Page 109 of Tracking Safety

The heat built as they ran.

Then the wind swept through the forest. The orange that had been a glow on the far slope roared to life in front of them. Smoke rolled around them in a wave that ate the flashlight beam whole.

They kept going, though every instinct said to turn back.

He couldn’t do that to Jenna.

If he let her go now, he might not ever see her again.

Visibility dropped to twenty feet, then ten, then nothing. He couldn’t even make out Caleb’s face beside him.

Luke crouched low to where the air was cleaner.

Freya hurried ahead, nose to the ground. She worked a slow loop before coming back to him, her ears down.

The scent she’d carried since the garage had burned off the ground or buried itself under the reek of woodsmoke. There was no getting it back.

“It’s not on you.” He rubbed the dog’s head, sensing her guilt.

“Luke.” Caleb had an arm thrown up against the heat, his face slick and lit orange. “It’s a draw. We climb out now, or we don’t climb out at all.”

His resolve only hardened. “Jenna is out here somewhere.”

“You don’t know that.”

“The fire road.” Luke didn’t have a reason to know that—only gut instinct. “It’s the only place that make sense. If whoever took her intends to drive her out, that’s the only place he could do so.”

Caleb took in the wall of flame on either side of them. Luke knew his brother was running the math, weighing the risks.

He finally nodded. “Then we go now.”

They hurried forward. The scramble east along the slope was hard. Loose rock slid underfoot, and branches clawed at his arms in the dark. Freya kept ahead of them, low to the ground. Caleb labored behind, his breath sawing loud enough to hear over the fire.

They dropped down through a grove of hemlock the flames hadn’t reached yet, where the air came a degree cooler, and Luke gulped it like water. It didn’t last.

They continued.

The smoke thickened as they went. It poured through the air, a dark river that stung his eyes and coated the back of his throat. Every breath came shallow and scorched.

Beside him Caleb coughed hard enough to stagger. Freya pressed close against Luke’s leg, panting, her coat gritty with ash. He kept a hand on her to keep from losing her.

When they finally broke out lower on the slope, his lungs were raw and the night roared.

He searched the dark for any sign that Jenna had been brought this way. The fire’s crackle had become a steady, swelling growl, close enough now that he could feel the heat of it on his face like an open oven door. Freya’s ears went flat. A low sound built in her chest.

Then Luke saw why.

A wall of fire stood between him and the bottom—a roaring curtain that cut clean across their only route.

Somewhere past the flames was the fire road. He had no way through. No trail on this side. No scent.

He had nothing but fire . . . and his faith.

CHAPTER 46

Sutter shoved Jenna the last few feet and let go.

She stumbled forward before straightening. When she looked up, Vito Barone stared down at her.