My body grows heavy, and my lashes become weighed down from the torrential rain, making it hard to see as I jog across the clearing. When I reach the tree line and the worn path the guys usually take, I stop and turn on the flashlight to study the ground as I try to remember everything Thorin taught me about tracking. I haven’t had much practice, but luckily because of the rain, I don’t need it.
The clear impressions of three sets of large boot prints are my breadcrumb trail, so I follow the story they tell. Deeper inside the forest, I find a body impression where it looks like someone fell. Beyond that, I come across crushed grass and follow it to the elevated bank of a rising river. I use my flashlight to search the churning water just in case.
It’s blessedly empty.
“Zeke…Khalil…Thorin!” I start to turn away when I spot something black and familiar clinging to the sidewall on the other side of the riverbed.
It’s Zeke’s graphic T-shirt of Bound—his favorite band—caught between some rocks just above the water.
I don’t think twice before jumping over the slippery slope and down into the river. It’s a struggle to cross against the natural flow of the water, but eventually, I reach the other side and when I pan the flashlight over the rocks, I don’t just see Zeke’s shirt.
I see blood. Oh God. So much blood. It’s splattered on the side of the rocks hidden from the rain and rising water like a fucking crime scene. My throat burns with bile as I search for more clues with only the small beam of light to guide me in the dark.
Someone didn’t just get hurt. There was a struggle here. I can see blood in a small puddle turning the rain pooling there into a light pink.
“Khalil!” I shout. “Thorin! Zeeeeke!” Nothing but the howling wind answers me back, so I continue down the riverbed, my boots splashing in the swiftly rising water. “Khalil…Thorin…Zeke!”
The water surpasses my shins, slowing me down and erasing the breadcrumbs, so I climb out of the riverbed, but it’s not easy to do because the bank is a few feet above my head and the wet ground is too slippery to get a good hold. I manage to use some of the embedded rock to pull myself up until I’m lying on the ground panting and shivering. Eventually, I have enough strength to crawl to the trunk of a tree at the edge of the bank and rest there.
Get up. Keep going. They need you.
I pull myself up and continue following the riverbed, but I don’t make it more than a few feet before it feels like I’m being hunted. Call it a sixth sense from nearly dying earlier, but I don’t question it as I reach for my bow and draw an arrow from my quiver.
Those wolves could still be in the area, and so could the bear.
And I ran out of the cabin and into a storm in the dead of night like a fool in love.
I force myself to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other, my eyes and ears on alert as I call their names over and over. Thorin, Khalil, and Zeke.
No one answers me.
The water in the channel below me is rising higher and higher as the rain continues to pour. It rushes alongside me as I come to a crossroads and consider which direction to go. Lightning flashes then, and I see a lone figure walking toward me from the trail that leads back to the cabin.
It has to be one of the guys but an ominous feeling crawls down my spine because I don’t recognize the gait. I know all of their walks pretty well by now—even Zeke’s.
Thorin walks like he never stops hunting—silent, deadly, and focused.
Khalil walks with a confident strut that says he’s used to being watched, coveted, and admired.
Seth walks with a perpetual bounce in his step and trouble in his wake.
Zeke walks like he’s alone…trapped under a cloud of turmoil.
The tall figure moving through the dark has a stride I don’t recognize. He walks like he’s trying to blend with the night and become one with shadow. He walks like he’s darkness incarnate, looking for something to consume. How do I know? The instant fear coiling around my heart and begging me to stay away.
Instinct from living with predators tells me not to run the other way.
As if testing my resolve, thunder claps and I jump. I continue to eye the figure that walks through the downpour as if he doesn’t notice the storm.
“Hello?” I shout.
“Aurelia!”
I’m startled by the voice that answers because it doesn’t come from in front of me where the lone figure is still walking toward me.
It comes from behind.
Spinning around, I gasp when I see Khalil with one arm thrown around an injured Thorin as he holds him up. Disturbingly, I note that they’re on theother sideof the river. Thorin clearly needs help, and so does Khalil judging by the way he’s struggling to keep Thorin upright, but there’s no way I can get to them. There’s no way they can get tomeeither.
