by Kait Nolan
Bear trap?
I could just see the edges of mangled flesh and the white gleam of bone beyond where she knelt. A growl built low in my throat, and I missed the dispatcher’s reply.
“I haven’t attempted removal, as I think the pressure from the trap is the only thing that’s kept him from bleeding out. Molly is not with him. Over.”
There was a crackling pause.
“What is your position?”
As she passed on the coordinates, I staggered to my feet and over to them, pretty sure the wolf would let me have control now. The leg was bad. With no pants or boot to stop the teeth, the trap had dug deep into tissue, shredding muscle and possibly cracking bone. But though he was bleeding, it was evident that Rich’s leg was not the source of all the gore.
“Can he be transported to the access road?”
“Not without help,” she replied. “We’ll need bolt cutters to cut through the chain. The trap is attached to a tree with a spike.”
I followed the coil of chain from the trap to where it was pinned to the tree, calculating whether I could yank it loose.
“Patrick and David are nearest you. I’m rerouting them to assist in stabilization. Lynn Petersen and Ralph Fleming will be en route with medical. Is there any sign of Molly?”
Elodie took in the remains around us. She swallowed. “No.”
Well that was one fear I could put to rest. I was dimly aware of Elodie relaying what Rich had said about his sister as I paced the clearing, examining the carnage with a more critical eye. Something had been butchered here. Organs and blood were scattered in a wide perimeter around the tree where Rich was trapped. Why? To attract predators? To confuse the scene? I sure as hell couldn’t parse out the kidnapper’s scent amid all these competing odors.
Elodie was tugging at the chain, when I turned back. The muscles in her back strained with the effort, but the spike didn’t budge.
“Help me,” she snarled. Her face was white, her jaw clenched.
I crossed to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not human,” I said quietly. “Whatever this is, it’s not human remains. It’s not Molly.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. “Okay.” Another breath, then she took a firmer grip on the chain. “Help me,” she said again, calmer this time.
“Let me up front. I’ll have more leverage.” I nudged her back and took the chain in my hands, wrapping it around my fists. Behind me, Elodie did the same. “On, three. One. Two—”
“Don’t move!” she hissed.
I saw it, even as she spoke. A huge black bear shuffled along, sniffing at the remains about a dozen feet beyond the tree. It hadn’t noticed us yet, probably because all the blood and guts masked our scent. I hadn’t noticed it for the same reason.
It noticed us now, freezing to the spot.
We held perfectly still, watching the bear. The chain links dug into my palms as I clenched it, fighting the wolf for control. A cool head needed to prevail here. This wasn’t a grizzly. Black bears weren’t as aggressive. This one might just walk away as long as we didn’t do anything to antagonize it.
Through the length of chain, I could feel Elodie trembling, and I couldn’t stop the growl from rumbling in my chest. If the bear noticed, it gave no sign. Instead, it paced to the side, circling the tree, eyes fixed on us. We should’ve been backing slowly away, getting out of the bear’s territory. But that left Rich. Bleeding, unconscious Rich.
Sure enough, the bear’s attention shifted to him as it came around.
Shit.
It lowered its muzzle to sniff at Rich’s leg.
Naturally, the idiot chose that second to open his eyes.
“What the fuck?” The words were quiet, slurred with shock, which was probably the only thing that kept the bear from noticing he was no longer playing dead. But his eyes went wide, consciousness seeming to hit him like a freight train.
“Don’t move,” I gritted out.
I don’t know if he heard me. At that moment, the wind shifted, coming from our backs. The bear snorted, clearly catching our scent. The tiny, dark eyes snapped back to us, and I knew then that this thing had never smelled a werewolf before.
Shit, shit, shit.
The bear reared up with a roar.
I shoved Elodie behind me and jumped over Rich, toward the towering bear.
“Sawyer!”
I couldn’t reply to Elodie. The wolf had had enough of waiting, enough of the threat to her, and rose to the surface, claiming my vision, my teeth. This thing would not touch her.
You wanna dance? Let’s dance.
The bear roared again.
I drew breath to reply in kind, to hasten the shift. A shot rang out, dust puffing up at the feet of the bear. It shuffled back on its hind legs. A second shot, another cloud of dirt. Behind me, Elodie began to yell.
“Go on! Get out of here! Get!”
From his spot by the tree, Rich joined her with his own shouts, and since I couldn’t yell myself—at least not with a voice sounding remotely human—I waved my arms, even as the third shot was fired.
Deciding it was outnumbered, the bear dropped back to its paws and lumbered off through the trees.
I stood there, panting, staring after it while I struggled to pull back to fully human. Horror came swiftly on the heels of relief. I’d nearly shifted in front of Elodie and Rich. Yes, it would have been to protect them, but holy hell, how stupid could I be? What the fuck was wrong with me? The shock was enough to finish the change back to human.
Feet crunched through the brush and a hand fell on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I swung my head around to meet Patrick’s worried gaze. My voice was gruff, but human when I replied. “Yeah. Yeah, just kinda shaken up.”
I didn’t ask where he’d gotten the rifle. I was just grateful he’d shown up when he did.
Elodie and David where kneeling by Rich as another couple materialized from the trees. Lynn and Ralph, I presumed, taking in the bags emblazoned with a big red cross on the side.
“What happened?” Ralph demanded. “We heard shots.”
“Bear,” said Patrick. “Fired some shots to scare it off.”
The pair of them stopped, taking in the carnage of the scene.
“Holy hell,” said Lynn, her face going two shades paler. She shook herself and crossed to Rich, unshouldering the bag.
Somebody’s radio crackled. “Transport is on the access road due west. What’s your status on getting that trap loose?”
“We just arrived,” answered Lynn.
“Bolt cutters are coming to you. Sit tight.”
Ralph unpacked a collapsible stretcher. “Gonna need this to get him outta here.”
I felt useless as the trained personnel came in and took over. Even Elodie was nudged back as Lynn took over. She stood there watching, face drawn, arms crossed over her torso. God knew what she was thinking. My brain scrambled over what had happened, trying to figure out what she might have seen of my partial transformation.
Taking a bracing breath, I walked over to her. She turned to face me and the color that had returned to her cheeks faded again.
“Elodie,” I began.
But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking past me, toward the tree line where a tall, sandy-haired man stood with a pair of bolt cutters in hand, staring right at her, a grim expression on his face. Who the hell was this? His eyes flicked to me momentarily, and I felt the chill even across the clearing. Beside me, I felt Elodie draw herself up, square her shoulders, waiting as the man crossed over to us.
I could smell the anger on him, and my protective instincts were roused. But before I could do anything like step in front of Elodie, she opened her mouth to speak.
“Hi, Dad.”
Chapter 5
Elodie
Despite the sticky summer air, I felt chilled as I faced my father. He took a pointed glance around at the carnage then looked back at me, gray eyes as hard and flat as gun metal
as they searched my face.
“You okay?”
I heard what he was really asking. Are you feeling wolfish? Are you going to change?
I thought back to my mad dash toward the scent of blood. The temporary loss of control before I pulled myself together again. “Yes, sir, I’m fine.”
He nodded once. Momentarily satisfied with my answer, he crossed over to Rich and applied the bolt cutters to the chain. I wrapped my arms tighter around my middle. There were so many opportunities for this lie to blow up in my face. Patrick was a dozen feet away from my father, talking to Ralph. What if he said something about the project? About my internship? And, dear God, what happened if Dr. McGrath showed up? He’d probably do something really horrible, like compliment my dad on having such an academically accomplished daughter. Jesus. There was a distinct possibility I was going to be sick again.
Sawyer was watching me, but I didn’t dare look at him. I could tell he wanted to say something, and I really, really needed him to be a stranger right now. Just some guy I was supposed to lead on the trails today, who’d decided to help with the search.
With a metallic clink, the chain slithered to the ground. All the grownups converged to move Rich, trap and all, to the collapsible stretcher. I felt really superfluous now. As he helped heft the stretcher up, Dad shot me a look that clearly said, Don’t go anywhere. They disappeared into the trees, back toward the access road where a transport waited to take Rich to the hospital.
Unable to be still any longer, I moved over to the tree, running my fingers over the spike and the short bit of chain still dangling from it. There were too many scents competing now. Everybody had touched it, compelled to test for themselves how stuck the thing really was while we’d been waiting for the bolt cutters. I began to circle the tree in an ever widening radius, keeping my eyes on the ground, my nose open, looking for something, anything that might be a clue to who had done this or where Molly might be.
Sawyer fell in beside me. “You okay?”
Unlike my father, I knew he really was asking how I was coping with all of this. Because he seemed to care about my well-being. Was it just my well-being? He had, after all, freaking thrown himself in front of a bear to protect me. I was torn between admiration at his bravery and horror at his utter stupidity. I wondered if it was symptomatic of his apparent hero complex or if there was something more to it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We found Rich. Great. Molly’s still out there, somewhere. And there’s obviously some kind of psycho out there too because nobody sane or normal did this. So, I really don’t know what to think.”
“They’ll find Molly,” he said.
He didn’t say what I knew we were both thinking. In what condition?
My stomach rolled again.
We made it outside the worst of the charnel stench, and I still couldn’t find signs of anyone’s scent but those people already present. I didn’t know anything about how somebody might cover that kind of trail or why they’d think to, unless they knew about the search and rescue dogs and were trying to throw them off the scent somehow. Maybe that’s what that butchered animal was about. Confusing the dogs. I really hated the implications of that. That it could be someone related to K9 Search and Rescue. I’d known those people for years, and I couldn’t imagine any of them being off their rocker enough to have done this.
I glanced up at Sawyer. He’d been affected as strongly or stronger than I was when we’d stumbled into this mess, then put it away, as I had, to do what needed to be done. He seemed to be making a concerted effort not to look at the butchery now. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He was clearly fighting to hold it together.
And then I remembered.
My mother was shot.
Dear God, had he been there? Had he seen his mother’s body?
For all my research into my mother’s death, I really only had my imagination and the coroner’s report to tell me what it was like. But to actually see it happen or see the immediate aftermath . . . If he had, then this whole disgusting mess was bound to remind him.
“Sawyer—”
“Elodie.”
I snatched back the hand I’d been reaching toward Sawyer and scrambled to wipe the guilt from my face as I turned toward my dad’s call. My pulse beat fast and thick in my throat, but my voice came out normal. “Yes, sir?”
I searched his face, looking for any traces of condemnation, of disappointment. Mostly he just looked pissed and worried. But he wasn’t hustling me away, so maybe Patrick hadn’t said anything.
“The sheriff is here. He wants to talk to you.” Dad’s attention shifted to Sawyer. “Both of you.”
“The sheriff?” Okay, yeah, that squeak didn’t sound at all nervous. Not.
Sawyer shifted beside me, the back of his hand brushing mine. Probably it wasn’t intentional, but it steadied me. He seemed to have his own issues with the idea of law enforcement. Though he didn’t outwardly react, his scent changed. Not nerves or fear. Something else. A quick reaction, gone almost before I could catch it. I filed it away as something to analyze later.
Dad just gave me a hurry up look.
Okay, suck it up and deal. You haven’t done anything wrong. At least not in the eyes of the sheriff. Squaring my shoulders I started trudging through the trees.
I don’t know why the idea of talking to the sheriff made me anxious. It’s not like I’ve ever been in trouble. But the whole purpose of my life was to stay below the radar, so being put in the spotlight with an authority figure, even when I didn’t do anything wrong . . . well, it made me nervous. It didn’t help that I was totally flipping out that my dad might find out my lie, and if I didn’t get a handle on this stat, I was going to look like I really had something to hide.
Dad fell into step behind me, shoulder to shoulder with Sawyer, like some kind of entourage. They were both looking at me. I could feel it, like an itch between my shoulder blades.
I’d met Sheriff Beasley, of course. He was a routine fixture on all search and rescue operations. But he’d never actually, you know, talked to me before. Then again, I’d never been the one to find the missing person before, so I guess he’d never had reason to.
A couple of deputies passed us as we emerged onto the access road. One carried a roll of crime scene tape. Usually at this point in a search, the mood was jubilant, with everybody looking forward to a shower and good food as a celebration of victory. But this search had only been half successful so far, and the deputies’ grim expressions reflected that.
A small group of people gathered around the sheriff’s cruiser, studying a map. A fresh bout of nerves started bouncing in my gut as I saw Patrick and David among them. Not like it was a shock. Where were they going to go? As I neared, I could see that someone had made markings on the map in red Sharpie, showing where the search had begun and all the points where the dogs had alerted. It was a duplicate of the one I knew Eileen was maintaining at the base camp. I buttoned down the panic. I was definitely not the object of conversation here, so it was unlikely that my internship was going to come up. Right?
“You wanted to see me, sir?” I said.
All eyes turned to me, and it was like a repeat of walking into the research station yesterday. Too much attention. My palms started to sweat.
“You’re the one who found the Phillips boy?” asked the sheriff.
“Yes, sir. Sawyer and I did.”
Sawyer stepped forward. That’s right. Don’t leave me standing here by myself. You were there too.
“What did he say about what happened to him and his sister?”
Sawyer let me do the talking. The more I told Sheriff Beasley, the deeper the creases around his mouth became, until he resembled nothing so much as an angry English bulldog who’d aged a decade before my eyes. He didn’t ask me anything about how I’d found Rich.
When I finished, he radioed back to base and had them reorganize the search along the river.
“Nowhere,” said Dad. “We’re done for the day.”
“But Molly—”
“The rest of the team is still out there looking. They’ll find her. You’re done. We’re going home,” he said.
The chill crept back. The search wasn’t finished and Dad was pulling us both out? Crap, this couldn’t be good. The sheriff was thanking us for our efforts, telling me what a good job I’d done, but I heard almost none of it. I was too busy trying to figure out what this meant and how I was going to cover my butt.
Patrick walked over, and I felt a fresh spurt of panic. Oh God, don’t let him ask if I can come to work the rest of the day. Instead he looked over at Sawyer. “Give you a ride back?”
“Sure.”
Sawyer turned to me, looking again like he wanted to say something. Instead he said, “Later,” and pulled one of those male head jerks that’s supposed to count as a wave.
Okay, good. Great. One potential threat down. Two more to go.
I made a generic wave to everybody, and walked past David and Patrick without catching their eyes as I made my way up the road to where Dad was standing by our ancient Ford pickup. He said nothing as I climbed in, just cranked the engine and pulled a three point turn to head back toward home. I quietly watched him out of the corner of my eye and tried to figure out exactly how deep in it I really was.
~*~
Sawyer
No, really, I’m not a stalker, I thought as I crept through the woods to the edge of Elodie’s property. There were so many things wrong with what I was doing. It was broad day, and I shouldn’t be on four feet, but I could move faster this way and I trusted that my fur gave me enough natural camouflage that no one would notice me. I shouldn’t be here again, particularly after Elodie had busted me this morning. I knew that. But, she was afraid again. And this time it wasn’t of me. She was scared of her father.