Page 66 of Easy, Tiger

"Somewhere your tiger will feel compelled to follow." He shoulders his pack and nudges me toward the trail. "Move."

I stumble forward, knowingly catching my foot on the easel's leg. The contraption topples, sending loose sketches scattering across the deck. Keeping the small bound sketchbook clutched against my side hides the fact that I've palmed a torn page, folded small inside my fist.

"Clumsy. Don't worry about the mess. You won't be needing art supplies where we're going."

He remains oblivious to me tucking the folded page beside the trailhead marker as we start down the slope. It will mean nothing to him if he finds it. It'll mean everything to Nolan.

We descend into the forest, and I immediately begin the lessons Nolan drilled into me. At the first switchback, I hook my jacket on a broken branch, leaving a strip of flannel fluttering like a prayer flag. When Nico is preoccupied, I kick rocks off the trail in patterns—three stones pointing north, two to the east, following the old wilderness code Owen taught me for emergency markers.

"You know, Miss Gallagher, I have to admire your dedication. Most people would have run screaming the moment they realized their boyfriend turns into a predator that is over six hundred pounds."

"Most people don't understand what real love looks like."

"Love?" He laughs, the sound echoing off granite outcroppings. "Honey, what you're experiencing is a textbook case of trauma bonding. Danger and adrenaline dressed up as romance. Happens to hostages, cult members, and women who fall for their captors. You're a predictable outcome of a documented pattern."

Deliberately tripping over an exposed root provides the perfect momentum to snap a sapling at eye level. The fresh break will stand out like a beacon to anyone who knows what to look for.

"Careful there." Nico steadies me, concern painted on thick and false. "Wouldn't want you getting hurt before the main event."

We climb deeper into unmarked territory, following game trails that haven't seen human traffic in decades. My hands have gone numb from the zip ties, but I continue to leave signs: torn vegetation, disturbed moss, and scratched bark spelling out directional markers in the simple code the enclave uses for emergency communication. Every quarter mile or so, when Nico's attention gravitates to his GPS unit, I work another torn page loose from the sketchbook wedged against my ribs and let it fall behind me, awkwardly nudging a rock over it with my boot so the wind won't blow it off the trail.

The forest grows denser as we ascend, towering pines blocking most of the afternoon light. My legs burn from the constant uphill slog, but I force myself to fixate on the trail signs. Every broken branch, every displaced stone might be the difference between rescue and whatever Nico has planned.

After what feels like hours, the trees thin into a small clearing dominated by military-surplus tents and equipment cases. Battery-powered floodlights have already clicked on around the perimeter, cutting through the fast-approaching night and casting harsh, artificial glares across the snow. A rutted access road cuts through the trees on the clearing's far side, barely more than two tire tracks worn into the dirt, but clear enough that I understand immediately how he managed to haul all of this up here in the first place. Camouflage netting stretches between the pines, and beneath it sits a heavy-duty ATV hitched to a specialized extraction trailer—a reinforced steel cage mounted on an aggressive suspension system. Beside it idles a dark, high-performance snowmobile. I catch the metallic gleam of multiple rifle barrels, each one angled and mounted like a sniper laid them out himself.

"Welcome to base camp." Nico gestures toward the largest tent, theatrical and pleased with himself. "Home sweet home."

The tent's interior reeks of stale coffee and obsession. Maps cover every surface, topographical charts marked with red X's, satellite photos labeled in military script, and conservation reports dating back decades. A bank of communication equipment hums along the far wall, radio units and a laptop tethered to a portable satellite dish poking through a gap in the canvas roof. The air locks in my throat as I recognize several locations from my own hiking routes, each one circled and cross-referenced with timestamps.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Nico follows my gaze across the makeshift command center. "Years of meticulous research. Turns out your boyfriend's people are creatures of habit."

A detailed map of the northern Rockies features red pins marking locations scattered across three states and one Canadian province, sitting right next to an even larger, newly marked map of our current Appalachian range. Each pin connects to photographs—blurry telephoto shots of massive tigers moving through wilderness that supposedly hasn't seen big cats in over a century.

"You were hunting them out west, and now you've tracked this enclave to the Appalachians."

"I'd call it documenting. Archiving the details involves a completely separate mindset." He unzips a document case, unveiling thick folders organized by region. "Every single one has a fascinating social structure, really, almost like they're organized."

My stomach turns as I flip through surveillance photos of families alongside children playing in remote clearings where couples walk hand in hand through unmarked forest. He's been scrutinizing them all like specimens in a zoo.

A locked case sits open near the folders, and inside it, labeled vials catch the tent's dim light. Blood samples, tufts of fur, teeth, and something that bears a disturbing resemblance to a claw. Price tags in the form of handwritten figures are taped beside each one, numbers large enough to make my jaw drop.

"What do you want with them?"

"Proof and validation. The scientific discovery of the century." Nico follows my gaze to the case and doesn't bother hiding his pride. "Also funds it, as it turns out. You'd be amazed what private collectors pay for something the rest of the world insists doesn't exist. That case alone has kept this operation running for years." He spreads out a blueprint depicting what amounts to a specialized containment unit. "But mostly, I want one alive. Preferably your boyfriend, since he seems to be some sort of leader. A live specimen is worth more than every vial in that case combined. Those seven I shot over the last few years? I wasn't even trying to kill them. I wanted to wound them, track them down, and capture them alive. But high-caliber rounds are unpredictable, and they bled out before I could secure them. I won't make that mistake with Nolan."

The blueprint outlines reinforced steel construction and multiple tranquilizer delivery systems, monitoring equipment that belongs in a research laboratory bolted to every surface. My resolve hardens into a stark truth as I realize he's planning to cage Nolan.

"You're talking about kidnapping."

"I'm talking about advancing human knowledge. Have you considered what shifter biology could teach us? Genetics, evolutionary science, things we've barely begun to understand." Fanatic fervor lights up his whole face. "One live specimen could revolutionize medicine and military applications. Or even our understanding of what it means to be human."

"Stop calling him a specimen. He's a person."

"He's a predator wearing a human mask. And you, my dear, are going to help me remove that mask permanently."

Nico extracts a tranquilizer gun, running a thumb over the loaded dart slowly. "Your boyfriend has a weakness for dramatic rescues. Very noble, very predictable. When he comes for you—and he will come—he'll walk straight into my trap."

I scan the tent for weapons, escape routes, or anything I can use. The zip ties have cut off circulation to my hands, but my legs are free. If I can create enough chaos, maybe I can buy Nolan time to realize this is an ambush.