(It's) Always There
Copyright© 2026 by Daniel Tors
Chapter 9
Right. Of course.
Murky, glinting bathwater pooled just up to the soles of Case’s boots as he finished dumping the bucket’s contents, sharply forcing it downward a couple times to get any last drops out before collapsing the metal rings back into a disk. Tolerating a few steps of residually wet rubber squeaking and splashing against stone, he left the small alcove, passed the entrance gap with a glance, then sat next to Navy by their firepit, remaining undried fur met with a warm, clean feeling as its dampness began to steam off.
Within a few seconds, Hane, who was across from him, and Red, who was on watch opposite the three of them, stood. Speaking quietly so his voice wouldn’t carry, Hane told Navy, “Make the soap how you were shown,” then turned to Case and added, “Switch with Red. We’re back in twelve.”
At the first notes of Navy answering, “Okay,” the wolf replied over her, “I’ll go. You’re up more than any of us.”
Hane, who’d already turned away to leave, stopped – not starkly, not naturally. The two that were going to stay behind were side-eyed for a few seconds, Case specifically as he put on his gear and got up to do as he suggested. For whatever reason, their commander didn’t say a thing while Case readied himself.
Breaking the silence, Hane answered, “Sure,” and subtly motioned them to leave as he took watch of the entrance.
The light of their fire extended barely at all into the long cave passage, a wall of black leaving them able to see not a foot in front of themselves after mere steps, and totally sightless in some short moments after, Case gliding one of his left knuckles on the wall so he always knew where it was. His hand felt empty air as they passed the first offshoot, the hallway then angling in a way that removed their campfire from view.
Red’s tone was low and deep, enough that nothing he said would clearly echo much of anywhere, and he began casually, “ ... So.” In the pause, Case heard a smile form.
“I assumed everyone had an instinct for it, good or bad, but someone proving me wrong every once in a while has its charms.”
Matching his volume, Case told him with far less amusement, “Spit it out.”
“Shockingly, being coy hasn’t made the two of you eye-fucking every moment you’re together any less obvious.”
“I just ditched her,” Case said, resisting the urge to add, “dumbfuck,” to the end of his sentence; it’d only encourage him.
Red ignored what he said and piled on more assertions. “It’s almost cute watching you two virgins figure out how to be around each other like the concept of boys and girls having feelings was invented yesterday. I say almost, because it’s more like having to watch a grown man get flustered when he goes to stick his dick in his sixth-grade girlfriend.” He stopped for effect, feeling very, very proud of himself. “The kind of woman you ought to be with would flatten your heart for daring to even approach the sort of shit you’ve been doing.”
The fox’s full set of teeth were surely borne in a snide, delighted grin. Case wasn’t in the mood to act like this deserved a reply.
Certain after a little while that he’d be the only one running his mouth, Red chuckled at his own joke, and mocked, “‘Pleeeeease, Hane? If I don’t go then she might touch my arm or talk to me!’”
Case said nothing back. He felt his expression agitate.
...
... Red’s fucking noxious voice rang hopefully for the last time right after they crossed the final side-passage. Surely he’d shut up after this.
Quieter, he said, “It’s pathetic, really.”
They knelt by the pool, uncollapsed their buckets, filled them, and headed back; nearly done.
Profiles made over twice as wide, the two of them accommodated by having Red walk just in front, Case using a mental map of their route so he wouldn’t accidentally bang metal into anything. The task wasn’t difficult ... yet still, someone felt like making it worse.
“I’m sure you’d feel real clever shutting up every time I say something, but I expect an answer to this one, and all the rest,” the fox started, Case’s posture stiffening then letting go at the last four words. “First one’s easy. Why’d you stop and explain to the girl how to stay quiet after she got shot?”
Dumb question. “If I didn’t, she makes a noise, then gets found and shot in the face.”
“You don’t see anything wrong with how you did it? Nothing at all?”
... Unsure what Red could be referencing, he though it over. “ ... No.”
All he got back was, “Hmm,” before Red quickly moved on. “And fucking her didn’t get anything out of you – other than the obvious?”
“It was a favor,” he answered. “Navy was scared, so I did what she asked, for the sake of everyone. May as well have been ordered to.”
“That why you went alone into the woods a few nights ago? To keep a dead weight from running away as a... favor?” Case’s brow furrowed, but Red spoke over him. “Couldn’t have been that you wanted your girlfriend to stop crying and stay a while longer. Not a lot of guys could watch a girl get an hour of sleep every night because she’s so scared and not do anything to help – fewer if she’s scared of you.”
The wolf’s teeth grit, and the answer was passed through them. “Would you rather she stole a gun and killed us in our sleep?”
“I’d rather you were capable of breaking that girl’s bones if she did.”
Insulted, Case spat back, “What makes you think I couldn’t?”
His elder wasted no time, saying back, “You’ve scraped that wall five times.”
Eye’s rolling mid-comeback, Case retorted, “It’s pitch-fucking-black, asshole; what do you want from me?”
“I want it at zero. I want you to make a proper map and reverse-map while we’re pushing that light down hallways for an hour clearing this place. I want you to check the entrance before you’re already walking past it. I want you to know exactly where we’ll be when you enter camp and not have to look for us like an amateur. I want you to pay attention and do what you’re ordered to.” With emphasis he concluded, “Which is exactly what you’re not doing, right now.”
For the sake of it, because he wouldn’t degrade himself to Red’s level and answer every petty comment: nobody was there so who cares if he touches the wall a couple times, Case did make a mental map that he’s currently using, he did check the entrance properly (which is a crevice they could barely fit in and has harsh enough turns that someone couldn’t even throw anything through it), looking around does not mean he didn’t know what positions they were at in camp, and he was trying to pay attention to their job, but... “You. are distracting. me. How am I supposed to focus when you’re–”
“Where are we? Specifically.”
Case said something nondescript but definitely insulting under his breath. “I just told–”
Red stopped, then turned to face him. “I shouldn’t be able to distract you. When I say, ‘I don’t think this decision was right,’ you answer when you’re certain, and tell me why. When I ask you a bullshit question, you tell me to shut the fuck up. When I sling a schoolyard-level insult about you being a pedophile, you don’t get mad like a little boy.”
They stood there for a second, the fox staring him down. When he went to resume getting back to camp, he said first, “Fuck her; I don’t care. But the girl is a problem. Fix it.”
... What Case wanted to use that next half-second for would only give Red exactly what he wanted, but no snake-talk would keep the pain of his jaw dislocating, and no amount of indignant superiority would keep his will from bending once fox teeth pattered on any hard surface they were flung at, the sweet echo of his skin tearing and skull flexing sent down the halls as the last thing he’d experience before Case let him stop feeling for a while – before Case made it a long, long time until his face could even suggest an emotion again, let alone speak. There was no chance Red could win if the wolf tried anything ... and his superior had always known that.
Doing what he should’ve, he kept quiet. Red didn’t continue for a bit, then a while more, their travel going silent, not so much as a scratch against the wall.
The total dark lifted in a couple minutes, Red whistling at the semi-bright dot as they followed and soon arrived at the edge of it. From there, Case heard his commander talking, him and Navy found sat where Red was on watch, Hane’s gaze kept almost solely on the entrance while the girl aimed down the iron sights of her handgun.
Removing the soap, Red set the first of their pails to boil, and Hane was close enough he could be understood. He ordered, “Stand and do it again.”
The tiger got up, holstered her gun, then all at once drew it, took a decent shooting stance, and lined up her sights. Upon Hane saying, “Again,” after about ten-ish of making her hold it, Navy relaxed back into the starting position, then repeated the exercise. Going long enough that the first batch nearly reached a boil, Hane told her to take positions against a wall, around a corner, crouching, prone, and the like while getting Navy to relax, draw, and hold her aim, each time her form being good enough to obviously have been learned rather than guessed – only being able to use one arm did make her movements unideal, but the handicap really just proved the initial observation.
Knelt with the clothes he’d be washing beside, Case took the cleaned water, poured some of the soap, and got to kneading.
After the dozenth set of tests, Hane seemed convinced of whatever he was looking for and motioned Navy back over. Consensually taking the handgun from her, the shepherd removed its magazine and loaded it from his backpack, telling her all the while, “You’re to keep and use this weapon the same as you have been, but you’re not just pretending that it’s a threat anymore. So, if you have to pull it, and you’re certain without a doubt that whoever you’re seeing isn’t one of us, then aim for the chest and don’t stop squeezing the trigger until they stop moving.” Hane offered the gun to her, adding, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
A beat skipped in their interaction, her eventual acceptance of the gift hesitant yet seemingly done knowing that the circumstance demanded she held herself with some confidence. Looking to Hane for something or lost in thought for a moment, Navy had to stop herself mid-leaving either way.
“Right, uh ... I won’t. And thank you.”
Slightly murky and rippling water reflected her coming to sit by him again.
Like usual, a loaded weapon of any kind involved a different feeling to be around than one that wasn’t, especially when it belonged to someone, and especially when that someone wasn’t sufficiently comfortable with them. She wasn’t dumb – he didn’t think Navy was going to pull it for no reason or somehow manage to accidentally set it off in her holster; the question remained, however, if she should be trusted with it. A glimpse of her caught while securing a shirt on the tripod didn’t temper his concerns, the brief visual of the tiger’s mildly slouched and uneasy posture only telling him that she wasn’t ready for the responsibility. Self-defense is of course something each of them should be capable of, but, even if she’s no moron, being around an inexperienced girl with a loaded handgun is something he’d always have to think about. It’s more dangerous, it adds more doubt, and they need neither.
... True, only so much of it was her fault, but the problem was a lack of discipline. Sure, Navy could hold a gun competently, but if, at night when she feels completely alone, when they’re somewhere else or just can’t risk talking, how could they trust that she won’t accidentally pull the trigger too hard at nothing, or blow open her shin while trying to draw, let alone keep from filling a silhouette with lead until she knows for sure that it’s a stranger’s. Beyond that, while it might not have been difficult to tell she understood how to handle at least that one firearm, the stances she took weren’t exactly ironclad. Standing positions were when she did best, chest angled towards her shooting arm, knees bent slightly with the right foot supporting the left, arm either outstretched with the sights aligned or put close to her side for hip-firing all done quickly and reliably. Anything past the first stances someone would learn for one-handed shooting weren’t improvised, but were questionable. Even if her draw was good while crouched, her legs were bent and placed poorly enough that Case found it hard to imagine she could fire more than once without falling over, so any time Navy didn’t have support opposite to her aim was just asking for a misfire. Flipping that, Navy’s drawing and aiming was at its worst on the floor – prone, sideways, all of them – and losing balance was, inevitably, not an issue. On that thought, keeping her back arched, leaning her weight, and setting her legs all for stability didn’t count for much when it took the tiger almost a full second to get her gun out and aim it so bad that hitting something ten yards away wasn’t a guarantee.
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