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Breezepaw walks behind the rest of the group, head low, shoulders sagging, and his eyes slightly glossy. The cut on his ear is still raw. Still red, from where his father swiped at his ear.
Hollypaw slows down, walking next to him.
Breezepaw nearly hisses at her, but she’s looking away, so he looks down again.
-
“I bet I could beat you across the field!” Hollypaw shouts as a grin forms on her face. Wind whips the fur on her ears around wildly. For the first time since they set off, Breezepaw feels like running.
His father had ruined it.
They both shoot from the hill, racing across the open field. They both have that short, long body meant for running. He’s never noticed how similar they are, but he barely spares their similarities a thought
They both wheeze, trying to fill their lungs, and Hollypaw falls over. Breezepaw snickers at her, and he watches the rest of the group try to pace over.
His ears flatten when he sees his father’s enraged face get closer. She notices and stands up, putting her in between them, stone-faced and daring him to do something.
He doesn’t.
-
The moment she leaves to hunt with her mother, Crowfeather yells at him. Brambleclaw scowls, but doesn’t speak up, and his fellow apprentices glance over from where they are setting up nests. They don’t say anything, either.
Nobody does.
Not Onestar, barely his mother, not Heatherpaw, not his fellow apprentices, not Whitetail.
He drags his nest away from the other cats. Hollypaw scrunches up her face in confusion, and he feels bad for being silent, but he fears it will all come out if he speaks up.
-
Hollypaw drops a mouse at his feet.
“It’s not your fault.” She says
“What?” He doesn’t know what she’s talking about, because he’s screwed up a lot recently.
“It’s not your fault,” she swallows and looks down. “That your father is like that. And he takes it out on you because he’s unhappy.”
He cries, and he knows he has someone else in his corner, and not just himself.
-
Breezepelt is still angry, maybe even more. The Dark Forest doesn’t fix that. It makes it worse.
But at least he’s stronger, and could probably kill his father, if it came to that. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night, and stands above his father for a few moments, before going back to his nest.
Across the river, he sees Hollyleaf looking angry, too. She hasn’t been able to meet his eyes for a few sunrises.
-
Hollyleaf is dead. His half-sister is dead. His father is a liar, and he gets angry all over again.
He was always angry. Mostly for himself, and for his mother.
But now he’s angry for a million other reasons.
Leafpool and Squirrelflight, and how they scrunched up together. And how no one jumped to their defense. Brambleclaw, who publicly denounced their relationship. Breezepelt remembers the stories of her as an apprentice, so outspoken. It seems like they were more like his parents than he thought.
For Jayfeather, who never wanted to be a healer, and now is the only one.
Again, for his mother, who thought she was special.
He gets even angrier when he realizes Ashfur isn’t in the Dark Forest, because how could he be in Starclan after trying to murder four cats?
Hawkfrost scowls when he learns of Ashfur’s demise.
Mapleshade nearly snorts, and then says, “When have toms ever been punished for hurting she-cats?”
The lump in his throat gets larger when his father is barely punished, but Squirrelflight and Leafpool are skinnier, and their clanmates stay fox lengths away from them.
He’s angry again. And now Hollyleaf isn’t there to slow her walk, or offer a paw.
-
Brokenstar tells him to attack Jayfeather at the Moonpool. He snorts and says it’s a waste of his time. He doesn’t want to hurt him. Hollyleaf wouldn’t want it.
-
Boulderkit won’t be like him. He won’t. Breezepelt won’t let it happen.
-
He doesn’t trust Sol, unlike many of his clanmates. Breezepelt knows he is a slippery snake who will get them into trouble, and then scatter to the wind.
-
Apparently, Hollyleaf agrees. She spares Sol’s life, though he doesn’t see the point.
-
At a gathering Hollyleaf admits to him she spared Sol because she kept seeing her clanmates dead.
He doesn’t admit he’s been imagining it for moons. But she frames it differently, and he stops getting up at night to watch his father.
-
Antpelt is murdered. Then he’s murdered again. Ivypool looks haunted in more ways than one.
-
He stops going to the Dark Forest as often, though sometimes he can’t get out of it. He goes softer on the young ones, who still have kitten fluff. He makes friends with more of his fellow trainees. He lets them talk to him.
Despite everything, sometimes he is still angry.
-
Hawkfrost tries to kill his sister. He doesn’t expect Breezepelt.
He can’t save everyone, but he can save her.
Maybe, one day, he’ll be able to save himself.