But if his nasty smell was still lingering here, then maybe—just maybe—he hadn’t done it that long ago. Maybe the damage was still limited.
Please let the dangerous ones have stayed put, she thought desperately. Please don’t let the Vorn get loose!
Bracing both hands on the lever, she shoved as hard as she could.
With a reluctant metallic clunk, it finally moved. She rammed it back up into the locked position and heard–all across the sanctuary–the low hum of the grid beginning to re—energize. A second later the barrier posts around the enclosures began flickering back to life, shimmering with pale blue force fields.
Kiera breathed a sigh–thank God.
But what she felt was only a partial relief because anything already outside its habitat was still outside. And that could spell real trouble if the wrong animals were outside their enclosures.
Kiera spun back toward the sanctuary grounds.
“All right,” she said breathlessly, to Buck. “We’ve got to round up everybody we can.”
He gave a short whuff of agreement and she was glad all over again she had him with her.
But even with Buck’s help, the next hour passed in a blur of chaos.
The theebles, naturally, were the worst. They scattered the minute she went after them, screeching nonsense in their high sweet voices while Buck herded them with increasing exasperation.
“Fuck Buck! Fuck Buck!” one of them yelled as it took off like a neon ping—pong ball.
Another landed briefly on Buck’s back and shrieked, “Run away! Run away!” before he gave an irritated bark and it flapped off again.
“This is not funny!” Kiera shouted, sprinting after a lime green one that had somehow gotten hold of a work—bot’s cleaning rag. “Come back here, you little booger!”
The theeble only laughed in its high—pitched voice.
The spoolers were easier. They mostly wanted to steal things and climb. The snufflers were a nuisance because they inflated and bounced in random directions the minute they got startled. The schoonies were merely stubborn, snorting and pawing the ground when she tried to herd them back to their enclosure.
Slowly and painstakingly, Kiera and Buck finally got the loose animals herded back into their proper enclosures. And, as the sanctuary gradually settled, Kiera began to hope the damage might not be as bad as she’d feared.
Maybe the most dangerous predators had stayed in place because of instinct or habit or just out of sheer luck.
Please, she thought. Please let that be true.
Then she found the carcass.
It lay half—hidden in a stand of silver—threaded ground cover near the edge of the lower meadow. When she looked closer, she saw what was left of a juvenile spooler crumpled and bloody and horribly still.
Huge chunks had been torn out of its body.
Kiera stopped dead as all the warmth drained out of her.
“No,” she whispered.
Her gaze went from the ruined carcass to the torn—up ground around it and then to the deep gouges in the red—stained earth nearby.
She knew those marks–she had seen the size of the jaws that could leave them.
The Vorn was out…and it had already fed.
Kiera’s hands began to shake but she knew she couldn’t give in to panic.
“All right,” she said aloud, though her voice sounded thin and strange in her own ears. “All right. Okay. I can deal with this.”
Buck was standing rigid beside her, fur bristling all along his spine. It was clear he could feel the tension in the air.
