23. Liam
Liam
I sat at the small table in my kitchen and stared down at my glass. The cabin had that particular quiet it always had in the evenings. Pine Hollow sat far enough away from town that the night settled into a comfortable stillness once the last lights from the guest cabins had dimmed.
Normally, I appreciated that quiet, but tonight it only gave my thoughts more room to move.
I poured another drink just to give my hands something to do while my thoughts continued their very efficient campaign against my peace of mind.
My phone buzzed on the table.
I looked down at the screen without much interest.
Then I froze.
Zoey.
Her name sat there in bright white letters.
I simply stared at it. My brain moved through several possibilities at once. Maybe she had changed her mind. Maybe she had decided we could talk.
Maybe—
The phone buzzed again.
I answered immediately. “Zoey?”
There was a short pause on the other end. “Liam. I need your help.”
Something in her tone pulled me upright in the chair.
Fear. Not irritation or guarded politeness.
Fear.
My body reacted before my thoughts caught up. I was already standing. “What’s wrong?”
“Bobbi is missing.”
My mind tried to place the name, then the image of the small girl with dark hair and serious questions about birds and emotional regulation sprang into it.
My stomach dipped. “What happened?”
“She slipped away from her babysitter,” Zoey said. “We’ve been searching for over an hour. Her tracker stopped working.”
The room around me seemed to narrow.
I moved toward the door automatically, grabbing my keys from the counter without breaking the phone connection.
“Where are you?”
“We’re near the canal.”
My hand stopped halfway to the door handle. The canal. Cold understanding moved through me.
That area had water access along several sections of the path. People walked there often. Kids explored there. If a small child wandered too close to the edge?—
“We’re worried she might have gone this way,” Zoey continued. “I thought maybe you could track her. I have some of her stuff.”
Her words came out controlled, but I could hear the strain beneath them. Zoey was afraid.
That fact overrode every other thought immediately.
“Of course.” I was already moving. “I can track her. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” I stepped outside and hurried to my truck. “Stay where you are.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
“I’ll find her.”
There was a small pause.
“Okay.”
The night suddenly felt colder than it had earlier. My mind moved quickly through the information she had given me.
Missing child.
Unknown direction.
Water nearby.
Bobbi had only spent limited time around me, but she’d left an impression. She asked direct questions. Observed everything. Moved through the world with curiosity that didn’t always account for danger.
The thought of that girl alone, somewhere in the dark, sent a spike of worry through me.
I climbed into the truck and started the engine. The tires rolled over the gravel as I pulled onto the road.
Another realization settled into place.
Zoey had called me. She’d asked for my help.
The knowledge didn’t change the urgency of the situation, but it did ease some of the awfulness that had been inside me the past two days.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and pressed my foot down on the gas. The wolf inside me was already awake, searching, preparing. Fifteen minutes suddenly felt far too long.
The drive to the canal blurred into a series of turns I barely registered.
My mind tracked distance automatically. The road. The intersections. The time it should take to reach the path where Zoey was waiting. Every few seconds, my thoughts tried to jump ahead to the unknown places where a missing child could be hiding.
I forced them back.
One step at a time.
Find Zoey.
Get the scent.
Follow the trail.
I rolled to a stop in the gravel turnout beside the canal path. Dust rose behind the tires before settling again. The evening sun hung low enough to cast long shadows through the trees, turning the narrow trail into alternating bands of light and shade.
People had gathered, moving along the canal bank in small groups, calling Bobbi’s name while scanning the brush. A few carried walking sticks. Someone had brought binoculars. The tension in the air was unmistakable even without the raised voices. Everyone moved with the same urgent purpose.
I found Zoey immediately.
She stood near the entrance to the path with her phone pressed to one ear, one hand braced on her hip as she listened.
Her posture was rigid with concentration.
Her hair had been pulled back quickly, and a few strands had escaped around her face.
Even from across the gravel lot, I could see the tightness in her shoulders.
She saw my truck and ended the call mid-sentence.
Relief crossed her face for a brief moment before her expression settled back into determination.
“Thank you for coming,” she said when I reached her.
“You said you had something she wore.”
Zoey held out a scarf and a small glove, her fingers tightening around the fabric. I took them carefully. The moment the scent reached me, the rest of the world faded to the background.
Small human. Soap. Dirt. A faint trace of something sweet from whatever snack she had eaten earlier.
The wolf inside me stirred immediately, alert and focused.
Zoey studied my face while I worked through the scent. “Can you track her?”
“Yes.” I handed the items back to her. “Stay here.”
Zoey closed her eyes in tentative relief. “Just bring her back.”
I held her gaze. “I will,” I said, then I stepped off the path and moved deeper into the trees.
The shift came easily.
Bones moved. Muscles rearranged. The familiar transformation settled across my body in a practiced motion that took only seconds.
The forest sharpened, every scent separating into clear lines.
Damp earth. Moss. Pine needles. The faint trace of animals moving through the underbrush earlier that evening.
And beneath it all, Bobbi.
The trail started near the canal path but quickly moved away from the water. That alone eased some of my worry.
She’d gone into the woods, not toward the edge.
The scent moved steadily between the trees, wandering but not entirely directionless. I followed it carefully, keeping my pace.
Tracking required focus. If I moved too fast, the trail blurred. Too slow, and the scent would fade.
Branches brushed my shoulders as I moved through the forest. The ground shifted from packed dirt to soft leaves and back again. In the distance, someone called Bobbi’s name again.
She had traveled farther than I expected.
The scent strengthened briefly near a fallen log where she had likely stopped before continuing. Small footprints marked the soft soil nearby.
She had climbed over the log, then continued north.
I picked up my pace slightly.
The trail curved away from the main residential area and deeper into the wooded land beyond the canal.
Concern tightened through my chest.
Bobbi might be curious and clever, but she was still a small child alone in unfamiliar terrain.
The scent grew stronger again. It was fresh and recent.
I slowed automatically, then another scent entered the space.
Wild dogs. Two of them.
Their smell cut through the underbrush. Immediately, every instinct in my body sharpened.
I moved forward cautiously.
The loud, agitated barking reached me a moment later.
I pushed through a cluster of low branches and took in the scene in front of me.
Bobbi sat high in the branches of a large oak tree, her small form pressed tightly against the trunk while two large dogs circled below.
They barked up at her relentlessly, jumping at the lower branches.
When Bobbi spotted me, her eyes widened. “Liam!”
The dogs turned. One of them lunged forward with a low snarl.
I moved before the sound finished leaving its throat.
The first dog met the full weight of my body and rolled sideways across the dirt with a surprised yelp. The second lunged from the opposite direction but misjudged the movement entirely.
I intercepted him mid-step.
The fight ended quickly.
These were not trained animals, just aggressive strays used to chasing smaller prey. They had no interest in facing something their own size that refused to back down.
The first dog scrambled to his feet and ran.
The second followed, vanishing into the brush with a final growl of retreat.
I turned back to the tree. Bobbi was still clinging to the branch with both arms wrapped around the trunk.
“You found me,” she said, her tone filled with relief.
I shifted back into my human form and stepped toward the base of the tree.
“You climbed well,” I said.
She nodded seriously. “I needed the high ground.”
“That was smart.”
“The dogs were below my defensive perimeter,” she added.
I rested my hand on the lowest branch. “Ready to come down?”
She looked toward the ground cautiously. “Yes.”
I positioned myself beneath the branch and reached up. “Slide toward me.”
Bobbi followed the instruction carefully. Her small hands gripped the bark as she lowered herself toward my shoulders.
Once she was close enough, I lifted her easily and set her feet on the ground. The second her shoes touched the dirt, she wrapped both arms tightly around my waist.
“I couldn’t see the apartments,” she explained. “I was trying to get a better view to see which way to go.”
I held her carefully while she spoke.
“The tree was good,” she continued. “But then the dogs arrived.”
“That happens sometimes,” I said.
She leaned back and studied my face with calm curiosity.
“We should return quickly. People are looking for you.”
Bobbi nodded once.
Then she settled comfortably against my side as we walked back. The trail home was much easier to follow now.
“That situation was suboptimal,” she said softly.
“Yes.”