Officers crashed through the brush behind me. Donovan was first, flashlight sweeping across the scene. Me kneeling on the suspect, blood running down my left arm, the knife in the pine needles.
“Somebody cuff him,” I said.
The suspect didn’t resist when an officer rolled him onto his side and cuffed his free hand to his belt loop, leaving the bitten arm alone until the medics could get to it.
I stood, pulled the ball from my vest with my right hand, and tossed it to Jolly. He caught it out of the air and chomped down, tail hammering the forest floor. Done. The job was done and the reward had been earned, and nothing else in the world existed for him beyond that ball.
Donovan’s flashlight found my arm. “Ben.”
“It’s a scratch.”
“It’s bleeding.”
“It’ll stop.” I turned to Jolly and ran my right hand overhim. Shoulder. Neck. The place where the blade had been aimed. My fingers pressed through his fur, feeling for blood, for a wound, for the wet heat that would mean the knife had landed before I’d gotten there.
Nothing. Jolly was clean. The knife had missed him entirely.
The adrenaline was arriving now, that delayed wave that hit after the danger passed. My right hand was steady because I needed it to be. The left one was hot and wet and starting to throb, but I’d had worse from a cooking accident. The cut was long but shallow, the kind that bled impressively without doing real damage.
Donovan pulled a field dressing from his vest and crouched beside me. He wrapped it around my forearm without asking, pulling the tail tight with practiced efficiency.
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
He held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, making sure I meant it. Behind us, Reeves and another officer hauled the suspect to his feet and started walking him back toward the cabin. The man stumbled through the underbrush, cuffed and deflated, the fight drained out of him completely.
I stayed in the trees for one more second, taking a breath, kneeling down by Jolly. That blade had been aimed at his neck, and I’d gotten my arm in the way by a margin I didn’t want to calculate.
Way too fucking close.
Jolly sat beside me in the pine needles, crunching his ball, perfectly content. I pressed my knuckles against the top of his head, the spot where the bone was thick and warm, and held them there.
Then I stood up. Pulled Jolly back toward the cabin. There was more work to do.
Once the cabin was fully secured, four suspects cuffed and separated, rooms cleared, I sent Jolly back in to sweep.
Just like the first raid, he worked through the rooms as he’d been trained to. Systematic. Nose to every surface, every seam, every joint where wall met floor. Past the card table where the product was already bagged and tagged. That was someone else’s job. Jolly was hunting for the things that didn’t want to be found.
Kitchen. Bathroom. Down the hallway into the first bedroom. Nothing. Into the second.
He stopped. His head dropped. His breathing shortened. He sat.
Strong alert. Something behind the wall.
“Got a hit. Second bedroom, north wall.”
I immediately pulled him out of the room and moved him down the hallway, doing a quick check in case he was showing signs of any exposure to fentanyl. But his eyes were clear and breathing normal. He hadn’t lingered, and his exposure was minimal. He was fine. I took him outside, and we waited on the back porch while they went to work.
It didn’t take long. A section of drywall had been cut and replaced, the seams mudded over and painted. Behind it, a cavity between the studs. Inside, wrapped in plastic and duct tape, enough packaged Drift to fill a grocery bag.
Not a massive haul. But real. Enough to confirm this cabin had been an active distribution point.
Vance appeared in the doorway. He looked at the wall cavity, then at the product, then back at me.
“You okay?” He nodded toward my wrapped forearm.
“Yeah. Fine. Jolly took down the runner.”
