Page 106 of Tracking Safety

She swallowed her scream instead.

Just then, Freya launched out of the shadows, a snarling streak of brown. The dog hit the man’s forearm and clamped down.

The man cursed and swung, and the dog yelped as he flung her into the side of the garage.

The man turned back, already reaching for Jenna again. There was nowhere on this property she could run where he couldn’t drag her back.

But Freya was up again, low and shaking, gathering herself for action. This man would kill the dog. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Go!” Jenna screamed at the dog. “Freya—go!”

For one heartbeat the dog hung there, every wary instinct hauling her two ways at once.

Then she broke and tore across the yard, toward the house, toward the men, toward the only help left on the whole burning place.

A hand clamped down across her throat again. The motion crushed the air out of her.

Then something cold and chemical pressed over her nose and mouth, and the smoke and the orange began to smear at the edges of everything.

Leave a sign. Leave anything. Make them able to find you.

She let her foot drag, worked her heel until the shoe slid free and dropped into the grass.

It was small. It might be nothing.

But it was all she had.

“Where are you taking me?” she whispered.

“Somebody wants to see you.” The man didn’t slow. His grip dug into her arm as he steered her toward the trees—toward the heat, toward the orange climbing higher through the woods than it had any right to. “Fire road’s the only way out that isn’t watched. You should be flattered. He came a long way for this.”

So that was it. The fire wasn’t in their way. It was the plan. Every eye on the property was on those flames, and no one was watching the back gate.

She let her foot drag one more step.

The last thing she heard was Freya’s barking, growing smaller and more frantic behind her, carrying its one message toward the house.

Luke had the gap half-won when Freya hit him at a dead run.

She came out of the smoke alone.

Just the dog, barking in a way he’d never heard out of her, driving her shoulder into his shin and wheeling back toward the side yard. Wheeling, barking, wheeling again.

Asking him to follow.

The cold reached him before his mind did.

“Caleb.” He shoved the hose into his brother’s hands without looking. “Take it.”

Then he was moving, the dog ahead of him, the fire forgotten at his back.

The SUV sat at the foot of the drive, headlights cutting the smoke, doors still open. He reached it and did a quick count.

His mother was behind the wheel. Naomi and the kids in the back.

But someone was missing.

“Where’s Jenna?” he rushed.