Fox Life

Before Iris could change her mind, she was already by Tyler's house. It had been a long trek, but she didn't feel tired. Nervous energy was running through her system as she crouched near his building.     

When there was no sound for a couple more minutes, she dashed inside. There were swing doors blocking the ground floor from the stairs, and they were her first challenge. With a little effort, she could push them open, but that would certainly be noticed by people inside, if anyone was in the hallway.     

For a good minute, Iris just sat next to the door, listening. There were certainly people inside—she could hear them speaking in the distance—but they were muffled by two sets of doors to the point that she couldn't make out anything they were saying.     

As she pondered over that, she heard the sound of footsteps on granite. 'Someone's here!' Without a second thought, Iris charged through the swing door, putting trust in her luck. There didn't seem to be anyone in the hallway, but if they were being quiet…     

It showed up that fortune was favoring her—there was nobody to notice her entrance. The sound from the door was a little loud for her, but nobody seemed to pay attention to it.     

"You've been let out just for Iris to see, so why aren't you happy? You can stay home and be among us."     

Iris instantly zeroed in on her own name. Had she been discovered? But no, based on the words, someone was using her as an excuse for something.     

'Wait… Let out for me to see?' That sounded a little too ominous for her taste.     

On soft feet, she walked closer to the room. Soon, she realized that it was coming from the one in which the little girl had changed. 'The little girl that had been missing…'     

With a lump in her throat, Iris poked her head through the open doorway. Tyler was standing facing a wall with a little weasel in his hand. He was frowning at it, his eyebrows scrunched to the point they collided into one.     

"Mila, sto— Ah!" His scream startled Iris, and she pulled back, her heart in her throat. "Stupid kid, don't know what's good for her," Tyler hissed, and Iris glanced into the room again to see him sucking on his finger.     

He was holding the little weasel by the tail in his other hand, as far away from himself as possible. The little girl was struggling to raise up and bite him once more, but didn't seem to be capable of it.     

"Kids," Tyler muttered like it was a curse and walked to a corner of the room where a hamster cage stood on a dresser. "I wanted to do good by you and release you, but you seem to prefer this. Have it then." He opened the door and threw Mila in with no gentleness.     

As he did so, Iris saw blood drip on the dresser from his finger. Tyler noticed it too. He glared at his sister once more, then strode out of the room without looking at anything.     

Iris lowered herself as close to the ground as possible to make herself less noticeable, but it was unnecessary. Tyler didn't even glance her way, rushing off to his room.     

Since that was the case, Iris entered the room he had just vacated. From her position on the ground she couldn't see much, so she appraised the dresser with a critical eye. Was she capable of that?     

Lucifer would have no trouble, but her… 'I can do it!' she told herself, and her eyes lit up with the flame of a challenge accepted. 'Lucy didn't waste his time teaching me!'     

With that thought in mind, she took a few steps back to get a running start and got ready. 'One, two, three!' Like a bullet, she flashed toward the dresser and scaled it in two steps.     

But her momentum wasn't over yet. She tried to stop herself, but her body was mid-action and just crashed into the cage. The collision dazed Iris, and she lay stunned for a moment, Lucy's disapproving face swimming around her head.     

'It's fine, nobody saw that,' she encouraged herself, and met eye to eye with a curious weasel. 'Argh!' As she yelped in surprise, she almost fell off the dresser.     

"Tyler! What's that noise?" a woman's voice called from another room, and Iris froze. All her amusement evaporated like water under the desert sun.     

"Probably Mila just throwing a tantrum. Let me bind up the bite and I'll talk to her again," Tyler answered from a distance away, his voice barely audible.     

'Stupid, stupid, stupid.' Iris realized that they had to have heard her crash into the cage. There had been more than a little noise. 'So much for me being sneaky.'     

As she thought to jump down and hide somewhere, she saw two beady eyes boring into her. She couldn't read them, but the little pink nose poking at the cage's door made their plea more than obvious.     

'You want out?' Iris wasn't certain that was a good idea, but then, Mila was a little girl put in a cage by her own family… It was wrong on so many levels that Iris didn't even have words to describe it.     

She used her claws to open the door, which was a little more troublesome than she'd thought, but she did it. The little girl dashed out like she was on fire, but when she reached the edgeof the dresser, she backed away. There was a good distance down, especially for something as small as her.     

But they didn't have time. Iris grabbed Mila by her collar as she'd seen parent animals do and jumped off. She wasn't that much bigger, and her body trembled from the shock of the landing, but she swiftly regained control of her movement.     

The little girl was lying limp in her grasp, too terrified to move, so Iris dashed off while carrying her. In the hallway, she saw Tyler leaving his room, and she made for the swing doors.     

"Iris?" he called out in surprise, his footsteps faltering, but Iris didn't hesitate. She just increased her speed and rammed through the door with all she had.     

Then, on a flash of inspiration, she ran up the stairs instead of escaping into the street. She didn't have the ability to get to the second floor before Tyler would rush out after them, so she slid to the far side of the landing area after the first flight of stairs, where she wouldn't be seen, and lowered herself to the ground while trying to control her panting.     

As expected, when Tyler crashed through the door the next moment, he ran straight outside. He kept calling out her name, surprise in his voice changing into fury.     

A shiver ran through Iris when she thought about what would happen if she got caught, but it only strengthened her resolve to remain free. When she was certain he wouldn't hear her, she walked up the rest of the stairs to the first floor. There, she walked down the hallway to where an old dusty table stood.     

After putting down the still stunned Mila, Iris rolled around in the dust, of which there was way more than any hallway had any right to have, until her coat was as gray as the floor. She then lay down in the corner and pulled the little girl to her side, curling her tail around her, like Lucy had done for her.     

'I wont let them put you in a cage again,' she promised while giving the girl a lick on the nose. 'Rest now. We'll have a lot of walking to do once they end their search.'