He sat in the car for a long moment trying to figure out if he was going to follow. It wasn’t as hard to follow the ghostly shadows from the car. Here he was protected, by the steel and plastic of Frankencar’s bulk as well as the general sense of ‘I can run away’. Of course the dogs could walk right through the car and they’d already shown that they could run faster than he could drive, so it was a false sense of security. But he clung to it anyways.

Now they wanted him to get out of the car, and apparently head into the middle of forest. He peered into the circle of light made by the headlights. There wasn’t even a path. He dug in the glove compartment for the flashlight and shook it a few times to charge the chemical battery. He was still trying to decide what to do when one of the dogs started moving back towards the car.

Sebastian was right, they couldn’t -make- him do anything, but he had proof on his arm that they could make him regret refusing. He rubbed his arm and frowned at the dogs. The closest one, Tos, snarled at him, a soundless rumbling that he felt more than heard. He sighed and got out of the car, flicking on the flashlight as the headlights went off. The headlights had made a tiny cone of light against the woods, the flashlight made only a tiny circle on the ground.

Tos snorted, and turned back to the rest of the pack. They started heading into the woods, in a ‘follow me’ attitude. As if he wouldn’t refuse. He stopped, a few feet away from the car, just to see if they’d leave him behind. For a moment they did, then Tos was back to snarl at him, and he jogged to catch up.