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Daisy and Boss: 20 - Message Recieved

Sarah picked up her books and slid them into her backpack. Around her other students were gathering their things as well, grumbling over the hefty slice of reading material the professor had given them to study over Christmas break. The badger heaved a belly deep sigh and slung her bag over one thick shoulder. She didn't mind the reading, she was just looking forward to the break from her strenuous schedule. Almost three weeks at home over Christmas and new year was exactly what she needed. Night classes were starting to wear on her mentally. She couldn't hardly believe that she was going to try and learn the guitar on top of everything else. It was 11pm and she was just now headed back to her dorm for the night. Heading down in the elevator she glimpsed a flurry outside the windowed doors that made her snuffle in pleasure. It was snowing! A willowy female gazelle who had ridden in the elevator with her made a face of absolute disgust.

"God! I hate winter." She sniffed, pulling on a heavy coat and wrapping her long slender neck with a fluffy scarf. Sarah didn't say anything, but a ghost of a smile tugged at her muzzle. She loved the snow and the cold. With her heavy pelt she never needed anything more than a sweater. Today was no different. Her blue carhart hoodie was plenty of clothing for this weather, and if Sarah weren't in town around a bunch of strangers, she probably wouldn't be wearing even that much. Her family was built of a feral stock, more four legged than two legged. As she pushed her way out of the heavy doors and the first flakes fell on her nosepad and melted there, she couldn't resist sticking out her tongue and tasting a few of them as they floated down in swirls and gusts. She watched with a chuckle as the gazelle delicately picked her way to the parkinglot, bundled to the nines and complaining under her breath. And then Sarah was alone outside the entrance of the engineering building. Even traffic was muffled in the fresh snow, and there were substantially fewer furs about in this weather. Wrong kind of tires on their car, no winter clothing, and the time of night meant that the city had become strangely quiet as the majority of the inhabitants of Portland were at home laying low. Sarah perked her ears into the darkness and on a whim decided to take the path that led through one of the wooded areas on her way back to the dorm. She strolled, breathing in the wintery air and gazing at the snow on the trees in the light of the lamp posts that were placed along the paved trail. Everything had a dream quality in the aqua lights and so Sarah was almost too distracted to notice the niggling warnings her senses were giving her. She stopped and looked behind her sharply as her ears strained to identify a faint sound. Startled but not yet alarmed, Sarah continued walking at her unhurried pace as she listened for a repeat of the noise. She didn't have to wait long.

Footsteps. Muffled by the snow, but footsteps nonetheless. And they weren't coming from the path. Someone was traveling parallel to her position on the path, but about thirty feet into the woods. She paused, testing a theory and the footsteps paused as well. They were following her. The thought made her bristle under her sweater. She sniffed the air, but got nothing with the slight breeze working against her. Outwardly, she casually stopped and pretended to look for something in her bag, all the while digging out her cell phone. She slipped the phone into one of the zippered pockets of her sweater for easy access and then pulled her backpack on over both shoulders so that she could have both paws free. The footsteps turned sharply and now were much louder, whoever it was in the woods had seen the phone, and was running towards her.

Sarah snarled, a deep vicious sound and dropped to all fours in a crouch. If the stranger in the woods expected her to turn and run, than they had never had many dealings with a badger before. Sarah bared her large teeth at the jackal that leaped out onto the path. He was thin and malnourished looking but had a nervous energy about him, the scruffy brown fur rippling in a way that spoke of a wiry strength despite his mangy drug addict appearance. But Sarah was focused on the sharp looking knife he held out in front of him. He leered at her and barked sharply, advancing on her with the knife held threateningly. But it was the words that he spoke next that made Sarah's blood run cold.

"Julian's got a message for that little goat friend of yours." He cackled, swinging the knife in the air a few times and stalking towards the bristling badger. "Gonna carve it real pretty for her..."

She turned as he circled her slowly on the path, her eyes going from the knife to his face. She reached for her pocket and the phone, but the knife flashed forward, cutting off the motion with an angry slash that barely missed her paw. His eyes when she caught them were manic and a muddy color of dirt, the whites bloodshot.

"Fuck off." Sarah said through her bared teeth. Her ears flat against her skull she splayed her two inch claws out for the jackal to see. Every muscle in her compact body tensed as he darted forward and slashed the air in front of her face as she scrambled back barely in time to miss getting slashed across the muzzle. She swung her paws in a raking swipe with all the power of her frame but only met air as the jackal retreated to circle again. He was fast. But she was confident that she was stronger, if she could just catch him. Three more times he darted in and she was barely able to dodge the blade, and she began seeing how his tactic was working. She was growing tired already, soon she would make a mistake. As the jackal made another slow circle around her, grinning as he waited for an opening, Sarah made a grim decision. Her lips curled in a snarl and her muscles tensed up, she shifted her feet, her growl building to a steady roar. The thug darted in again, murder in his eyes and this time, Sarah did not dodge. The knife sliced across her chest bringing electric pain as the blade bit into her collar bone. She grappled forward into the blade, head down, using her weight to bring the jackal snarling to the frozen pavement. Her snapping jaws found air the first try and flesh the second. Biting down with the force of a lion on his shoulder, Sarah thrashed, rending flesh with her teeth, raking and stabbing with her claws, letting herself fall into battle frenzy. Sarah felt the bones of his shoulder crack with sickening satisfaction. The jackal was screaming now, but he had not lost the knife. He slashed at her side, struggling to get a good angle and getting tangled up in her backpack strap, kicking at her and biting at her face. One of his fangs found purchase on an eye socket and his incisor dug in, causing her to shriek in agony as half her world went dark. It drove her back a moment and she let go of his shoulder, batting him in the head and breaking his hold on her face with one heavy hit with her left paw. He struggled to rise, disoriented, managing to roll over onto his belly as the enraged badger roared in pain on her knees, her right paw pressed to her eye as it gushed blood. Doggedly, the Jackal made to get up, tightening his grip on the knife and looking to her with a clear intent to stab at her while she was down, even as blood flowed freely from his wounds and one arm hung useless at his side. Sarah, cussing through her pain and rage, lashed out with her free paw and slapped him down again, his head bouncing on the pavement with a dull crack. Letting go of her face she snarled and fell upon him again, finding the back of his neck with her jaws. He squalled and writhed, reaching back over his shoulder to try and break her grip, clawing at her muzzle and then slashing higher with the knife, aiming for her neck. She refused to let go, only clenched down harder and harder as the blade blindly raked a furrow across the top of her head, warm blood washed over her face and into her uninjured eye but she paid it no mind. One hard movement, a ripple of all her muscles at once and she felt a sickening pop as his neck snapped in her jaws. His limbs went lax, and he became dead weight in her jaws.

Seconds, maybe minutes went by, before her brain began to function again. Unlocking her jaw slowly, painfully, Sarah let the jackals body fall from her grip, gagging as tufts of his rank fur stuck to her teeth and tongue, glued there with thick viscous blood. She panted, feeling sick and starting to realize the extent of her injuries. Blood was everywhere, hot, sticky, soaking into her clothing and fur. Her eye was a mess, and there was a bone deep cut running from just behind her left ear and across her brow to her ruined right eye. Small gouges and fang punctures covered her muzzle and her nose pad was split open in one spot. Her upper chest was flayed down to the collar bone, the hide hanging open to show sinew, fat, and cartilage. Her whole front wet, caked with gore. Her side stung from several shallow cuts, but luckily they seemed to be only skin deep. And she had at least one broken claw, possibly the whole finger. But the pain from those minor wounds was barely even registered over the steady throb of her head and chest. She stumbled up onto all fours and then to her feet, her wounds dripped blood that began to freeze almost instantly as it met the cold ground. With a foot she kicked the dead jackal over onto his back and breathed hard through the nausea that swept over her when his slack jawed face came into view. His ears flopped to one side in a way that was so specifically dead that she felt her limbs start to tremble. Adrenaline drained from her, leaving Sarah feeling weak and dizzy. She had killed him. With her own teeth she had taken a life. She reached into her hoodie pocket in a daze and pulled out her phone. It took her two tries but she finally managed to dial 911. She held it to her left ear and barked in pain as the cut over her left ear was disturbed. Switching it awkwardly to her right, she was mindful of her eye as the operator came on line.

"911, please state your emergency." The curt voice of another living being piped from the other line, startling Sarah into dumb silence for a second. "Hello? Can you hear me?"

"He had a knife..." She muttered, her voice rough. "He was going to kill me."

"Hello? Are you injured? Do you need assistance?" The voice on the other end of the phone seemed very far away, and Sarah found herself sitting down suddenly.

"Yes... please... I need help..." She managed a little louder. Her breath still came in big panting gasps, and the air around her was foggy from it. Blood dripped from her head into her palm at an alarming rate.

"What's your name?"

"Sarah Brockley."

"Where are you, Sarah, what happened?"

"Campus... I'm on Campus, I was walking on one of the foot paths... the... the one that goes from the engineering building to the dorms... I was attacked. He had a knife."

"Help is on the way, Sarah! Is the one who attacked you still there?" The question was fast, urgent. Sarah could hear a radio in the background, they were coming, she could even hear the sirens in the distance. But she was suddenly so tired, so very exhausted. The snow was coming down even harder now, a white fluffy blanket covering everything.

"Sarah!?" The operator was calling, telling her to stay on the line with her.

"I'm here..." She murmured drowsily.

"Where is you attacker, Sarah? Is he still there?"

"Yes. He's here..." Sarah slurred as she slumped to one side, ending up on her belly propped up by an elbow. Everything was so red all of a sudden. And her head hurt so much, nothing else hurt at all anymore. She felt like throwing up. She felt like laying down and going to sleep.

"Sarah? What is he doing? Sarah!?"

"Nothing... He's not doing anything..." Sarah whispered and avoided looking at the body laying sprawled a few yards away. "I killed him."