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Silence. Then Kade spoke again.
“He said she was healing well. No infections.”
Hunter was here? She thought. He looked at my back and I didn’t wake up?
Then she was asleep again.
* * *
She wokeup in broad daylight, the morning sun streaming through the windows of the back room that they’d made hers. The men were in the next room, but the woods were so perfectly quiet and still that Charlie could hear them.
“They’re going to come back for her,” Kade said. There was a click, the unmistakable sound of ammunition sliding into a gun. Charlie shivered, despite the pile of afghans and quilts on top of her.
If they wanted you dead you’d be dead, she managed to remind herself.
“Why her?” asked Daniel.
Silence. Charlie’s alarm began to fade and she started to fall back asleep.
“I think they don’t want humans interfering,” Kade said. “Hard to prove that a wolf attack was a shifter attack. Besides, think of how well they could have hidden the body. Out here, no one would ever find her.”
More silence.
Then, Daniel spoke.
“Does this mean Olivia’s gone, then?”
Kade sighed. Charlie fought sleep, but it took her over and moments later, she was dreaming.
* * *
The last timeshe woke up, she was on her stomach on the cot, a comforter underneath her, Daniel kneeling next to her. He’d gotten her bathrobe down to her waist, and he was pulling at her bandages. The pain roared dully through her, followed by intense itching.
“Daniel?” she whispered.
He smiled, looking down at her.
“There you are,” he said.
She blinked a couple of times, testing her awakeness level. The last thing she needed was for Daniel to turn into a wolf, too, chasing her through the house. She was starting to feel like she was in an awful, hallucinogenic fairy tale.
“I need my backpack,” she said, suddenly.
Thatwas what she’d been trying to remember, she realized.
“I need to tell my team that I’m okay. They’re looking for me. They’re probably out there now, combing the woods with helicopters and drones and stuff. They’ve probably found your house.”
“Shhh,” Daniel said. He tore one more bandage off, and it hurt then itched, just like all the others.
Charlie thought she heard a hint of sadness, or remorse, or something in his voice.
“I don’t want them to find you,” she said. “They don’t know about you. They think it’s just Kade, alone.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t exactly look surprised. He looked more like he didn’t know how to explain something to her.
“What do they think about Kade?” he asked, softly.
He reached into a big case and pulled out latex gloves. They barely stretched over his huge, calloused hands, and he squeezed a paste onto his fingers and began rubbing it into her back.
