I braced myself to stop the shivering but it didn’t work. The place was seeping into my bones. I felt violated, as if I’d never be able to shower enough to get the aura off my skin.
“Hey.” Hunter reached out and wrapped an arm around me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Just a little bit cold. I’ll be fine.”
“We’re almost there,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Our voices echoed when we spoke, ricocheting off the walls so that it sounded like we were in a roomful of people, all of them whispering.
“How did your dad find this place?” I swiped my flashlight around the room and across the ceiling. The room glistened, the colors of ice sparkling in the light. If it hadn’t been for the funeral-suit aura the place would have been beautiful.
“He came out here to hunt bear with some buddies and they followed the tracks to the cave.”
“Please tell me you didn’t just say bear.”
“I didn’t just say bear.”
“Very funny. But please tell me you haven’t dragged me all the way out here to show me an animal that’s going to kill me in a single blow.”
“My dad hasn’t been out here for a few months. And don’t worry, the bear’s long gone. He told me about this place the other night at dinner and drew me a rough map. I came out here yesterday just to see if I could find it.” Hunter hesitated. “And to…see if things were still the way he described them.”
“What things?”
“That’s what I’m going to show you.”
“Couldn’t you have taken a picture and posted it on Instagram?”
“If I did that I wouldn’t get to spend any time with you in a dark place.”
“Ever heard of a bedroom?”
“Are you propositioning me?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell.” My words were pretty damn appropriate, considering where we were. “And if this is your idea of romance I’m going to give you a couple of pointers before your next date.”
Hunter reached the smaller entrance at the other end of the cave and got down on all fours. “You wait here,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I shook my head. No way was I staying in that place by myself. “I’m coming with you.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You sure? It gets pretty narrow in places. Even if you’re not claustrophobic it gets kind of cramped. Not a good feeling.”
“I can handle it.”
Maybe. Either way, it was still better than waiting there alone. I got down onto my knees and squeezed in after him. After we’d gone a few feet the passage got large enough so we could stand up and walk again. It took us about thirty minutes to reach the second cavern. Hunter walked ahead while I stood there taking great gulps of air. I was okay but spelunking was never going to make it onto my to-do list ever again. There was a reason I was a pilot and it had nothing to do with dark, enclosed spaces.
Hunter waved me over to where he stood. “Here it is.”
I walked up behind him and peered at what he was looking at.
“Um, that looks like a log.”
“A charred log.”
“Okaaay.”
He knelt down and poked at the remains of a campfire with a nearby stick. “Somebody’s been here before.” He lifted a beer can and held it in the beam of my flashlight. “Maybe within the past six months or so. Looks like this has been a camp for a while.”
“I repeat—okaaaay.”
“Before I show you, I want you to ask yourself this—the outer cave is much larger, a much better place to camp and build a fire. Why here when you could build a decent camp in the outer cave?”
“Because…whoever stayed here wanted privacy?” Not that a cave hours from a tiny town in Alaska wasn’t already private.
“Exactly my point. The only reason to camp back here is if you don’t want to be seen by anybody.”
“Maybe whoever was here was afraid of animals. Bears, wolves.”
“And lions and tigers,” Hunter joked. “If they were afraid of predators, that’s all the more reason to camp in the outer cave. There’s an escape. In here, you’re trapped.”
“Bears couldn’t fit through the tunnel.”
“No,” he said. “But wolves could. And a curious bear cub could fit through. Even a cub could do some damage.”
“You win,” I told him. “It definitely makes more sense to make camp in the outer cave, if you need to. But I still don’t see how this relates to Annie or my brother. Are you saying you think this might be the kind of place the men in my dreams would come if they needed to hide out?”
“Yes.”
“That’s true of a lot of places. There are dozens of caves just like this all through here. Why bring me to this particular cave?”
He turned away and crossed to a place where a pile of rocks lay against the wall. A few moments later he walked back toward me, holding what looked like a piece of a gray scarf.
“What is it?” I asked, though I already had an idea. Because now I could see it wasn’t a scarf, it was a hat. A child’s hat with long gray flaps hanging down on each side and pointy ears that had deteriorated over time. Miki had worn a hat like that on the day he disappeared. It had been his favorite hat and he’d worn it everywhere, even inside the house.
“My dad found this here when he first discovered the cave. He didn’t think much of it at the time. But then the other night we got to talking about this place and he mentioned the hat. Something about it kept bothering him, pinching his memory is how he put it. Then he remembered Miki was wearing a wolf hat when he disappeared. So I drove out here, just to see if the hat was still here.”
“And it was.”
“Why didn’t you just take it?”
This time Hunter didn’t make any jokes about being in dark places with me. His eyes were serious. And sad. “Because I thought if I left it here exactly the way it was and brought you out to this place it might help you see something.”
“As in have a vision?”
“Yeah.”
“But I don’t have visions, Hunter. It doesn’t work that way for me. I’m not a bloodhound, I can’t just touch something and pick up the psychic scent that will lead me to his kidnappers. Or to the people I think just might take Annie.”
It was true. In all the years I’d been dreaming the future I’d never once seen anything outside of a dream. I wasn’t sure if I was glad about that or disappointed. But I didn’t think standing in the middle of a cave holding a rotting wolf hat that may or may not have belonged to Miki was going to get us anywhere. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“I don’t blame you for being afraid,” Hunter said. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to see what you see, know what you know. If you don’t want to try I get it. We can just go back and never come here again.”
I held out my hand. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t think it’s going to work, that’s all.”
If you asked me, Hunter was the one who looked afraid. He’s probably the bravest person I know, so I knew it wasn’t himself he was worried about. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” I reached out and took the wolf hat from him.
At first nothing happened. When I took that hat into my hands and closed my eyes all I saw was blackness. Not the black-suit aura of the cave, just plain nothingness. Then I remembered I hadn’t taken off my gloves. Still holding the hat, I held out my hand to Hunter. “The glove,” I said. “I need it off.”
He pulled off the glove and I closed my eyes again, wrapping my fingertips around it. Its fur was old and matted down and full of dirt, not to mention freezing cold. I ran my hand over the ears, the snout, the beaded eyes, not sure whether I wanted to feel anything or not. I’d expected a jolt—like putting your hand into an outlet—but it wasn’t like that. But there was something. After a few minutes the hat felt warm to the touch, even though I knew it was still ice cold. There was a kind of energy radiating from the hat, spreading fro
m the plush fur into my fingertips and traveling up my arm.
“Take off my other glove,” I said without opening my eyes.
Hunter yanked off the second glove. “Do you see anything?”
I didn’t answer him. There were shapes now. One of the shapes moved then another, then all the shapes started moving, flickering and fading back into the darkness of my mind. I fought the impulse to open my eyes and thrust the hat back at Hunter. The shapes were coming into focus, settling into their designated spots. Things were gaining color, form. It was almost like developing a photograph the old-fashioned way. Little by little, the shapes became figures and the colors turned into the colors of the cave. At the center of the cave a fire crackled, its flames casting shadows across the icy walls. Two men sat by the fire warming themselves. One of the men pulled a silver flask out of his vest and took a long swig from it. The other sat hunched over a pad of paper, writing notes.
I tried to move around inside the vision but it wasn’t possible. I wanted to pan around the room, to look for the hat and, possibly, the child who had worn it. But I was frozen inside the image, unable to move. I focused all my energy and made an attempt to shift my mind toward the pad of paper so I could read what the man was writing. Nothing happened. I was stuck there, a few feet away from the men on the other side of the campfire.
After a few more minutes of failed efforts I gave up and decided to try to memorize every detail in front of me. The men didn’t look like trappers but beyond that I couldn’t get a read about them. The man drinking from the flask was huge, not the kind of guy you wanted to mess with. The second was taller, thinner, clean-shaven. He didn’t look like a kidnapper, at least not the kind you always see in movies. There was something almost refined about him, as if he were the sort who attended piano concerts and museum events. Meticulous, too, because whatever he was writing he seemed to be taking a hell of a lot of time with it. There was some kind of insignia on his pen, something white and blue, probably a logo, but I was too far away to see if there was any writing beneath it.
“What do you see?” Hunter laid a hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped then instantly regretted it. But the moment Hunter’s hand made contact with my parka the vision lost clarity. If he’d kept it there it would’ve disappeared entirely. As it was, everything had gone blurry again. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to screw up your vision.”
“I know.” The vision was receding from me. I opened my eyes. “It’s just your aura’s pretty strong—it doesn’t like playing minor roles.”
“Sounds about right.” He stared down at the wolf hat in my hands. “Do you want to try again? I promise I’ll take my aura and boot it way the hell across the cave.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I told him. “Just don’t touch me again. Until I’m, uh, finished.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself. Even though I’ll probably never get you alone in a dark place again.”
I gave him a wink. “You never know.”
I shouldn’t have teased him, but I couldn’t resist. And I knew he wasn’t serious. Hunter and I had always joked around about stuff like that for as far back as I could remember. But it never led anywhere. I guess we just weren’t meant to be together, not in any romantic way. It was probably for the best. No way was a relationship between us ever going to work. We were on different paths and trying to pretend we weren’t would only hurt in the end.
“I might not but you probably do.”
The reference to my abilities brought me back to the task at hand. “No talking until I tell you to. I’ve got an idea.”
Hunter held a finger to his lips and gave me a thumbs up.
I gave him a nod then walked over to the charred log and sat down. I put the hat in my lap and placed both hands on the circle of stones that surrounded it.
This time I didn’t have to wait. I got the jolt, the one I’d been expecting the first time I touched the hat. Images flashed across my mind, moving so fast I felt dizzy. Slow down, I told myself—or whoever was in charge of all this. After a few minutes the visions stopped running together and the image of the two men at the campfire returned, only this time I could see the whole cavern. About ten feet away, a small form lay on top of a sleeping bag. It was a boy clutching a wolf hat, the one that lay across my lap.
Miki.
I had to hold the tears back so they didn’t interfere with the vision. My pulse raced and for a second I couldn’t breathe. I forced myself to stop panting and even then I couldn’t calm down. I wondered if Hunter was close, if he’d make me stop. But around me all was silent. Hunter was watching me, I could feel it. But he’d decided not to interfere.
Even though the boy was too far away for me to get a good look at his face I knew it was Miki. The connection between us was strong and when I looked at the small child sleeping I didn’t need to see his face to know he was my brother. Even from where I was, I could feel his fear and confusion. I could feel how much he missed us and how much he wanted someone to save him.
No one had saved him though.
Tears spilled down my cheeks but I ignored them. But the emotions must have been too powerful because the vision was already blurring.
When I opened my eyes Hunter was right there in front of me, crouched down on his heels. He reached out and wiped away the tears on my cheeks with his hands. I tried to smile at him but I couldn’t do it. “I saw him.”
“I know,” he whispered, sitting down beside me and taking my face in his hands. Bending close to me, he touched his lips to mine and kissed me quickly. “I’m so sorry I did this to you.”
“Don’t be.” I kissed him back, as gently as he’d kissed me. “I’m glad you brought me here. Now I know he was here.”
“Does that help?”
“It does.” Hunter’s face was so close to mine I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled of cinnamon, just like his aura. Everything about him was warm, safe, solid.
I reached up and put my hand behind his head, drawing him to me and kissing him hard on the lips. He returned my kiss with the same passion, running his hands through my hair and pressing me against him. Then he was kissing my cheeks, my forehead, my eyelids. When our lips touched I could feel the flames shooting through my whole body. I’d kissed other guys before but it had never been like this. Kissing them had been nice but there hadn’t been this ferocity.
It was the most amazing feeling in the world. Which is probably why it scared the hell out of me.
Using both hands, I pushed Hunter away. “There’s one more thing I want to try.” I got up off the floor and walking over the cavern wall.
He ran a hand through his already unruly hair and looked up at me. “What, torture?”
I laughed. “You didn’t like it?”
“You know I liked it, Kira. The part I didn’t like was when you shoved me away from you and ran across the cave.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I don’t want the, uh, psychic energy to fade before I do this.”
I wasn’t lying. Well, not completely. The main reason I’d broken off the kiss was because I hadn’t wanted it to stop. Which definitely wasn’t a good thing. As much as I liked kissing Hunter my reasons for not wanting to get involved with him hadn’t changed.
But I’d also meant what I said about the energy fading. I could already feel myself pulling back into the “real” world and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to step back toward the other one, the shadow world where nothing ever truly died.
I stuffed the wolf hat into my jacket pocket and laid both palms against the cave wall. The place felt like death and I needed to find out why. It took longer for the vision to appear this time but after about a minute or so I could see it clearly. This time it was a little girl laid out on the ground. The cave was dark, nearly black, and I couldn’t be sure it was a girl. I didn’t see the two men, or any men, and the girl didn’t move at all.
Was she dead?
> It was impossible to tell. I willed the darkness to fade so I could get a better look at her but it remained nearly pitch black. Then a cone of light appeared at the entrance to the cave and caught on the girl’s hair, just for a few seconds.
Her hair was auburn. Curly auburn, cut short and pulled back into a tiny ponytail.
Just like Annie’s.
I pulled my hands off the walls and opened my eyes. “I think they’re going to bring Annie here.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. In the first vision there were two men but I couldn’t see them in the vision of Annie. Somebody was walking into the cave though. That’s how I knew it was Annie. The flashlight caught on her hair.”
“C’mon.” Hunter handed me my gloves. “I think it’s time to get out of here.”
I was shaking hard all over. “I think you’re right. If we don’t leave soon it’ll be after eight before we get back. I wouldn’t want to have to find my way the way we came in the dark.”
“Me either.” Hunter reached the hole that led to the outer cave. “You want me to hold the hat?”
“No,” I told him, my hand automatically reaching into my pocket to make sure it was still there. “I’ve got it. I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine. I was more sure than ever that Annie’s life was in danger and that I was the one who had to protect her. Somehow I had to convince Liv and Gavin to believe me. As I crouched down and followed Hunter into the passageway, I tried not to think about what would happen if I failed.
Chapter 4
It was after dark when we finally got back to town. I wouldn’t exactly say the place was “hopping” (Amarok doesn’t ever “hop”) but it was busy, especially for a week night. There were families hurrying toward warmth with children lagging behind and the usual teen-agers hanging out at the town’s only movie theater. Then there were the couples walking arm in arm as if they didn’t particularly care where they were going.
I looked away from them and from Hunter. I hadn’t made eye contact with him since we left the cave, not that there had been a lot of opportunity to do that while we were riding on snowmobiles in the dark. But we weren’t on snowmobiles now and Main Street was aglow in a mad display of fairy lights. We were standing outside the Blue Moon about six inches away from each other. The idea of entering the Blue Moon suddenly seemed a lot more appealing than it had that morning.
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