Shit! Shit!
The words were a frantic, silent scream in his skull, a relentless drumbeat that matched the frantic pounding of his heart against his ribs. His vision tunneled, the world outside the glowing rectangle of his phone screen dissolving into a meaningless blur of gray and green—the drab colors of the Forest Pack's outskirts. He was hyperventilating, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps that did nothing to fill his burning lungs.
His hand, the one clutching the phone, was shaking so violently that the image on the screen was a constant, nauseating dance. He wanted to hurl the device, to watch it shatter against the trunk of a gnarled oak tree, to release the violent torrent of rage that was building inside him like a pressure cooker about to explode. But he couldn't. He couldn't.
