by RJ Blain
I inhaled, held the breath to the count of twenty, and exhaled long and slow.
Maybe I was lost in the woods in Colorado, but I wasn’t helpless. I could protect myself and Annabelle. Staying calm was the first step. When everyone else panicked, I was the one who kept cool.
It was a hell of a lot easier to keep cool when I had my partner nearby guarding my six. I shivered, checked over my shoulder, and came nose to nose with a wolf large enough to bite my head off without having to work at it.
The scream burst out of me before I could swallow it.
Shooting the animal in the head would have been smart, but as I twisted around and scrambled backwards, I struck it with my gun instead of firing. I hit it hard enough its head snapped to the side, although it stood its ground. It blinked at me.
I blinked back.
It bared its teeth in a wide canine grin.
I pistol whipped it again. In retrospect, I really should have used the soiled diaper.
Normal dogs probably would have either run or chewed my face off for hitting them. The wolf stared at me, and it didn’t even growl. It did, to my relief, cover its big teeth. I scrambled backwards, bumping against Annabelle’s carrier.
“Good… wolf?”
Did people have wolves as pets? Did wolves even come in such massive sizes? I’d seen mastiffs before, and the wolf was a match for the ones I had seen, although a great deal fluffier than the short-coated dogs I was accustomed to.
The wolf sat down, panted, and lifted its paw like it wanted to shake hands with me.
I should have shot the wolf, but instead, I turned the safety of my gun on, stowed it in the baby bag, and stood. I grabbed Annabelle’s carrier, swallowed, and walked.
The wolf was obviously a figment of my imagination. Mastiff-sized wolves didn’t exist. I was so stressed out I was hallucinating. Sometime after fleeing from Phil’s hide out, I had snapped. I had snapped so hard I was convinced giant wolves existed and wanted to shake hands with me.
I blamed Jake. Jake always reminded me a bit of a wolf with his tall but lean body. He had the look of a predator, especially when we were on the track of a criminal.
I hummed thoughtfully. It made sense. If I couldn’t have Jake watching my six, my stressed psyche had settled for a giant wolf to fill the position. Wolves belonged in the woods.
Was this what it was like to snap on the job? I sighed, shaking my head.
Plain and simple, I had lost my mind, and it had conjured up a big bad wolf to take care of me. Great.
Maybe if I walked long enough and fast enough, my psyche would give up on the idea of having a big bad wolf around.
Luck wasn’t with me. The wolf followed me, heeling like a well-trained dog. I’d seen a lot of them during my time with the FBI, and most of them had been owned by the local police. I liked police dogs. They knew they had a job, and they did it well—often better than their handlers.
“This is a load of bullshit,” I announced.
Annabelle cooed and waved her arms and kicked her feet. The wolf made a huffing sound, which reminded me a lot of Jake when he was fed up with something—usually me. I had no problem admitting I wasn’t the easiest person to work with. I was a woman on a mission, and I didn’t like people who got in the way of my mission. Usually, I responded with a cold, silent stare.
Cold, silent stares unnerved people, and it annoyed Jake whenever I leveled it at him. That was when he started huffing. Maybe I deliberately used it on him to keep him on his toes, but that was a different matter.
I wondered if my former partner knew I was missing. If Jake knew, he was probably huffing.
He did that when I got myself in trouble, and I was in a lot of trouble.
The wolf huffed and followed up with a long-suffering sigh.
“Not you, too,” I hissed.
The wolf’s golden eyes stared at me in silent reproach.
When night fell, clouds blocked out the light from the half-filled moon, leaving me in total darkness. When the rain started, I used the baby bag placed carefully over the handle of the carrier to keep the water off Annabelle. I cursed until my throat was so parched all I could do was sit in the mud, tilt my head up at the sky, and pretend the little bit of water I managed to catch in my mouth was enough to satisfy my thirst.
I was so, so tired. When the tears started, I couldn’t make them stop, no matter how many times I wiped them away. The wolf sighed, flopped beside me, and rested its—his—big head on my leg. I’d figured that much out about the wolf since it had started following me around. The wolf was most definitely a male.
“Who the hell keeps a wolf as a pet, anyway?” My question came out as a sobbed croak. “Who the fuck loses their pet wolf in the woods?”
The wolf’s answer was another long-suffering sigh, which I heard less frequently than his huff. I guessed the wolf was staring at me as he liked to do, though I couldn’t really tell in the darkness. My vision had adapted enough I could make out shapes, but that was about it. The occasional flash of lightning overhead didn’t help; every time I adjusted, the bright light ruined my sight and gave me a headache.
“I really shouldn’t curse so much around a baby. Ma and Pop would murder me and hang me from their patio railing as a warning to the fosters. Watch Annabelle’s first word be fuck, shit, or damn. Then they’ll blame me for it.”
The wolf sighed again, which I preferred over the huff. The huff led to all sorts of bad things. Once, I had made the mistake of ignoring Jake’s huffing, resulting in him pistol whipping his unloaded gun across my ass. Both of us had landed in our supervisor’s office as a result.
Jake had found the whole thing hilarious. I was still amazed we hadn’t both been fired over it. Then again, our boss, when told of what had happened, had started laughing and hadn’t been able to stop for almost twenty minutes.
I had no idea how long I sat in the mud while the cold rain fell, but when I could muster the energy to get up and get moving again, I did. With one bottle left for Annabelle, I was running out of time to find drinkable water or civilization. My sore, aching body protested the movement, but I gritted my teeth through the discomfort.
I shouldered the baby bag, grabbed hold of the carrier’s handle, and trudged through the mud one painful step at a time. I had to find civilization eventually.
How large could the Colorado mountains be?
Walking through the night wasn’t good for my nerves, which were already rattled by the presence of a mastiff-sized wolf and a cranky baby. I didn’t blame Annabelle at all; it wasn’t her fault she was hungry, tired, and wet from the rain that had persisted until dawn. The rising sun burned the clouds away until their tattered remnants were all that remained of the storm.
All in all, I was rather proud of myself. I hadn’t found civilization, but I had found my way to the bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, that put me in the middle of a valley surrounded by even more mountains.
Fortunately, valleys had a tendency to have streams, rivers, and an assortment of other water sources, which was enough to keep me moving. If I found water, I’d test it first, wait a few hours, and if I didn’t fall over and die from it, I’d use it to make a bottle for Annabelle. I hated the thought of leaving her hungry for that long, but I wasn’t about to risk poisoning her.
With water, I’d be able to survive for weeks. I had enough formula to last a long time, too. Warming up the bottles and cleaning them would be a problem, but I’d figure something out.
Lifting my chin, I straightened my back and kept moving. Survival had been drilled into us during training. Dealing with violent crimes put us at risk. Lost in the woods wasn’t quite the same as surviving a firefight with criminals hellbent on killing us, but the basic principles remained the same.
We lived to fight another day to defend and serve. In that, the FBI was no different from the local police forces. In my department, we stepped up when the cops needed us to take it to the next level.
Working withi
n CARD was no different. We couldn’t protect or serve if we died. I had one job, and that was to get Annabelle safely home. I reminded myself of my duty with each step, especially when I really wanted to stop, lie down, and sleep.
I heard the water before I found it, and I tilted my head, holding my breath to listen. I picked up my pace, the rush of adrenaline bolstering me when I should have collapsed in an exhausted heap.
A waterfall cascaded from rocky heights, thundering into the clear waters of a river cutting through stone banks. While the area surrounding the waterfall was more of a gorge, the river calmed downstream and a gentle slope covered in pines and moss led to the shore.
Unlike Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the water looked clean. There was no sign of oil slicking the surface, nor was there yellowed froth floating where the water was so still there weren’t even any ripples.
Unfortunately, the dark blue color warned me it was probably far deeper than I liked. I approached, setting Annabelle’s carrier a safe distance from the shore before creeping towards it on my hands and knees.
The ground was slick and muddy, and I shuddered at the way it oozed between my fingers. When I found a spot where I could kneel without pitching face first into the river, I leaned forward and dipped my hands into the water.
My fingers went numb, and I yanked my hands back with a squeal. “Fuck that’s cold.”
Guiltily, I glanced over my shoulder to check on Annabelle. She was trying to eat her toes, which was a far cry better than her scolding me because she was hungry.
Of the wolf, there was no sign. Part of me was dismayed he was gone, though I wasn’t surprised. Like me and Annabelle, he was probably hungry.
I was grateful we weren’t his first choice for a meal.
While I wanted to yell my complaints to the sky, I kept my voice quiet. “Mutt. At least you could have led me to your home. Fuck you. Hear that, wolf? Fuck you. Go home and enjoy your breakfast, asshole canine. Who keeps a damned wolf as a pet, anyway?”
I sighed, braced for the numbing cold of the water, and dunked my hands, scrubbing away the mud. Once my hands were tolerably clean, I backed away from the water, pulled Annabelle a little closer, and dug out the baby bottles.
Rinsing them would be a nightmare, but without any other viable options, I went to work. At least without the lid, one of the bottles made a good cup for me. Every instinct I had wanted me to guzzle water until my thirst faded, but I took cautious sips.
Throwing up cold water wouldn’t help me at all.
I had no idea how long it took to clean the bottles to my satisfaction, but when I was finished, my hands and upper arms had paled and were splotched with red from the chill. I filled the bottles so they could warm enough I could mix in formula, capping them and setting them within the bag so they wouldn’t get dirty.
Staggering to my feet, I stared downstream, rolling my stiff and aching shoulders. Following the river was likely my best bet. The river had to go somewhere. Once I found a road, I’d manage.
Annabelle wailed, and resigned to either a dirty diaper or a fit of hunger, I turned to face her.
Two facts asserted themselves. First, there was someone near Annabelle’s carrier. Second, I didn’t know him, nor was he in a uniform, instead wearing hiking clothes. I snarled a curse and adjusted my foot beneath me so I could charge across the distance between us.
My foot hit a slick patch of mud and moss and flew out from under me. My lower back cracked into a stone, driving the air out of my lungs. Gravity took hold, and before I could do more than shriek, I slipped head first into the water.
Chapter Six
My head submerged, and the cold stunned me. I didn’t even struggle when my body slipped beneath the water. The river closed in around me, as suffocating as any coffin. I stiffened, remembered I had to move if I didn’t want to drown, and flailed as I tried to figure out which end was up.
The little my instructors had managed to beat into me kicked in. Instead of sucking in a lungful of water, I blew out, forcing the water from my mouth before it could go down my throat.
Beneath the smooth waters, the river had a strong current, and it dragged me deeper. Without a full breath of air, I wouldn’t last long.
I never did, even when I went into the water prepared. It usually took a push from Jake to get me in the pool, where I proceeded to thrash in a panic before realizing it was shallow enough I could stand up.
The river wasn’t shallow enough for me to stand. While my eyes were open, the waters blurred my vision enough I failed to distinguish anything. I focused on a section brighter than the rest and struggled towards it.
Swimming with my lungs full of air was bad enough. The burning need to breathe set a fire in my chest, throat, and lungs. I knew what would happen if I gave into it.
I’d drown. I’d drown and die, just like I was convinced would happen every time some asshole, usually Jake, convinced me to go near a pool. I wouldn’t die doing something useful. I’d die from slipping and falling into a river.
I found a rock with my foot, and determined to at least make some effort to survive before I washed downstream as a fresh corpse, I kicked. A blissful second later, my head emerged from the water, and I sucked in a breath.
After hundreds of hours in the pool, I had learned one trick. My doggy paddle was enough to make full-grown men cry, make my partner double over in hysterical laughter, and had earned me a reputation as a liability in any case involving water.
It kept my head above water in the pool. What more could anyone want from me?
The river was a different matter altogether. My clothes were determined to drag me down to the bottom, something I’d been warned about. On several occasions, my instructors had forced me to strip down to my bra and underwear after tossing me in fully kitted for a case.
Water-logged clothing drowned people, and since I was already a liability, they had taught me how to help the poor bastards saddled with dragging my skinny ass to shore.
I doggy paddled until I could draw in a deep breath. When my lungs were so full they ached, I gave up my pathetic attempts to swim, let the water pull me down, and went to work. The shoes went first. I always wore them a little loose so I could pop them on and off without tying them. Next, I shimmied my way out of my jeans, which eliminated a lot of the weight.
Maybe I couldn’t swim worth a shit, but I could strip with the best of them. I fought my way back to the surface, spitting water and curses.
An arm slipped over my chest and shoulders. A mix of panic and relief at the realization someone was in the river with me took hold. The hours of training with Jake in the pool kicked in. Despite my instincts screaming at me to struggle, I forced my entire body to go limp, tilting my head back to keep my nose and mouth above the surface.
Floating in the water while someone else did the swimming was one thing I did well. It was usually safer for rescuers to wait for their victim to drown so they wouldn’t end up a victim, too. I made up for my inability to swim by keeping my cool and playing dead once someone had a hold on me.
I closed my eyes. Closing my eyes helped me control my panic and focus on breathing. If I couldn’t see what was going on, I couldn’t react to it. I couldn’t afford to panic.
The chill of the water sank into my bones the instant I stopped moving. My teeth chattered, and I shuddered from the cold. Concentrating on my breaths, I kept them slow, deep, and even.
I kept doing it until my world narrowed to the way my breaths slipped in and out of me. Pleasant numbness spread through me, something I should have been concerned about, but I filed it away as unimportant.
No matter what, I couldn’t fight. If I fought, I’d drown and take my would-be rescuer with me. My head was above water. While the river lapped at my chin, I could breathe.
When my bare feet scraped against slimy rocks, I jerked. My awareness of my body returned at the feel of an arm sliding beneath my knees.
Someone was carrying me. A hot hand pressed to m
y throat to check my pulse. Had my heart rate slowed? I should have felt the rapid thudding of my heartbeat due to the surge of panic that always followed my submersion in water. I was aware of heat against my back, my side, and beneath my legs.
The murmur of voices dragged me back to reality, but my ears refused to distinguish individual words. Why did my ears always have to ring so much after I was in the water? It was like my entire head protested against submersion and crippled my ability to think, thus ensuring a far higher chance of drowning.
“Let me get her out of her shirt first.”
Why did the first words I always comprehended after a bad experience in the water involve someone taking my clothes off? Why did Jake always have to sound so damned amused by it?
It wasn’t fair.
Comprehension hit me. Why did Jake sound amused?
At the first tug on my shirt, I burst into motion, opening my eyes to stare into wide dark eyes while grabbing for my shirt. Dark brown eyes the shade of the world’s best chocolate except better.
Yep, those were Jake’s eyes all right. It should have been a crime for a man to have such pretty eyes.
“Don’t you take my shirt off!” I shrieked, yanking the hem down. We tussled over it. He won, pulling it up and over my head. My traitorous hands shook too much for me to throttle him.
So much for being calm and cool.
“You’ll die from hypothermia if you keep that on, stupid.” Jake shook his head, and before I had a chance to tear into him, he wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. “Fancy meeting you here, partner.”
I grabbed the blanket and held onto it, staring at Jake, a thousand questions banging about in my head. I blurted, “What the hell?”
Jake sighed, shook his head, and worked his hands beneath me, lifting me up without a single sign of exertion. Considering our differences in height and build, I probably didn’t weigh much to him. “Did you hit your head?”
I bristled at the question. “You’re supposed to be training for your new post.”