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She chuckled softly in reply.
After closing the door, I knocked the boards barring the door back into place, and with one final connection to Tick’s mind, I knew which direction we needed to go.
We walked around the platform to the ladder. “Tick found the trail to the new camp—she’ll show me the way,” I said and gestured down the steps. “After you, tough stuff.”
I loved the way Del’s eyes glittered whenever I called her that. Like maybe it was a part of her past she’d always held onto, and if I could do nothing else today, tomorrow, and every day after, I would want to keep that look in her eyes that made her quintessentially Del, despite the bullshit she’d had to deal with over the years.
We ruminated in our thoughts for a while as we kept up a brisk walk, drawing closer to Tick and the new camp. We’d been walking for almost an hour when Tick’s panic filled my chest, and I froze mid-step.
“Fin?” I could hear Del’s voice somewhere behind me, but all I could smell was the scent of strangers clinging to the earth as Tick sniffed her way into camp. There were so many scents, and she had a hard time following them.
I blinked myself back to focus. “Something’s not right.” I was already running before I could finish.
“Fin, what’s going on?” Del asked through a ragged breath.
“I don’t know, but we have to hurry.”
“Liam?” Del rasped, and we kept running, our strides eating up the forest floor in leaps and bounds.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, and I ran so hard, my chest was on fire, and my eyes blurred from the cool morning air.
We ran until both Del and I were heaving for breath, and our night of bliss was entirely forgotten.
“The Sierra soldiers?” Del asked as our people’s tents came into view through the trees.
We halted at the campfire of dying embers, staring at nothing but an abandoned camp, and I shook my head. “No,” I rasped, bending down to study the fresh wagon wheel tracks that were not part of our caravan.
Dread seeped through me, sucking out all the warmth. “This wasn’t soldiers.” I looked up at her, feeling sick to my stomach. “Not bandits or Ferals, either. There would’ve been a fight. There would be bodies.”
Del’s face drained of color. “Then who—what the hell happened, Fin?”
I shook my head, my mind racing. I didn’t want to say the word out loud. “Liam is not here,” I said instead. “If there are no bodies—it means he’s likely still alive. All of them might be.” I shut my eyes, trying to focus on Liam’s mind, praying I could find him.
When I couldn’t, and there was no trace of his cerebral signature anywhere near us, my blood ran cold.
“Fin,” Del croaked. Her voice was barely a breath as she looked frantically around. “Where is Liam?” she demanded more hysterically, and her wide, fear-filled eyes met mine. “Where is my son?”
32
Del
Numbly, I walked around the deserted camp. Sid circled above, crying out for Nyx while Fin and Tick searched the perimeter for clues. Everyone was gone, the horses and tack, too. It was as though our people had just picked up and ridden away without any of their things. Like they had simply vanished.
My feet dragged as I approached Liam’s abandoned bedroll. The tangle of knots in my gut tightened, and each beat of my heart whooshed in my ears. My awareness tunneled to my son’s discarded blanket. To his pack. To his boots, set neatly at the foot of his sleeping mat.
My rib cage constricted, and my breaths came faster. I pressed one hand against my chest, the other against my belly, and fought for air. A guttural moan clawed up my throat and leaked from between my lips. I dropped to my knees and gathered Liam’s blanket, hugging it to my chest.
Wherewashe? Where was my boy? My baby?
I closed my eyes, focusing on the blanket, seeking a resonance to help me understand what had happened and where he had gone.
But there was nothing, only the faint scent of my son on the wool. I hugged the blanket tighter, breathing him in as tears streamed down my cheeks.
I jumped when Fin rested his hand on my shoulder, my eyelids snapping open. I jerked my head to the right to look up at him.
“Tick found one of our people on the perimeter,” Fin said, his voice hushed and a grim set to his features.
Tick stood with her shoulder pressed against Fin’s leg, her eyes alert and searching.
