meat she'd been able to stash in the snow felt like a hoard at this point. Which left getting eaten in their sleep. She couldn't keep staying up.

"You know I'll wake you, Clarke," Alie said.

"I know."

But the thought didn't help. If only she knew the thing was gone.

She groaned. No way she'd be sleeping like this. She forced herself to her feet and moved over to the fire, poking around until she was satisfied that it wouldn't be going out anytime soon. They had plenty of wood for the night, but she'd need to collect more in the morning.

If she wasn't going to sleep, she might as well do something useful. She grabbed a nice sized hunk of wood, one that burned brightly , and took a few steps down the tunnel the beat had disappeared into.

"Are you sure about this? I can only see as far as you can."

"I'm sure." She inched down the tunnel, keeping the light as far in front of her as she could reach. "See any signs of it being back?"

"No. Prints only go away from our cave."

Clarke squatted down, light over the floor. Alie was right. The prints only went one way. She splayed a hand over it, her palm not even blocking the size. Quite a big smaller than the creature she'd cut up today, but still big. Really big. "I haven't heard it tonight, have you?"

"No. Not a sound."

Well. That was going to have to do. She couldn't go in after any farther. Couldn't take the risk. The day when she didn't care about risks was long gone. She had others to think about now.