Page 108 of Tracking Safety

Her stomach turned to ice, and she must have shifted. Sutter seemed to sense her consciousness had returned, and his steps slowed.

“There you are.” He set her on the ground. “You can walk if you want. Otherwise, I drag you. It’s faster and less painful if you walk.”

Before she could think, he grabbed her arm and began to walk. She had mere seconds to get her feet under her. But her legs wobbled. Her foot—the one that was missing a shoe—hurt as rocks and sticks cut into her flesh.

Sutter was leading her into the fire.

Leading her toward something.

There was no other reason they’d be going this way unless Sutter had been instructed to do so.

Which meant that something more terrible than the fire awaited her just out of sight.

Despair tried to grip her. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to keep a clear head.

The kids were safe. That was the most important thing.

“This fire wasn’t your doing, was it?” Her voice came out cracked, raw from the smoke as she tumbled through the woods.

He scowled. “No. And it’s unfortunate—but an obstacle I’ll push through.”

He gripped her arm, fingers digging in until tears pushed to her eyes. She stumbled again as he forced her to walk faster, and the heat hit her like a wall.

The hotness came off the fire in waves, baking the side of her face and drying her eyes until each blink scraped. Smoke poured down the slope ahead of them, thick and low, and the air she pulled into her lungs came hot and tasted of ash. Somewhere close a tree went up with a roar, and the light of it threw everything orange.

Sutter knew the danger they were in. He had to. He felt the same heat she did, breathed the same poisoned air. The flames were climbing, spreading, eating the ground on both sides of them.

He hauled her toward through the woods anyway.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. They were walking toward the fire—toward the heat, toward the roar, toward the place where the inferno was worst. Every step closed the distance to something she couldn’t see past.

Her legs wanted to lock up. She forced them to keep moving. The grip on her arm gave her no other choice.

After what felt like miles had passed, the trees thinned.

Ahead, headlights bored a tunnel through the haze, the beams solid with drifting smoke. A man waited beside the car. He stood in the middle of a burning mountain as if even the flames knew better than to touch him.

And Jenna understood, with a cold that cut straight through all that heat, that this was the moment she’d spent years running to keep from ever facing.

She knew in her gut who that man was.

It was Vito Barone.

He’d come himself to make sure this job was done right.

Luke darted into the woods behind Freya.

The dog stayed on Jenna’s scent, her nose down.

Brush crashed behind him. He didn’t slow until Caleb’s voice landed at his back.

“Luke. I’m with you.” His brother fell in beside him, breathing hard. “I called Micah. He’s sending crews out. Wyatt is on his way, and Max has all the dogs out. Everyone’s safe.”

Everyone except Jenna.

He didn’t say those words aloud. But they caused nausea to roil in his stomach.

For a while the scent held. Freya continued forward, steady and certain. Luke kept the dog in sight, and the three of them ran through the trees.