“Yep.”
“Really fresh prints.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
Artie realized that she was breathing much too fast. “Okay. Since there’s a mountain lion a scarily short distance in front of us, we should go in a different direction, right?”
“That’s a good idea.” He let out a grumbly sigh. “We’re going to have to backtrack.”
“Why?” she asked before turning her flashlight toward the left and the right. “Oh.” The ridge had narrowed, and the rock to the right rose in a vertical wall, while the left side dropped straight down into blackness. Without climbing equipment, there was no way to go either up or down. The only choice was retracing their steps. Again.
With a resigned groan, she turned around, prepared to follow Derek back the way they’d come. Her knee started throbbing again. It felt like it hurt worse when they walked over ground they’d already traveled. Suddenly, the idea of being rescued and carried out of there didn’t seem so bad.
A cry ripped through the snowstorm, jerking both of them to an instant halt. The sound was horribly familiar. For the second time that day, Artie heard Zoe’s terrified scream.
Pivoting around, Artie took off toward the sound. She didn’t even pause to wonder why Zoe was still out there, screaming, rather than tucked up in bed like the earlier static-filled radio transmission had led them to believe. The light from her flashlight bobbed with her sprinting strides, reflecting off Derek’s back as he ran in front of her. Everything disappeared—the pain in her knee, the cougar tracks they were following, the slickness of the snowy path. All that mattered was getting to the girls and saving them from whatever had made Zoe scream like that.
Her foot slid to the left, and she scrambled to keep her balance. The bobble allowed Derek to pull farther ahead. Artie pushed for more speed, digging for that last final burst of power like she had during high school track meets, and closed the gap between them.
When Derek slid to a halt, she almost crashed into him, barely managing to stop in time. His broad shoulders blocked her view, so she shifted to the side and then sucked in a breath.
Their flashlights turned the tawny coat of the mountain lion almost white. It turned its head to look at them, eyes reflecting eerie brightness. Artie bit the inside of her cheek hard. The sharp pinch cut off the scream that was building in her chest.
The cougar was slightly crouched, its long tail twitching like an annoyed house cat’s. A high-pitched whimper from twenty feet in front of the lion caught its attention, making its rounded ears swivel toward the sound. Artie raised her flashlight slightly to find the source of the noise.
When she saw Zoe and Maya’s tiny, huddled forms, tucked against the flat face of a boulder, she had to swallow her own frightened cry.
“Zoe.” Derek’s voice was loud enough to make everyone, including the big cat, startle. “Stand up slowly. You too, Maya.”
The girls didn’t move, but Artie understood what he was doing and stepped to his side. “Girls.” She used her stern-teacher voice. “Get up. I know you’re scared, but you need to be brave.” Zoe was the first to respond, wobbling to her feet and tugging a reluctant Maya with her.
“Good job.” Derek’s tone was more soothing, and Artie had to hold back a semi-hysterical laugh. Apparently, she was the bad cop in this situation. “Now, unzip your coats. Move slowly, though.”
As Derek gave instructions, Artie started inching to the left. Her fingers clutched Derek’s arm, both to tug him over with her and because she needed to cling to him. Her heart was beating so loudly in her ears that it was hard to hear anything else. Both girls had managed to unzip their coats, but Maya started crying, making squeaky, high-pitched sounds. When Artie looked at the cougar, she noticed the animal’s attention was fixed on the children again. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but Artie was pretty sure the lion crouched lower.
“Maya. Stop,” Artie snapped, startling the little girl into silence. “You need to act like a lion, not a little mouse. Be big. Spread your jackets open. Arms over your heads. Pretend you’re ten feet tall and have teeth like a shark, got it?”
Neither girl said anything, but the tears had stopped completely. Their shaking hands extended over their heads. Artie sucked a relieved breath through her teeth as she and Derek made painfully slow progress circling around the cougar.
“That’s perfect,” Derek crooned in his good-cop voice. “You two are so brave. We’re coming to get you now.”
He and Artie had shuffled as far as they could to the side. It wasn’t nearly far enough away from the animal—barely fifteen feet—but a wall of stone blocked their retreat.
With their backs facing a steep rock slope, they inched toward the girls. Artie’s heart was beating fast—much too fast—and she could barely hold in the terrified noises that wanted to escape her lungs.Be a lion,she mentally repeated her own advice.The girls need you. Be a lion.
She and Derek drew parallel to the mountain lion’s side, and it turned to stare at them with eyes that reflected the light. Artie could barely breathe as they made their impossibly slow progress toward the girls while the cat watched. It was almost impossible not to sprint to the girls, snatch them up, and run. Panicked instinct fought reason in her head as her vision narrowed until all she could see was the cougar, crouched to attack her kids.
Artie’s eyes and flashlight flicked back and forth between the predator and the children. They looked so small, even with their jackets opened and their hands stretched bravely toward the sky.
She and Derek passed the cougar’s midsection and then its shoulder. Each careful sideways step moved them closer to the children but also put them more directly in front of a mountain lion that looked ready to pounce. If the animal had to attack, though, Artie would rather be the victim than Maya, Zoe, or Derek. Her fear for her own safety was overwhelmed by the lung-squeezing terror at the thought of the others being mauled.
They were twenty feet from the girls and then fifteen.Oh, please God, please let them stay safe!After one agonizingly slow shift to the side and then another, they were in front of the lion. Finally,finally, they were close enough that Artie raised her arms above her head. When they’d been behind it, she’d been afraid of driving the animal toward the girls. Now that they were on the same end, she was hoping the cougar would take advantage of the opening behind it and leave.
Instead, it lifted one enormous paw and shifted forward a half step. Artie’s heart started beating in triple time. Terror sped through her body until it was hard to think. She stomped down her fear and shifted the flashlight so it skipped over the area around the two girls.
