Luka moves.
He's not charging—not yet—but he's agitated, massive body shifting closer to Marie, nostrils flaring.
Marie scrambles backward on her hands and heels, eyes white, sobbing.
"Don't move!" someone yells from the staff side. "Stay still!"
"I can't," she sobs. "I can't, I can't—"
Ragon swears, already scanning the layout, looking for a way down.
"Gate!" Jasper snaps, pointing at a side access door, locked and labeled STAFF ONLY.
Drake is already moving. He vaults the first low chain, skids to the gate, rattles it hard.
"Open it! Now!"
"I— I have to get the key—"
"NOW!" all three alphas bark in unison, voices layered with command thick enough the poor keeper nearly drops his walkie.
Everything is noise and scent and panic.
I'm frozen.
Shock pins my feet to the ground.
One second Marie was beside me.
The next she was not.
I replay the last few seconds in my head on hyper-speed. Shoulder brush. Her scent sour and hot. Crowd surge as people shifted toward the stage. A shove of motion at my back as a teenager squeezed past.
I don't understand how she could have fallen. The railing is high.
I didn't touch her.
I know I didn't.
But I was there.
And now she's below. In with the gorillas.
My lungs forget how to work.
The gate slams open.
Ragon and Drake plunge through, Jasper right behind them—three alphas moving as one, racing down the staff path toward a lower access door.
Somewhere in the chaos, alarms start blaring.
Luka is right at the edge of the moat now, pounding the ground with one fist, roaring at the intrusion.
Marie is shaking so hard I can see it from up here.
She looks tiny. Breakable. She's bleeding from one elbow. Her eyes are locked on the gorilla, sobbing loud enough to carry.
"Marie!" I scream, useless. "It's okay! They're coming!"
