Four people sit in a grey Humvee. The driver, a massive black man called Abe, turns to smile at the petite blonde woman in the front seat. Chloe Tousignant returns his smile. In the seats behind them, veterinary pathologist Mitch Morgan and animal behaviour expert Jackson Oz settle back. It's late in the day, and they have a long way to go.
"Alright," Mitch says. "So what's the plan?"
"We drive to Delaware," Chloe replies, turning in her seat. "There's a boat that will take us to Jamie."
"A boat?" Mitch says, incredulous.
"Yeah," Jackson explains, "It'll take eighteen hours or so, but… you know." He shrugs. "Air travel."
"Yeah." Mitch drawls the word. "I'm OK not getting on a plane for a while."
Jackson pushes up the left sleeve of his shirt to expose a ragged piece of tissue. Pulling it aside, he glances at the wound beneath – multiple punctures, green-brown and unhealthy – and winces.
"Hey, what is that?" Mitch asks, pointing at the wound. "You alright?"
"Oh yeah, yeah. It's nothing, just a dog bite. It's fine."
"That needs to be cleaned out. Doesn't look too good."
"Hold on," Abe says, slowing the car. His wary brown eyes are riveted on the road ahead.
Now everyone is staring at the mass pack of animals that completely block the intersection ahead. In the distance, they can just see the familiar white shape of the Capitol Building, but their attention is on the snarling, roaring, spitting, hissing beasts.
"What the hell?" Chloe says.
"This doesn't look too good either," Mitch says with typical black humour.
"Any ideas?" Abe says. "I'm open to suggestions."
As one, the animals charge.
"Here's an idea – get us the hell out of here!" Mitch shouted, feet peddling as he tried to push himself back in his seat. He clutched the overhead hand hold.
Abe was already reacting. He threw the big Humvee into reverse and stood on the gas, glancing frantically over his shoulder to make sure he didn't hit anything. The combined tumult of hooves, roars and shrieks was deafening, and only getting louder.
Seconds later they reached another intersection. Abe reversed through it, slammed on the brakes and powered the car into drive. Chloe clutched at the dashboard, her eyes wide with terror. Sweating, Abe put his foot to the floor and spun the wheel, turning into another road. The superpack sped after them.
"Take another left here," Jackson commanded, gripping the seat in front of him. Tyres screeched as Abe obeyed. As Jackson gave a string of directions the sound of the pack grew more distant with every passing minute.
"Where are we going?" Chloe asked as she sat back, drawing her trembling hands into her lap. She wasn't relaxed – none of them were relaxed – but she appeared to have come out of high alert.
"Another way out of the city," Jackson explained.
A lumbering shape ahead made Abe stamp the breaks again. The tyres screamed. They all jerked forward, seatbelts cutting into their torsos.
A trio of rhinos blocked the road. They pawed at the tarmac and snorted.
Abe glanced in the rear view mirror at the same time that Chloe checked the side mirror.
"Guys, we have a problem," she said.
Mitch and Jackson turned to look through the rear window. The road behind was blocked by a pride of six fully grown male lions, all roaring and showing their teeth.
"I never got to tell Jamie I love her," Mitch muttered, drawing a hand over his stubble.
"And you can still tell her," Jackson said, unbuckling his seat belt. "But you'll have to go through the sewer to do it." He began to push the door open.
"Are you crazy?" Mitch said, grabbing his arm. "If you go out there there'll kill you! Not to mention the whole 'let's walk through the stinking sewer of D.C' thing you got going on there!"
The lions prowled closer, all snarling and displaying their teeth. The male on point roared. The three rhinos lowered their heads and advanced.
"There is no time to discuss this!" Chloe yelled, unsnapping her seat belt. "There is no other way!" She pushed open her door and scrambled out, seizing her overnight bag from the top of the Humvee. A second later Jackson followed her.
"Can't we, oh, I don't know, go into a damned building?" Mitch called, head turning as he looked between the lions and the rhinos.
"And draw all these animals down upon the tenants?" Abe said, pressing the release button on his seatbelt. "Much as I dislike the idea of wading through the sewers, my conscience could not rest easy if I allowed others to be harmed to ensure my safety." Then he, too, was climbing out of the car.
"Well that's just swell," Mitch grumbled, ditching his seatbelt and exiting the Humvee. "We all get to be sewer rats, but by gosh Abe's conscience is salved."
Outside, the lion's snarls grew more infuriated. As Mitch grabbed his bag and joined the others he saw Abe working on the nearest manhole cover, great muscles in his arms bulging as he strained to lift the heavy metal. They were out of sight of the rhinos, but the lions paused in their advance, trying to work out what they were doing.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Mitch urged, still looking around. "Those lions are going to figure this out any second now!"
"You could always lend a hand!" Abe gasped. A second later he'd managed to haul the cover onto the sidewalk.
Jackson wasted no time. He dumped his bag and started climbing down the metal ladder. Chloe followed, throwing Mitch an impatient 'suck it up' look. He rolled his eyes, shrugged, and lowered himself over the edge.
The lead lion let out an enraged snarl and charged, the others following suit. The rhinos bellowed and broke into a gallop.
"Oh dear Lord," Abe moaned. He threw the bags down the manhole and almost jumped into it himself. It was a tight fit and for a second he was terrified he'd get stuck, but he felt hands pulling at his legs.
"Pull harder!" he yelled, reaching for the heavy metal cover. He hauled it closer. Another sharp tug and he was below street level. He manhandled the cover into place a second before a lion thudded onto it, sending jarring pain down his arms. But their roars were abruptly cut off.
So was the light.
Seconds later three pinpricks of light broke the darkness – Mitch, Jackson and Chloe all had their cell phones out and were working the flashlight app. The tiny specks barely broke the gloom, but at least they could see where they were putting their feet.
And where they were putting their feet was…
"If we get out of this alive, remind me to kill you," Mitch grumbled at Jackson, his forearm over his mouth. "Though if you're lucky I'll just throw up all over you."
"What, you never waded through a stinking sewer before?" Jackson joked, though his expression was pained.
"One of you had better know where we are going," Chloe sniped. "Or I'm with Mitch on this one."
"Hey… when have I ever led you wrong?" Jackson, too, put his arm over his mouth and nose.
The other three exchanged a significant look.
"Ray Endicott," they said in unison.
"He got us to Africa." Jackson was defensive.
"And then he got eaten by a leopard," Abe growled. "A fate I am not keen to emulate. So lead us, Rafiki, and by all that's holy you'd better know where you are going."
"All right, all right… look, the city's built on a grid system. So are the sewers. If we head toward the edge of the city we can come out in the suburbs."
Something squeaked in the darkness. Because of the echoing nature of the tunnels it was impossible to tell how far away it had come from, or from which direction.
"Rats," Chloe said. "You get rats in sewers."
They wasted no more time. Bags over shoulders, they waded through the effluent; at times the tunnels were wide enough to accommodate narrow ledges, but those times were few and far between.
"This is no worse than tracking an animal through the wilderness," Jackson muttered to himself. "All this… it's just scat."
"Yup, keep telling yourself that," Mitch commented. "Whichever way you look at it, we're walking through poop."
"Thank you, Mr. Science Man." Chloe's tone was acerbic.
"Quiet!" Abe hissed, holding up a hand. "Can you hear that?"
"All I can hear is Mitch whining like a little girl," Jackson grumbled. But they all fell silent and listened.
A squeak, somewhere in the gloom. Then another. And another.
"Do you think the rats here have mutated?" Chloe asked, eyes wide and wild as she waved her light beam over the tunnel. "Like the ones we met before?"
"I say let's not hang around to find out," Mitch advised. "You think we're far enough away from that superpack yet?"
"Impossible to tell," Jackson replied. "All the predators have keen hearing, eyesight or smell, but we're in the middle of Washington D.C. The pollution might hide our trail. If they were looking specifically for us."
Chloe uttered something in French. "We stink of human waste! How can they not track us?"
The squeaks turned into chitters. A sleek brown rat scuttled onto the ledge opposite, stopping deliberately in their light, sitting on its haunches as it watched them. It was joined by a second, third and fourth, until the ledge was brimming with rats.
"Yeah, right now I'd say that question was moot," Mitch said, looking around for the nearest exit.
"Here," Jackson said, standing at the bottom of another ladder. "Abe?"
The big man squeezed past the others. It was a tight fit.
"Get any closer and you can take me out for dinner," Mitch grinned.
"Don't you ever shut up?"
"Sometimes I'm asleep."
Abe shook his head and started climbing the ladder. The rats, finally reaching critical mass, pushed each other into the moving stream of sewage and started swimming across.
"Got that manhole cover open yet?" Jackson asked. "Anytime now would be great…"
"You should try moving it!" Abe called down. He'd braced his hands on the metal and was pushing with all his might.
Another few seconds and the rats would reach the humans' ledge. Chloe was already halfway up the ladder, underneath Abe, while Mitch and Jackson crowded underneath her.
Abe let out of great yell of effort and suddenly fading daylight filtered in from overhead. He tried to climb through… and then stopped.
"I'm stuck!" was the muffled cry from above.
Chloe half-slithered, half-fell down the ladder, landing awkwardly, to allow Jackson space to climb. He braced his shoulders underneath Abe's backside and heaved.
"When was the last time you went on a diet?" he called.
"I happen to have very large bones! Now push harder!"
"If I push any harder I'm gonna break my damned back!"
"So we'll carry your crippled ass out of the sewer," Mitch said. "What we can't do is carry your half-eaten ass out!"
Jackson gave an almighty push, teeth barred in a snarl of effort. Abe popped out of the manhole like a cork from a bottle. Jackson lost his precarious balance and would have fallen if Chloe, a few rungs up the ladder, hadn't braced him.
The first rats made it to the other ledge and scurried up. Mitch lashed out of them, trying to knock them off with his bag. The ones he hit squealed and went flying, making those behind more cautious.
"That's right!" Mitch yelled. "I cut your little buddies in med school, and I'd do it again!"
Abe, now topside, turned to haul Jackson out. Chloe shot up the ladder with Mitch on her heels. Unrestrained, the rats surged after them, squealing and chittering wildly. Mitch collapsed onto the asphalt, feeling sharp claws scratching at his jeans, before Abe dropped the heavy metal cover.
Mitch rolled and kicked at the few rats attacking him, but seeing they lacked the backup of the horde, they dropped off and scurried away. Mitch jumped to his feet, glasses and hair askew.
"I did your momma too!" he yelled at the retreating rats.
"You do remember what those rat mommas were like, don't you?" Jackson said, hands on hips.
"I remember your description." Mitch straightened his glasses, ran a hand through his hair. "Bet there's good eating on one of those. Wonder how many spices the Colonel would have to use."
They found a replacement for the Humvee they'd lost, a big navy-coloured 4x4. Abe broke the window with a brick, killed the alarm and hotwired the vehicle. A minute later they were driving through the deserted streets of D.C.
"Did any of those rats scratch or bite your skin?" Jackson asked Mitch once they were safely underway.
"Yeah. Picked up a couple scratches." He twitched the hem of one pants leg aside, revealing several long red marks.
"We'll need to clean those out the first chance we get. Given where we've just been, it's likely they'll become infected."
"Just like that dog bite?"
"It's nothing," Jackson reiterated.
"Fine, you want to get an infection, be my guest." Mitch threw his hands up and leaned back.
"The man does have some medical training, Rafiki," Abe rumbled from the driver's seat.
"All right, all right, maybe it does need looking at. I'll get it sorted when we stop for gas."
The 4x4 sped away from the city. Some distance behind them, a lone wolf – a huge grey-brown timber wolf – raised his nose from the tarmac, orange eyes burning as he stared after the vehicle. He threw his head back and howled.
A second wolf joined him, smaller, sleeker. His mate. She nuzzled her alpha. More wolves closed in behind them, all familiarising themselves with the human smell.
The big male uttered a single growling bark and broke into a run. One by one the pack followed, spreading out into a long line of hungry wolves that ate the miles with an easy, loping gait. The hunt was on.
The stop for gas actually turned out to be a stop for the night. It was only a two hour drive to Delaware, but it had been late in the day when Chloe had completed the travel arrangements and they were finally ready to leave D.C. Add to that the time they'd spent tramping through the sewers, and the day was gone before they'd driven far out of the city.
Jackson directed them to a combination motel/diner. There was a gas station on the other side of the road, so Abe refilled the 4x4 while the others paid for rooms.
"Sorry, Chloe," Mitch said as the receptionist – a tough old guy in his late sixties – handed them room keys. "I know you're used to sharing with Jamie." His face twisted, as if it hurt to say her name. "At least I don't snore."
"That's a fib," Jackson said as they left the lobby. "You should hear him." He patted Mitch none-too-gently on the shoulder. "Sounds like a buzz saw." He headed off in front of them.
"Why don't you go on ahead?" Mitch said, looking at the floor. "I, uh, I got a little something in my eye."
"I know you miss Jamie," Chloe said, touching his arm. "But we will do everything in our power to find her. I promise you."
Mitch nodded, not meeting her eyes.
After they all took an extended shower and a change of clothes Abe, Chloe and Jackson met in the diner next to the motel. Mitch claimed he had a headache but would probably join them later. He wasn't fooling anyone – they all knew he planned to make a call to Jamie's borrowed satellite phone. There was no reason for his mild deception, but they all respected his need for privacy.
Chloe and Abe picked a table near the rear of the diner, not wishing to attract too much attention – difficult when Abe was such a big man. Jackson ordered food at the bar and returned carrying four beer bottles.
"I do not like the crowd in here tonight," Abe murmured, taking the proffered beer. "There is a restless energy to them. People with too much energy look for trouble, and they generally find it."
"I agree," Chloe nodded. "These men and women look as if they have been drinking for many hours. I say we eat our food and go back to the motel."
Jackson dropped into his seat and took a healthy swig of beer, using the movement to look around the room. His business was animal behaviour and that included humans; to his experienced eye, the men and women in this room – a mix of denim-wearing, thick-bearded men and peroxide-blonde bar gals – were one drink away from violence. There was a clump of them around the pool table, and they played with the quiet, single-minded intensity that signified money had been laid down. Big money.
"I agree," he said, reaching for his fries. "Let's just eat our food and go."
Back in the motel, Mitch dropped onto the single bed and dialled a number on his cell. On the other end of the line the sat phone rang and rang. Mitch closed his eyes and put his hand over them.
"Come on," he muttered. "Please, Jamie, please pick up…"
"I really hope this is Mitchell Morgan, because if you try and sell me life insurance I'm hanging up right now."
"Don't hang up!" Mitch blurted. Then he winced, pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ah, yeah. It's Mitch."
"I'm so glad you called!"
Her voice was unsteady. He pictured her, alone on an island in the middle of nowhere with a crazy old guy who didn't speak English, recovering from what had to have been terrible injuries from that damned plane crash. They hadn't spoken about it, but there was no way she could have got out of it unscathed. They all had scars.
"So, uh… how you doing?" he asked. He'd been dying to speak to her all day, to hear her voice, and now the moment was here he'd drawn a total blank on what to say. "That guy, what's his name? He treating you OK?"
"He's called Aippaq." She laughed, stumbling over the name. "And yeah, he's treating me just fine. He saved my life, Mitch."
"He, uh…" Mitch rubbed the back of his neck. "He hasn't tried to…" He sucked air through his teeth, grimaced. "I mean has he… sheesh, this is awkward…"
"Are you asking what I think you're asking?" He heard humour now, but it was tinged with outrage.
"I don't even know what I'm asking." But they both knew. One guy, locked in a compound with one good looking woman. Yeah, they both knew. "Look, just forget I said anything…"
"Aippaq is a good man. He's looking after me. More importantly, he's looking after Irniq."
"Irniq…"
"The leopard cub, Mitch…"
"He named it?"
"It is a he, and yeah, he named him. He raised that little guy. Irniq's all grown up now. So, uh… when you stopping by?"
"Soon," Mitch said. "Real soon. We had a little trouble getting out of D.C. and we've stopped overnight. Chloe says we're catching a boat tomorrow, so if all goes well we should reach you… really, really late at night."
"I can't wait! I really missed you guys!"
He hoped he hadn't misheard the breathless excitement in her voice.
"We, uh… we missed you, too. I missed you." He dragged his hand over his face. "Jamie, I thought you were dead…" His voice cracked. He couldn't say anything else.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, though he thought he heard sniffing on the other end of the line.
"Just get here soon, OK?" Jamie said eventually.
"I will," he rasped. "I promise, I will."
The wolves ran through the night, loping easily along the tarmac. The full, round moon provided all the light they needed to see. Besides, the human scent trail was the real pull.
The lights of the motel were a glittering lure. Just a few miles away now.
"How's the headache?" Jackson asked when Mitch joined them again.
"Headachy. But the ache in my belly's worse. Man needs to eat, that kinda thing." He dropped into the empty seat, peering at Jackson' face. "You're sweating… but it's not hot in here. You get that dog bite looked at yet?"
Jackson touched his arm, self-conscious. "It's fine," he said.
"Yeah? You cleaned it out with disinfectant? Found a pharmacist to give you antibiotics?"
"What about your scratches?"
"Washed 'em out and sprinkled them with iodine."
"You carry iodine around with you?"
"Got a little first aid kit, yup. But I think your dog bite went beyond the first aid kit, oh, about ten hours ago."
"We will get you medical attention when we reach Delaware," Chloe said, looking away from her careful perusal of the bar patrons. "Until then, Jackson, try to keep it clean and covered. There are no antibiotics here."
"But we got some beer!" Mitch said, picking his up and clinking it against Jackson's.
"That we do," the other man laughed.
"Finish your drinks quickly," Chloe said. "I do not trust the atmosphere in this place."
A second later a heavy-set man stumbled across to them. He wore a tight black T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal numerous tattoos, and a worn, sleeveless denim jacket. His jeans were torn and ripped. A full beard covered the lower half of his face, a stark contrast to the lack of hair on the top of his head.
"Hey, darlin'," he rumbled, leering at Chloe. "I put some music on the jukebox. Come and dance with me."
"No thank you," Chloe replied, her large brown eyes widening like a deer scenting danger.
"Come on," Beard Man cajoled. "I put a whole buck in that jukebox. One little dance."
"I think the lady said 'no thank you,'" Mitch said, getting slowly to his feet. "I don't know if they taught you what that means in redneck school, but in civilised society it generally means 'no'. That's spelled n-o."
"I think you better get outta my face," Beard Man growled, "before I do something you'll regret." He loomed nearly a whole head taller than Mitch.
"There is no reason this has to end in violence," Abe announced as he and Jackson stood. Abe found he was the same height as Beard Man, not something he was used to.
"Well, sure there isn't. You and your little pet monkey here just need to stand the hell down."
"I think it's time we left, right?" Jackson tried to intercede, putting one hand on Abe's arm and the other on Beard Man's.
"Get your damned hand off me!" he yelled.
"Hey, just calm down –"
Beard Man swung a punch that caught Jackson square on the jaw. He dropped like a stone. Abe leapt forward and tried to restrain the man but he was ready for him – he caught Abe in a wrestler's grip, and the two set their strength against each other.
The crowd turned ugly. As the other patrons closed in Mitch and Chloe got Jackson upright, an arm slung over their shoulders. His head lolled onto his chest. He was out cold.
"One of these days your tongue is going to get us into some real trouble!" Chloe spat, manhandling Jackson toward the door. They were forced to stop as several big, hairy men blocked the way.
Then the bar was filled with angry and terrified screams. Mitch and Chloe looked around, trying to work out what was happening – and then Mitch spotted a flash of fur.
"Wolves!" he yelled, trying to steer Jackson to the door again.
"We have to get out of here!" Chloe shouted. "Abe! Abe!"
They were jostled from all directions as they struggled to leave. Men and women dropped, their bodies worried by powerful jaws before they were even dead.
A huge wolf barred their way, orange eyes flaming. Its lips were fully drawn back from its teeth as it snarled.
"Mon dieu!" Chloe cried, terrified.
And then Beard Man was there, bashing through the crowd with an unconscious, denim-clad man. He barrelled the panicking people aside and hurled Denim Man at the wolf. The animal ducked out of the way, then turned to leap on Beard Man.
"We have to get to the car and go!" Abe called, pushing his way toward them.
"I have to get my bag!" Mitch yelled back.
"There is no time for that!"
"I have to make time! I left my cell phone back in my room!"
"We all have cell phones, Mitch!"
Chloe made an unladylike sound as they hauled Jackson out of the diner. She understood – it was his lifeline to Jamie.
"Let him go back for his phone! Just help me get Jackson into the car!"
Outside, in the motel / diner's parking lot, it was chaos. Men and women ran screaming into the night, every one pursued by a wolf. The escapees stared in horror as first one, then another, then another, was brought down.
"Mother Nature, everyone," Mitch said, handing Jackson off to Abe. "See ya soon, kids."
Abe manhandled Jackson to the car while Chloe fumbled with the keys. As they worked a wolf watched them, head down, hackles raised. Abe propped Jackson in the back seat while Chloe gunned the engine.
A second wolf appeared. Then a third. A fourth.
"I don't think they are going to let us leave," Chloe whispered.
"I don't think we are going to give them a choice," Abe replied. "Put your foot down, Chloe, and don't stop until we're outside Mitch's door."
"How many points will I get on my license for hitting a wolf?" she asked.
Mitch made it back to the room he would have been sharing with Chloe. He kept looking over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. Once inside he snatched up his cell, shoved it into his pants pocket, and grabbed their bags. Neither of them had done much in the way of unpacking. Chloe would have to leave her cosmetics behind, but he was sure she could go without for a few days.
He left the room behind and peered out into the night, looking for the car. The unforgiving sodium lights revealed more than he wanted to see. Lots of still bodies on the tarmac, one or more wolves standing over each. Where was the damned car?
A snarl in front of him snapped his attention back. He was being watched by a wolf, a huge grey-black animal with luminous orange eyes.
"Oh, hey, Fido," he muttered, backing away. "How you doing? Good boy."
The wolf paced slowly toward him, growling.
"Come on now, you don't want a piece of Mitch," he said, looking for an escape. He might make it back into his room – might – but then he'd be trapped. "I'm sure I don't taste very nice…"
The shriek of tyres made his head whip around. The big wolf got out of the way just in time; the car squealed to a halt a few feet away from Mitch.
"Get in!" Abe yelled as he tumbled out of the passenger side. "I will get the remaining bags!"
For once Mitch didn't argue. He pulled open the rear passenger door and climbed up behind Jackson. The man was still out for the count.
Abe got through the motel door by the simple expedient of barging it down, his six feet seven inch frame no match for the flimsy plywood. He grabbed the two bags, ducked out of the room and was back in the car in seconds.
"Go!" he yelled to Chloe, slamming the door shut behind him.
Chloe put her foot down and drove.
It was a long time before any of them relaxed enough to make conversation.
"I would like to make the observation that none of what just happened was my fault," Mitch said, holding up a finger.
"It never is." Chloe's voice was taut, her attention riveted on the dark road ahead.
"Much as it pains me to admit it, I believe Mitch is correct," Abe said. "If the men and women in the bar hadn't already been brawling, we might not have been able to use the confusion to escape."
Jackson stirred, eyelids fluttering. He groaned and put a hand to his jaw.
"Easy, Rafiki," Abe said, looking over his shoulder into the back seat.
"Wow, what horse kicked me in the face?" he mumbled. "That man should have been a boxer."
"You're still looking pretty sweaty," Mitch observed. He held the back of his hand to Jackson's forehead. "You're burning up. I think you've got a fever."
"I'm fine," Jackson rasped.
"Were you born with a hero complex, or did it just naturally develop when you rescued Chloe from the lions?"
"Never wanted to be a hero," Jackson mumbled.
"Stop it!" Chloe called. "We will be in Delaware soon! Then maybe I can get a little peace!"
But when they finally rolled up at the edge of Delaware, things were very wrong.
"I'm not sure how it work in the States," Chloe said as she let the car idle, "but I don't think blockading a city is the normal way to run things."
"You would be one hundred per cent right there," Mitch said, leaning forward between the gap in the two front seats. "There's got to be hundreds of vehicles there. Cars, trucks…"
"The only question we need to ask right now is how do we get through?" Abe said.
"Perhaps if we ask them very nicely, they will let us in," Chloe said.
On the road behind them – not very far behind – a single wolf's voice rose in a howl. It was joined by a second, third, fourth, until there were too many to count individually.
Chloe put her foot down. The car sped forward.
Jamie was bored. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so bored. There were books to read, but they were all in a foreign language; she'd flunked Spanish. There was a TV, but if she watched any more of that her brains were going to trickle out through her ears.
The only high point in her day had been talking to Mitch. She missed him so badly it was like a physical pain in her chest. Was she in love with him? She couldn't remember feeling this strongly about Ethan, or any of the guys she'd dated before him.
Maybe it was just the shock of their separation that made her desperate to see him again. But… she didn't feel this way about Jackson or Abe. Abe was a nice guy – a real nice guy – but after what he'd told her about his little brothers, she knew he saw her more as family than anything else. And Jackson… well, he hadn't exactly been Mr. Supportive after Evan Lee Hartley had run her off the road. Ben Schaffer – the fake FBI agent – had been kind to her, gentle, and coaxed her into remembering the details she'd needed to track Hartley down.
And then she'd shot him. If she ever got back to civilisation, would she be punished for it? Thrown in jail and left to rot?
She made herself think about Mitch again. It sure beat the hell out of thinking about murder.
She curled up on the sofa and tried to remember the sat phone conversation. The way Mitch's voice sounded, the things he'd said – and, most important of all, the things he hadn't said. The silent words that had been hidden between the spoken ones.
Aippaq was talking to her. She dragged her mind back to the present, back to the guy who'd saved her life. He was pointing out the window and smiling.
"Outside?" she asked. "That's the word for outside, right? And the word for leopard. Oh! You're going to feed Irniq!"
He nodded vigorously, smiling and nodding as she made the connection.
"I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but be careful," she told him. "I know those animals can't get you, but… just be careful, OK?"
He seemed to understand her tone, if not her words. This time his nod was solemn.
Beyond the fence, many pairs of eyes watched the sturdy wooden house.
A single animal lumbered forward, heavy, wedge-shaped muzzle sniffing the ground. The huge brown bear set his claws to the half-frozen earth and dug.
Around and behind him, the wolves began to howl.
