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I wish I brought the tranq gun, Charlie thought. What the hell was I thinking?
“What’s going on in here?” Buck demanded. “Trevor?”
A shape moved out of the darkness. It growled.
“What the hell?” Buck said, as Olivia kept padding forward, menace in every inch of her dark fur.
Charlie’s eyes fell on some sort of farm implement. She didn’t know what it was, but it was two feet long and heavy wood, and that was all she needed.
“I don’t think you want to pick a fight,” Buck told Olivia. “If you’ve got any sense left in that dumb animal brain, you’ll—”
Charlie lifted her weapon and brought it down straight across the back of Buck’s skull, her stitches screaming in protest.
He fell to the floor without a word. Charlie dropped the wooden tool and grabbed the beacon from her pocket.
“Go,” she told Olivia. “Just go north by northwest until you pick up Kade’s scent. He’s all over there. It’s a cabin in the woods, it’s him and Daniel, his mate.”
She swallowed.
“They’re really nice,” she said, her voice faltering. She looked at the button in her hand. “They rescued me when they didn’t have to, and they took care of me for days—”
Charlie stopped, her eyes filling with tears. She stared at the button. She knew that there was no way she could go back. She was too wounded and too tired to make it. Besides, in a few hours, the other wolves would wake up and find the bear missing.
Buck twitched, lying on the floor.
“Go,” she told Olivia. “I’m calling the FBI and they’re taking me home. I’ll be okay.”
Somehow, despite the darkness, the bear looked skeptical.
“Really,” she said. A single tear made its way out of her eye, and she couldn’t help but think of the cozy cabin, or the way she’d felt that morning, waking up between Kade and Daniel.
Olivia crouched down and jerked her head toward her back. Charlie’s gaze flicked to the main farmhouse. No new lights yet, but it was probably a matter of minutes.
The bear grunted.
Does she want me to ride her?Charlie wondered. Can you even ride a bear?
Then Olivia stood and walked to Charlie, who backed a few steps away, into a wall.
Olivia put her nose under Charlie’s hand, then turned, so her back was against the girl.
“Are you telling me to get on?” Charlie asked.
Another grunt, and Olivia crouched.
This is not the plan, Charlie thought. You go back to their house with her, and then what? Are you going to get a new job in Cascadia? You don’t even have any clothes here.
She thought of the first time she’d opened her eyes on their kitchen table, their faces swimming in front of her.
Every molecule of her tired, damaged body ached to be back there with them.
Even though her stitches ached and felt like they were pulling apart, Charlie grabbed handfuls of fur and climbed onto Olivia’s back. She hadn’t ridden a horse since a birthday party when she was ten, but she tightened her knees against Olivia’s ribcage and held onto the handfuls of fur for dear life.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, she thought. I don’t think there’s any going back to my old life after this.
Then they were off. Olivia went through the barbed wire fence, pushing a post down like it was made of straw, as Charlie held on for all she was worth.
They went through the forest, over streams and boulders, through clearings. Somehow, Olivia seemed to have a firm sense of where she was going, stopping to sniff every so often. Charlie felt like all her muscles had locked into place, sore and aching from the long ride.
Then, at last, there it was. The cabin.
“This is it,” Charlie whispered.
When she tried to dismount, she simply fell off and then laid there, on the ground, for a moment as she tried to unclench all her muscles. Olivia nuzzled her, over and over again, until she finally got up.
Just as she did, the door opened.
There were Kade and Daniel, both stark naked.
“Hey,” Charlie said, leaning on the bear for support. “I’m home.”
