I glance up, hand shielding my eyes from the glare. A black silhouette arcs overhead. There are a couple crows circling once before disappearing toward the treeline.
Talon follows my gaze, his expression souring.
“Ah, fuck. Not this again…” He pushes off the rail and takes a few steps back, still watching the sky. “It always starts like this. Then before you can blink, there’s a horde of them.”
He turns away, arm flinging, and just like that, the moment’s gone.
Sure enough, on the far side of the hospital roofline, another crow swoops in. Then two more.
“Those fuckers,” Talon mutters. He jogs down the stairs toward an overgrown bush beside the railing. “I spent the whole morning chasing them off, and they’re already back.”
I watch as he bends into the bush and comes up with a small slingshot, the rubber band stretched tight.
The hell…?
He catches my look and lifts a brow.
“I ain’t gonna shoot the damn birds with real bullets. I just need to scare them.”
Ah. So he has mercy for animals. Fair enough. Animals are better than murderers anyway.
Talon plucks a few pebbles from the cracked concrete and slips one into the sling.
The first crow lands on the roof’s edge and croaks loudly, like it knows what Talon’s about to do and wants to taunt him for it.
“Yeah, keep looking at me like that,” he mutters, pulling back the band and letting it snap.
The pebble whistles through the air. The crow hops sideways, utterly unbothered, and croaks again.
Then another joins it. Then a third. Then… too many to count.
My weird feeling returns… I know it now without a doubt. Whatever this is, it ties back to Pain’s words from before.
I have enemies out there. And I’m not talking about the wraiths.
I step off the railing. “Talon—”
“I know,” he says without looking up, firing again. The pebble pings off the gutter. “But I’ve done this all day. They’ll scatter. Just need to keep at it.”
Except they don’t scatter.
More wingbeats cut through the air, flocks spilling out from the trees, their shapes blotting out pieces of the pale sky. They wheel overhead, a dark vortex, each croak threading into the next until the sound becomes one pulsing, ugly rhythm.
I’d spent plenty of time around ravens and crows before. The ones that loved to sit on the willow tree always seemed like small annoying allies that just liked to breathe down my back from time to time.
These ones aren’t like them.
Talon swears under his breath. “Persistent little shits.”
I don’t know how much longer this lasts. Him, me, the sound of the slingshot snapping, the sharp ping of pebbles hitting metal and stone.
But the crows don’t flinch.
They getcloser.
The first drops from the roofline, wings spread wide, swooping low enough that I feel the rush of air against my hair. Another dives past Talon’s shoulder, its black eye cutting straight to me before it pulls up again.
A third comes lower still, so low I actually have to duck.
