When the walkie cut off, Avery couldn't help but feel a stab of fear deep in her gut. Was he attacked? Or did he just have to turn it off for some reason? She had no way of knowing and was about to turn in his direction and rush off when she heard a noise in the distance.
She turned to find a person tied up with another person looking over them. They were situated in the middle of a stone pentagram with candles all around…definitely one of those ritual sites.
"I think I found something. Should I stay here or go after that idiot whose walkie was cut off?" Avery questioned into the walkie.
"I'll go make sure he's alright. You take care of whatever you're seeing, and make sure to check in when you're done." Belle answers, she can hear the worry in his voice. She glances over her shoulder one last time in the direction Leslie went, before turning back and sneaking closer to the ritual site.
The person tied up was a younger woman with heavy makeup revealed by the mascara running down her face, caused by silent tears that fell from her face. The person standing above her was a gruff middle-aged man who was glaring at the woman.
"Please let me go, " The woman sobs. Avery sneaks closer and closer to the pair, running to a new tree every time the guy's attention turns toward the girl.
"It'll be over in a second, don't worry." He replies, it's almost a comfort, except for the look of annoyance he keeps shooting the woman, like he just wants everything to be over already. Avery is slowly closing in on the guy as the woman begs for her life, she manages to position herself behind him, she was so close to striking him when the woman glanced over at the last second, her eyes lighting up with hope.
"Shit." Avery curses as the man turns around at the last second and aims a punch at her stomach. She brings her hands down quickly to block but the force of his blows sends her flying into a nearby tree. She coughs up spit, hurriedly gathering her strength and rising to her feet.
The man rushes at her once again and she ducks down as he punches clean through the tree, her eyes widen at the feat of strength, but she recovers and kicks him in the stomach, making him double in half.
"You…bitch." He curses, panting from the pain.
"You literally fucking kidnapped someone and I'm the bitch?" She questions. Her words make him more angry and he rushes at her again. He's strong, but his overall fighting skills are weak, she easily dodged the rest of his attacks as he lumbered around trying to hit her.
She comes up behind him after he tried to hit her again and uses the weapon in her hand to wrap the chain around his neck. She jumps on his back to get more leverage and squeezes as he tries to pry her off. The man stumbles close to a tree and she sticks a foot out to kick it and uses her weight to drag him to the floor and crack his head on the ground.
The combination of that and the choking making him pass out as Avery wipes her hands off. She quickly unties the girl who starts thanking her profusely and uses the ropes to tie the guy up instead.
"Thank you for saving me, that man just grabbed me off the side of the road and brought me here, I thought I was going to die!" The woman exclaims, hugging herself as she shakes, her tears spilling freely.
"You should find somewhere to hide, this forest isn't safe," Avery tells the woman. She nods her head before quickly running off. Avery watches her leave before looking back at the ritual site. She just had to destroy it…but the question was how? There were a bunch of stones set up in a pentagram as well as some poles with animal skulls on them and a few candles.
"Might as well just wreck everything then." She mutters. She starts small, kicking a few rocks around here and there, but by the time she's done there are rocks embedded in trees and the skulls have been crushed to pieces.
With the entire ritual site completely ruined and no chance of setting it up again, Avery takes her leave and heads in a different direction. She leaves the man tied up at the destroyed ritual site, there was nothing she could do about him at the moment.
"I'm all done over here, everything good on your end?" She grabs out the walkie to make her report. She waits for a few seconds but gets nothing but silence.
"Damn it!" She shouts. Now both of her allies? Coworkers? Were missing and she had no idea where they are in the huge fucking forest. She had lost her direction in the fight with the man.
"When lost, the best thing to do is pick a direction and walk, " She mutters confidently. However, that was definitely not the correct decision, as instead of finding anybody, she happened across another ritual site with another random person tied up.
"...You've got to be kidding." She huffs. The ritual site looks easy enough to break, nobody is standing guard, but she has a bad feeling in her gut that quickly turns out to be right when she's chokeslammed into the tree she's hiding behind.
"Urghk!" She chokes out in pain.
"Ha, thought you could sneak up on me, too bad I noticed you coming." A childish voice chuckles. Nobody was standing in front of her, but she was without a doubt getting choked against a tree, so Avery kicked out with her feet, trying to strike the invisible opponent.
"Hk!" Something in front of her makes a noise and the hands around her neck disappear. Something flickers in front of her and she finds herself staring straight at a child glaring at her in anger.
"You'll pay for that!" He yells out in anger, before disappearing again. Avery can't help but wonder why she ever took up the offer to come here in the first place.