by Kait Nolan
“It shouldn’t have happened. She shouldn’t have been there. But she was so angry. She and Dad had some kind of fight, and she’d gone out to blow off some steam. Just for a run. And this trigger happy farmer thought she was . . . ” I had to stop myself from spilling out the full truth. “I don’t know what he thought she was. They said it was an accident.”
“You don’t think it was?”
I thought of the farmer, shooting at what he thought was a predator. “He didn’t see her for what she was.”
Elodie said nothing, but I could feel her thumb lightly rubbing the back of my hand. I wondered if her hands stroking through my fur would feel as nice.
“What was she like?”
Her words jolted me out of the alternate reality where she might ever actually see me in fur. I jerked my shoulders, restless as I tried to come up with the words. “Smart. Beautiful.” I frowned. All true, but not the essence of her. “She was a free spirit. Didn’t like being caged by society.” Neither did I. “She had a temper, like I do. But she seldom lost it without really good reason. She was a supreme champion for the underdog in all situations. There was this one time when I was a kid when she went to bat against the town council for a moose.” My lips curved at the memory.
Elodie looked a bit perplexed at that. “A moose?”
“You really had to be there, I guess. Anyway, she was . . . grounding. When the world was nuts, she had this way of centering me. Dad too. Of making things feel okay.” I looked down at our joined hands. “She was a lot like you actually.”
She stumbled and stopped.
Well shit. Two steps forward, three steps back.
But she didn’t pull away as I expected. When I looked over in question, her face was tipped into the wind, her gaze unfocused. At that moment, I’m not sure she even remembered I was there.
As I watched, she tilted her head, angling her nose more fully into the wind, and she sniffed in a decidedly canine gesture. What the hell? Could she possibly be scenting something?
I turned my face into the wind to do exactly that.
And I smelled Rich Phillips.
It made no sense. We were miles from where I’d tracked him last night. And yeah, okay, I didn’t actually know where he’d ended up because I’d been busy trying to find that other wolf. What the hell was he doing so far from the original trailhead?
Elodie’s expression was uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure of her own reaction. Hell, I wasn’t certain I’d actually seen her do what I thought she’d done. It was completely insane and I was probably just engaging in wishful thinking. She couldn’t possibly be . . . like me.
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head as if to clear it and flashed an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. Woolgathering. Hearing you talk about your mom makes me wonder about mine. Dad doesn’t talk about her much, so other than the bad stuff or whatever they reported in the papers following her death, she’s a blank. I don’t know what she sounded like, or what her favorite foods were or what kind of music she liked. All I really know is that I look like her. And according to Dad, I’m starting to act like her, which scares the shit out of him.”
“That must be hard.”
“We have a weird relationship.” Now she pulled away, releasing my hand and starting to trudge up upwind in the direction of the scent.
It had to be a coincidence.
~*~
Elodie
I was losing my mind. There was no other answer. We were miles away from the trailhead where Rich and Molly had gone missing, so there was no way that I’d actually caught his scent. And way to take a trip into Weirdsmoville by totally zoning out while Sawyer told me about his mom. Yes, invite deep, personal sharing and then ignore it as if you can’t be bothered to pay attention.
The wind shifted and I caught the scent again, jerking my head in that direction to get a better whiff. I wouldn’t be sure except that Rich had been so in my face yesterday that I couldn’t help but get the smell of him imprinted in my brain if for no other reason than to be able to identify and avoid him for self preservation in the future.
I searched the ground for the usual signs of passage, something to corroborate the idea that they’d passed this way. But there was nothing. Frustration simmered, and I wished I’d been paired up with one of the handlers with a dog. Sawyer wasn’t trained for this, and I couldn’t track them when there were no physical signs.
The next trace scent proved me a liar.
Okay, so I could track them if I gave in and tried to actually use my newly sensitive nose, but what would that mean for me? Would intentional use accelerate the change? Could I really risk that? This could be, probably would be my last summer. Did I want to risk shortening that time on behalf of arrogant, entitled Rich Phillips?
Unbidden, an image of Molly hiding behind her curtain of hair sprang into my mind. She was a child. Innocent. No matter what kind of an asshole her brother might be, she was out there. Tired. Likely dehydrated. Hungry. Probably terrified.
The radio crackled at my waist, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Elodie, do you copy? What is your position?”
I tugged it off my belt. “I copy. Just a sec.” I checked the compass and the topographical map and relayed the coordinates back to base camp.
Eileen repeated them back to me, then asked, “Any signs?
There was nothing I could officially report back. Not yet anyway. “No. Have there been any alerts from the other searchers?”
“Bill Throckmorton’s Lucy alerted to Rich in Sector Four, but the trail’s gone cold. It’s looking like a vehicle may have been involved.” She paused. “There were traces of blood on the scene. You and Sawyer stick close together. Check in every ten minutes.”
“Will do.” I dialed the radio volume back down and looked over at Sawyer. His face was grim.
“Foul play,” he said. “Has to be.”
“Not necessarily,” I said, running alternate scenarios through my head. “If someone came across them and they were injured, they could have been a Good Samaritan and taken them to the hospital or something.”
“Then wouldn’t the hospital have reported back? They’d be notified of the ongoing search, right? That the police are looking. If Rich and Molly had turned up that way, we’d have heard by now.”
He was right. I didn’t want to think about what that meant. It was one thing if Rich and Molly had gotten lost in the park. It was something else if someone had harmed them.
Screw it, I thought. I was trained to use every resource at my disposal. Now that included my nose. And I had to face it, the change was probably coming anyway. At the very least, maybe I could do something good with it before the end.
I spread out the topographical map and studied it.
“What are you looking for?” asked Sawyer.
“Vehicle access. The alert came in from somewhere in this general area—” I tapped the areas in Sector Four that had access roads. I had to tread carefully here. There was no overt evidence to suggest that they were in our area. “—that would mean there’s something of a limit to where someone could take them, if they were inclined to move to some other area in the park. The terrain severely limits vehicle access. I don’t know why they’d do that except for privacy. But if they did, there’s only a couple of access roads in this area. A couple miles north. Here.” I pointed again. “If they came back into the park in a vehicle and came through our sector, it has to be on one of them.” It was a decent theory—at least based on all those episodes of CSI I’d watched—and that was the general direction Rich’s scent led.
“You’re the boss,” said Sawyer, grabbing my hand.
I looked down, frowning at how much I liked the feel of his hand around mine.
“We’re doing like she said and sticking close,” he explained.
“Not gonna argue with that,” I told him.
“Lead the way.”
I tried to remember what the trainers had said in the two canine s
earch and rescue classes I’d audited. There was something about how scent travelled in a cone, very focused at the source of the trail, and spreading out like a funnel from there. The scent cone was affected by stuff like wind, temperatures, barometric pressure, dust—every little thing changed the edge of that cone and made it harder to track for dogs with a less sensitive nose. Heat made scent rise, but humidity was supposed to be good for enhancing scent. Certainly the early morning damp on the ride in had been full of bright, clear scents. So I just had to keep moving and find the center of the scent cone. Then there should be other physical signs of his passage, like tracks and disturbed vegetation. Those I had a lot more experience following.
I looked up at Sawyer. “Keep your eyes peeled for tracks, any snagged threads of fabric, anything that might suggest people came through here.”
“Got it.”
When I was sure he wasn’t looking at me, I closed my eyes and took another deep inhale. The myriad of scents were so tangled, so many that it almost made me dizzy with sensory overload. It was the olfactory equivalent of stepping out in the middle of rush hour traffic in down town Atlanta. Focus, I ordered myself. I inhaled again, tugging at the thread I recognized as Rich and teasing it out from the others. Angling my body, I steered us both in that direction.
My shoulder bumped companionably against Sawyer’s arm as we moved. Last night’s suspicions seemed paranoid and stupid now. Of course he wasn’t a stalker. He was a nice guy with protective instincts a mile wide and maybe a little bit of an anger management problem. That was it. I actually felt better having him with me out here, which was weird because I was usually perfectly at home in the woods. Dad had made sure of that.
I looked down at our joined hands and frowned again. Dad would very much not approve of this. My better judgment didn’t approve of this either, but I still wasn’t pulling away.
Rich’s scent petered out, and I came to an abrupt halt.
“Damn it,” I muttered. I’d been too busy thinking about Sawyer to keep my brain fully on the search.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just stubbed my toe.” I looked around as if getting my bearings and carefully tested the air. No trace.
“C’mon.” He tugged me up a rise.
Frustration simmered. I was angry that I’d let this thing with Sawyer, whatever the hell it was, distract me. Lives were at stake.
Focus came easier this time. Inhale. Sift. Exhale. Repeat. Sixty yards on, my pulse leapt as I caught Rich again, stronger now. My eyes stayed glued to the ground, looking for trampled vegetation or other signs of passage, my attention fully zeroed in on what my nose and eyes were telling me. Everything else was just noise.
The scent pulled me like a beacon, and I started moving faster, until I was the one tugging Sawyer. He kept up with the pace I set, letting me do my thing. If he thought it was weird, he said nothing, and I was grateful for not having to give an explanation because I couldn’t think of one.
The scent was so strong now there had to be some kind of physical sign nearby. Urgency beat in my blood. Close now. I charged up the hill, Sawyer right with me. We stumbled out onto the narrow access road, and I came to an abrupt stop at the end of Sawyer’s arm. I nearly growled in annoyance at the interruption of the hunt.
No, I thought, startled. No, not the hunt. The search.
“Where to next?” he asked.
His voice sounded strange, somehow deeper than usual, or more guttural, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. I was distracted by a new and more terrifying scent.
Blood.
The world seemed to shrink down to that one focal point. My jaw began to ache, and I realized it was because my teeth were clenched to hold back the growl that wanted to roll out of my throat.
A bolt of panic shot through me.
Sawyer squeezed my hand. “Elodie?”
Ruthlessly I shoved the panic back. I was not going to wolf out. There were too many other signs, other steps, and I hadn’t had them yet. It was just instinct, that was all.
I had to find the source of that blood.
“East,” I said. My voice came out husky, but still sounded like me.
I followed the pull, my hand gripping Sawyer’s as if my life depended on it. I prayed he didn’t ask what was wrong because there was no way I could tell him. We moved up the road a few dozen yards. The scent was all but screaming at me. Without it, I don’t know that I’d have noticed the navy blue threads snagged on a branch. As it was, I all but pounced on them, tugging off my pack and pulling out a roll of bright orange flagging tape.
“What are you doing?” asked Sawyer.
“Marking the trail.” I pointed to the threads. “Might be nothing—” It was definitely something. “—but Rich was wearing a navy t-shirt yesterday.”
I circled around from the snagged threads until I found what I was looking for—drops of blood spattered in a single boot print.
Sawyer came around and knelt beside me.
“This isn’t Rich’s boot. He was in flip flops yesterday, and his feet are bigger,” I said. My mouth was dry. “If those threads belong to Rich’s shirt, he didn’t come through here under his own steam.”
“He wouldn’t have dripped blood into his own print either,” said Sawyer.
I closed my eyes and inhaled, tipping my head toward the bright, copper scent.
No. No, that was wrong. This blood was at least a few hours old. Where was that fresh source coming from?
I opened my eyes and rose, moving in the direction the boot print pointed, looking for more signs.
“Shouldn’t you radio into Eileen?”
I should. I was breaking protocol. But I had to find the source of that scent. “In a minute,” I said.
The wind gusted, bringing with it a blast of copper-scented air that left me dizzy. I stumbled and went to one knee, my hands fisting in the vegetation around me.
Prey. Fresh kill. Blood. East.
Run.
~*~
Sawyer
Elodie shot up from the ground and bolted.
“Hey!” It was all I could manage when the wolf pressed so close to the surface.
She didn’t slow, just continued to run as if the devil himself were right behind. Straight in the direction of the blood source.
I took off after her, viciously suppressing the urge to howl at the chase, at the hunt. She was fast, leaping and dodging brush and fallen limbs with the agility of a deer. Fast enough to be like me?
The wolf rose just enough to let me catch her. I started to call her name, to reach out and stop her before she stumbled headlong into what was probably going to be a nightmare. But my mouth was crowded with extra teeth, and I had to fight my own reaction to the rising scent of fresh blood.
So it was Elodie who broke the tree line first. Elodie who stumbled and fell. Elodie who screamed.
I leapt after her, not caring at that moment that I was seconds from shifting, needing only to get between her and whatever had frightened her.
Blood. So much blood and carnage. My head reeled from it until I collapsed to my knees, fingers digging into the earth, curving to claws. Terror sliced through me as I fought the wolf for control, the human part of my brain assessing the scene.
Not now. Not here. The threat is already past. It’s over.
The wolf didn’t like my logic.
Behind me, I could hear Elodie losing whatever she’d had for breakfast. Then she crawled past me, through the bloody dirt, toward the body, where it lay propped against a tree. She didn’t even glance my way, and I wasted precious seconds watching as she reached one shaking hand toward his neck to check for a pulse.
His eyes snapped open and Elodie shrieked, falling back.
“Jesus. Oh Jesus,” she said, scrambling to her knees and going back to him.
My hands were still tipped with brutal claws, the wolf not willing to give up its hold in the face of all the blood, so I had to stay put. Even as I fought fo
r control, Elodie seemed to find hers, looking past the gore to assess the situation. That was confirmation enough that my hopes were dashed. No young werewolf could control herself in the face of this.
I beat down the disappointment and wrestled for dominance.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she said. Her voice was strong, confident as she slung off her pack and began taking stock of his injuries.
She didn’t ask him what happened. That’s what I wanted to know. There was no way all this blood was his. The scent was too muddied, but there was simply too much of it for him to still be breathing.
Oh Christ, where was the sister?
Elodie’s voice jerked my attention back. “Rich, where’s Molly?” I didn’t need the quaver in her voice to know her thoughts had flown the same way as mine.
“Not . . . make it,” he mumbled, eyes starting to roll back.
“Rich!” she snapped, and his eyes focused on her again. “We need to know where Molly is. Was she with you?”
“Got away,” he said.
“Got away from where? From who?”
“Don’t know. Left her in a cave. Told her to hide. Wait for me. But he found me.”
“He who?” she demanded. When that didn’t get a response, she shifted gears. “What cave, Rich? What was nearby? Help us help Molly.”
The beast was starting to calm down at the sound of her voice, at her rationality.
That’s right. Let her do her thing. Settle down so I can help her.
“Was cabin . . . by the river. Where he took us. Got away. But not far enough.”
“Do you remember any distinctive features of the landscape. Anything that might narrow down where you were?”
But Rich’s eyes rolled back into his head as he passed out again.
Elodie swore a blue streak as she snagged the radio off her belt and turned it back up. “Base this is Elodie Rose. We have Rich. He’s alive but badly wounded and only semi-conscious. He’s sustained a head wound, probably a concussion. His leg is . . . it’s caught in a bear trap.”