by Selena Kitt
“Shh!” The rain dampened Caleb’s sense of smell just slightly. He could scent the chickens and the rabbits not far away in a small shed. He heard the lowing of an uneasy cow in the same direction. But it was the house that drew his attention. The house with the light on.
“Someone broke into the house!” Her voice was just a whisper, full of fear and dread.
“They’re gone.” Caleb was sure of it. He could smell their scent, but it was faint. Faded. They’d been here, but they weren’t anymore. Still, they could be nearby. Watching. He thought that was likely.
He knew they were looking for him.
“Let me down.” She wriggled and squirmed so much he had to let her go. He heard her cry out when she landed on her swollen ankle and he grabbed hold of her elbow.
“Easy,” he urged, scanning the edges of the clearing with eyes that saw much better at night than any human. “They could still be nearby.”
“What am I going to do?” she breathed, and he felt her tremble. They were both soaked to the skin—the rain hadn’t let up since it started—and he knew she was cold. But now she was shaking from fear.
“We can go back to my cabin.” He thought that was the safest thing. “Come back in the morning and reassess.”
“All the way back?” she scoffed, leaning against the trunk of a tree, clearly easing the weight on her hurt ankle. “You want me to stay the night in that shack? No way. I’ll take my chances.”
She unslung the rifle and took a step, limping on her bad leg. He heard her sharp intake of breath when she put weight on it.
“It’s too dangerous.” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “I can’t let you go.”
“Let me?” She snorted, shaking his hand off. “This is my house. My home. Thanks for bringing me back but… I can take it from here.”
Caleb sighed, watching her hobble off. He contemplated turning around and walking away. He told himself this woman was trouble—she was headstrong and foolish. And a distraction from his mission. He watched her stumble, heard her cry out, but she kept on going toward the house.
He was sure they were gone now—but they’d probably be back. Looking for him, stocking up on her supplies. And if they found her there? Could he live with what he knew would happen to her next?
His gut twisted at the thought, his head buzzing, images burning in his mind that made him want to shift into bear form right then and there. They wouldn’t just violate her. That would be bad enough. The men following him had much darker designs. He couldn’t leave her, not now. Not until he knew she was safe.
Of course, the irony was that this was all his fault. If he hadn’t chased her when she ran, she never would have been injured in the first place. She would have finished picking her berries and walked back home unharmed.
And they still would have been in her house, he realized with a sinking, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he stared at the moon-wet grass at his feet.
Because of him.
Looking for him.
“No!”
Caleb’s head snapped up when he heard her scream. She’d made it to the house—her curvy silhouette stood frozen, framed in the open doorway.
“Noooooooooo!”
She collapsed, and Caleb went running after her.
Chapter 5—Caleb
“What is it?” Caleb asked, sprinting up behind the woman, who had sunk to her knees on the floor. He hadn’t seen the blood—didn’t see it until he was crouched beside her, an arm around her trembling shoulders.
“Why?” she whispered, turning her tear-stained face into his shoulder. He tightened his arm around her, finally seeing the tell-tale drag of rust across the hardwood. The light was dim, but it was unmistakable.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, swallowing past the knot in his throat.
“Nikon was my father’s dog,” she told him. “He was… he was all I had left of him that was alive.”
“I’m so sorry,” Caleb said again, feeling helpless. He’d already caused this woman more pain than he would have thought possible in a few short hours, and she’d clearly already had her share of it. “Listen… I know you don’t want to hear this. But you can’t stay here. The people who did this to your dog… they’re going to come back.”
“Why?” She turned her face up to him, dark eyes wet with sorrow. “What do they want?”
“You know what they want.” He pulled her to him as her lower lip began to quiver and her eyes filled with more tears. She’d been incredibly brave, facing down the bear, and then him, and now this. She was being pushed past her limits, and he feared she just might break. And that just might break him. “I want you to pack a bag. Clothes, necessities. Nothing too heavy. I have to carry you back.”
“I don’t want to go back there.” She shook her head, which was still tucked under his chin, her voice muffled.
“You’ve gotten used to luxury.” He chuckled, letting himself stroke the soft, silken strands of her hair as he glanced around the house. The back door led into a kitchen. Under them, the hardwood was warm—radiant floor heating, he guessed. The lights had to be generator-powered. He wondered where she got the fuel. Clearly, someone had been prepared for the end of the world.
“It’s not that.” She sniffed, moving away from him, taking away a softness his body suddenly craved. “This is my home. My father… he built this house. Everything’s here. I can’t… I can’t just leave…”
“You can’t stay here.” Caleb wanted to reach out and hold her again, but the way she crossed her arms and glared at him made that an impossibility. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Because of them?” She stared at the floor, at the dried blood stain. “The people who took Nikon?”
“They’ll come back.” Caleb stood, glancing out the door into the rain. His night vision was excellent and he scanned the perimeter of the yard. “They’ll come back for your chickens and your cow and your rabbits.”
“No!” she protested, struggling to her feet as Caleb closed the back door on the rain. It was still pouring.
“If they find you here…” He didn’t like to think about it. But it was reality, and she had to know it. How had she managed out here, alone, all this time, anyway?
“I’ll kill them.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she leaned against the kitchen table for balance. Her ankle was clearly still hurting her, but the adrenaline had been effective in mitigating some of the physical pain. Now the pain was veering off course, something far more emotional. And dangerous.
“Yes,” Caleb agreed, scanning the small kitchen—the house had clearly been built for one, tiny but efficient. “That’s the only way to end it. They know you’re here, now.”
“I killed a man.” She lifted her chin, jaw set, glaring at Caleb as if he was the one who had killed her dog. He thought, guiltily, that in a way, he was. “I buried him in the garden. Made great fertilizer. I can do it again.”
So at least one person had discovered her little homestead out here in the middle of the woods, he thought.
“Good.” He gave her an approving nod, trying not to smile at the fire in her eyes. She was determined, and when she was angry, she was fierce. It was probably what had kept her alive so far—and might be what saved her. “Now go pack a bag.”
“You’re not listening to me.” She sighed, unslinging her rifle and putting it on the table before sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. “I can’t leave with you.”
“I’m not going to rape you,” Caleb insisted with an answering sigh. “Or eat you.”
“Oh, I know, it’s not that…” She waved his statement away, more tears coming to her eyes as she stared at the blood stained floor. Caleb approached her, tilting her chin up with his fingers, forcing her to look at him.
“I’m not—but they will,” he assured her softly. “They will most assuredly rape you. Repeatedly. And there are at least a dozen of them. Maybe more.”
She let out a little inv
oluntary sound when he said that, something low and strangled.
“And when they’re tired of raping you, and they’re hungry enough, they will eat you.”
Another low, strangled cry. She tried to turn her head, but he wouldn’t allow it. She had to hear this. She had to know.
“They will eat you alive.” He saw the fear rising in her, and that was good. He wanted her afraid. It was the only thing that would motivate her to leave this place.
“That’s why they took him?” she choked, the tears brimming in her eyes spilling over onto her flushed cheeks.
He nodded, hating having to scare her, seeing the image it created in her mind reflected in the pained expression on her face.
“If we’re here when they return—and they will come back—we’ll end up like Nikon.”
“He’s gone.” The finality in her voice was heartbreaking. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“We need to go.” Caleb leaned toward the door, shading his eyes and peering out. He didn’t see anything, but he had a feeling they were holed up out there in the woods somewhere, feasting on canine. He was surprised they hadn’t made a stop in the barn for the rest of the animals, and that made him wonder if someone—or something—had chased them off.
Still, they would come back. And he didn’t want to be here when they did.
“Stop saying that!” She put her face in her hands, shaking her head. “There’s nowhere else to go!”
“We’ll go back to the cabin.” He wanted to comfort her, to tell her it was going to all be okay, but he couldn’t. Still, he tried to make the little shack he’d been using for the past few days as tempting as he possibly could. “It’s not so bad. There’s a little woodstove. I have some food. You can have the mattress—I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No.” She lifted her face to him, a determined look in her eyes.
“Look, I get it.” He pulled a chair out from the table and straddled it so he could face her. “This is home, and you don’t want to leave it. But unless you want to end up—”
“I know where we can go.” Her words stopped his. “I’ll go pack.”
Surprised, Caleb watched her hobble past him, out of the kitchen. He wanted to go after her, to ask her about this new plan she was hatching, but he didn’t. Instead, he went to the kitchen sink, finding a Nalgene water bottle beside it, and filling it. The water tasted like it was from a well, but it was clear and cool. He drank two of them before filling it again and putting it on the kitchen table.
“Caleb!” Her voice was distant, but clear.
“Yeah?” he called back, peering down the dark hallway where she’d disappeared.
“There are pre-packaged meals in the pantry,” she told him. “Eat one if you’re hungry. Pull out some more to take with us.”
The pantry was bigger than the kitchen itself, he discovered when he swung the door open, using her flashlight to scan the shelves, and well-stocked, to say the least. The pre-packaged meals—the kind you could order in bags from Costco—were plentiful, but she’d been busy canning, too. There were dozens and dozens of mason jars with labels like “pickled beets” and “strawberry jam,” which was good, because the pre-packaged stuff might fill your belly, but they didn’t have a lot of fruit and veg in them. Lots of rice and pasta.
He grabbed a dozen bags of pre-packaged carbs and put them on the kitchen table. He considered opening one and eating it—he was strangely hungry, even after the trout he’d caught and eaten that afternoon out of the creek, and of course, the strawberries he’d gorged himself on—but decided against it. Not enough time—he wanted to get out of there, as fast as they could.
“You packed?” he called, hoping she wasn’t the typical feminine-packer who insisted on useless things like makeup and hairbrushes. “We really need to go.”
She didn’t answer. Caleb hesitated, but he went down the hall, taking the flashlight with him. This part of the house was dark—a small living room, equipped with a television, a loveseat, a recliner, vestiges of a former life. The television would show nothing but snow, if he turned it on, but he saw it was unplugged. There was a crack of light under a door he assumed was the bedroom, or perhaps a bathroom—he could hear her moving around in there.
He shone the light around—one window, the shade drawn. He found a switch on the wall and chanced it. A small lamp in the corner, next to the recliner, turned on. The walls’ log cabin sides were covered with wildlife photography. Caleb looked at them as he waited. They were all nicely framed, with various awards and magazine publications noted in small type at the bottom of each. Was his mystery woman a photographer, then?
His eyes were drawn to a large photograph over the wood fireplace. It was a large bear with a fish caught in its mouth. In the dim light, it was hard to see the details, and he stepped in to get a closer look in the lamp light. He read the words on the bottom—Winner: National Geographic 2011 – Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012. The name underneath was Brian Sullivan. Looking at the picture, though, Caleb knew the photograph was much older than that.
He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen when it was taken.
Seeing himself in bear form in a framed photograph on the wall was surreal. He didn’t remember having his picture taken, couldn’t remember seeing a hunter or photographer, but Caleb was staring right at the camera, a giant salmon trapped, wriggling, between his jaws. The water spray from the salmon’s struggle was so clear, it appeared almost as dew drops on the picture frame.
His brother, Jonah, was just behind him—slightly younger and not quite as big, his fur wet from his afternoon attempts at fishing. Jonah was out of focus, head bent, staring into the stream. In the distance, Caleb could see his mother and father fishing together on a rock. They were out of focus, too, but just the sight of them again gave him a start. He felt a lump growing in his throat, staring at this family portrait on someone else’s wall.
Even the title of the photograph, at the very bottom, was “Bear Family.”
Indeed. Caleb’s gaze moved to the next photograph in line—one of the few that weren’t of animals, he noted. This was a young girl, maybe six or seven, her dark hair braided into pigtails, holding up a fish almost as big as she was. It was a rainbow trout, its scales a prism in the sunlight. The girl was grinning, one of her front teeth missing, Underneath, someone had written “Ivy Sullivan, 1998.”
Ivy. So that was his mystery woman. Ivy Sullivan. And Brian Sullivan, the award-winning photographer, must have been her father. The man who had photographed Caleb’s family, back in the days when they were a family. It was a strange, unreal sort of coincidence. He’d already been feeling strangely nostalgic since he’d returned to the shores of upper Michigan, looking for any signs of Jonah, but seeing all of them again, even blurry and out-of-focus in the background, made the lump in his throat grow in size.
It also added gasoline to the angry fire in his belly, when he thought of the men—if they could still be called that—hunting him. The ones who were out there, still, who had taken Ivy’s dog as an appetizer, and would be back for more.
“That’s me.” Her voice was soft behind him and Caleb glanced back to see her peering over his shoulder at the girl and fish.
“Ivy Sullivan,” he said, giving her a smile.
She crossed her arms, cocking her head at the photograph. “That trout was almost twenty pounds.”
“I’m surprised you could even lift it.” Caleb chuckled, looking at the proud, grinning girl in the photograph.
“I’m stronger than I look.” Her chin jutted out again and he fought the urge to touch the dimple in it as he turned to face her. “You ready?”
“I was born ready.”
Ivy packed the food pouches on the kitchen table into her bag, slinging it and the rifle over her shoulder. She was still limping—although she told him she’d taken some pain medication, which seemed to give her some more mobility, and, he noted, made her a little more mellow—so he offered to ca
rry her again.
“It’s not too far,” she told him, turning on the flashlight as they went out into the dark and the rain. “And it’s a much better hiding spot than that old shack.”
“If you say so.” He hefted her on his back, getting a better grip on her thighs. She wasn’t that heavy, but he didn’t relish another mile-long trek back to the cabin he’d been staying in. Especially after the brief luxury of Ivy’s little homestead. Wherever she had in mind had to be safer than the house, which was already compromised. And if it was a shorter distance, all the better. “Lead the way.”
Ivy pointed with the flashlight and Caleb set out past the garden where, he remembered with a brief flash of a smile, this woman had already buried one interloper. He was starting to believe her—she might just be stronger than she looked.