--Shadow--
I pushed thick, dark, unruly bangs out of veiw, sparing a short-lived glance towards where I had watched Fallyn sprint off last, worry suddenly kindling inside me. We'd already dragged back the Demond's body, despite Virgil's incessant complaining, and she was still no where to be seen. My pixie was faster than that. She should have been back by now.
But she wasn't.
I recalled her face as I had last seen it, just a few short moments ago. Her long brown hair shining in the fading light, green eyes sparkling despite the unhappy scowl that twisted her thin lips. Other than having to return the shovels, there had been no negatives. No reason to run off. Unless... Had she really been upset about the shovels? I knew how Fallyn could he about that sort of thing... Maybe Colby had been right about Anubis' presence. Maybe it was making her... No. No, that was improbable. I knew Fallyn much better than that. She may have a tendency to act lazy and unwilling, but underneath their was much more to her. Granted, she preferred that manual labor be avoided, but who didn't?
"Where is she?" Colby muttered under his breath. "God, she better not have stopped to steal something else..."
I blinker, then smiled. I'd forgotten the way Colby was about his younger sister Though it was doubtful she ever looked up at him with the wide, admiring eyes of a sweet, adoring little girl, he looked down at her with the eyes of a protector and father. He still saw her as she had been when I'd first found then. Minuscule. Defenseless. Adorable.

I recalled fondly upon the memory of our first meeting. Fallyn had been only seven, her hair longer then than it was now, falling to her bony knees in matted strands. Her thick, dark lashes fluttered with curiosity, even as she hid herself behind her older brother. Colby was much older than Fallyn, though she still hadn 't a clue. When Fallyn was seven, he'd already turned twenty-three, though he barely looked eighteen. When I'd stumbled upOn them, alone in an alley, Colby had let out the most terrifying snarl everytime I had dared to get within touching distance of the small girl. Even for the next year that followed, he'd still let loose a growl every time I stepped to near to her. It was only when she'd broken from her shell and let her true, stubborn personality show through that he retreated from the position of guard dog, and becoming her secret guardian angel, waiting in the wings for her to ever need him.
"OH MY GOD!" Anna-Marie shrieked. I whipped around, hand flying to the knife concealed at my hip, only to see a large spruce tree topple over mere inches from Anna-Marie's scrambling form. I muttered a curse that would have earned me a raised eyebrow from Fallyn. Another tree fell, this one closer to me. U ducked and rolled to the left, leaping to my feet just in time to hear Anna-Marie's shout of fear as another demon came tearing out of the forest.
Fallyn wound have to wait.
We had problems of our own.