Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
As the sun sank in the sky, Raven knew she needed shelter.
Her throat burned with thirst. Though she took judicious sips of water, her water bottle was running low.
She could filter drinking water with the purification tablets in her pack and refill her water bottle, which was less than half full, but the river was a few miles away.
She wasn’t sure what to do next. Run or keep fighting? She’d done some damage. Was it enough? She wasn’t sure.
Right now, she had to figure out how to survive the night.
Her legs could barely move. A great weariness overtook her. Her steps became sloppy, breaking twigs and bending leaves with every step, leaving a trail for the Headhunters to follow.
It would be night soon enough. She had her tarp, rope, and sleeping bag in her backpack. She could bed down anywhere. Still, the thought of Vlad close by, prowling amongst the shadows, made her think twice about napping on the ground.
Maybe a tree? Tigers could climb, but they didn’t particularly like to do so. A tree was probably her safest bet.
She had a rope. She could find a large oak with a thick branch twenty-five feet off the ground. She could tie herself to the branch to keep from falling and breaking her neck in her sleep. It would keep her safe from the Headhunters, also. Safer, anyway.
There was no such thing as safety.
Ten minutes later, she’d found a suitable oak tree with low, thick branches she could easily climb. She shrugged off her pack, unzipped it, and dug around for her coiled rope.
The sensation of being watched raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Her pulse raced. Outwardly, she remained calm. Keeping her movements steady, she slowly reached for the rifle lying beside her backpack. With clammy hands, she seized the rifle, stood, and spun around to face a new threat.
The white wolf watched her. The wolf stood ten feet away, in between two tall pine trees. Raven hadn’t heard her silent approach. The wolf moved as a ghost, drifting like the otherworldly fog from last night.
Raven lowered the gun and dropped to her knees on the leaf-strewn ground. Instinctively, she bowed her head. It made her feel a bit ridiculous. She didn’t care. Overwhelming relief flooded her entire body.
She took a breath and raised her head. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, Luna.”
The wolf’s lips pulled back. Just enough to show a sliver of teeth. She pivoted and trotted away. She glided between a gnarled pine tree and a thicket of huckleberry bushes.
Before she slipped out of sight, she paused, looking back over her shoulder. Her yellow eyes stared at Raven.
An invitation. She wanted Raven to follow her.
Raven rose to her feet. She zipped and re-shouldered her pack, then grabbed her rifle. Exhausted as she was, she didn’t want to be alone. She would go wherever the wolves wanted to take her. “Please don’t go far, or my feet will fall off.”
The sun sank behind the trees. As dusk fell, she trailed the wolf, winding through dense thickets of mountain laurel and sumac, traipsing through copses of yellowwood, maple, and white oak trees.
Luna disappeared often, her loping gait too swift for Raven to keep up.
When she was lost, Raven would stop and wait.
Within a few minutes, Luna reappeared. Her jowls pulled back, not in a snarl necessarily, but perhaps an irritated grimace, her wolfish expression like a mother irked at her troublesome, too-slow children.
“I’m trying, I promise.” Her legs ached. Her eyes burned. Exhaustion pressed down on her like a thousand bricks. Still, she followed the wolf.
It was nearly dark by the time Luna led her up a steep hill, then around several moss-covered boulders the size of trucks.
Eventually, the wolf paused before a massive rock jutting at least twenty feet high and thirty feet across.
At its base opened a narrow, dark crevice about five feet wide and three feet tall.
The wolf ducked inside the crevice and disappeared. The crevice appeared to be a cave.
A series of yips and whines echoed from inside the cave. A moment later, the large black wolf emerged. Shadow trotted up to Raven and pushed his shoulder against her hip, like a greeting, or a sign of grudging affection, perhaps.
“Hello to you, too.” She dared to stretch out her fingers. Gently, ever so gently, her fingertips grazed the ruff of his neck.
The wolf didn’t growl or react at all.
Growing bolder, she cautiously stroked the fur along his spine. Though his guard hairs were coarse, the thick black fur underneath was incredibly soft.
Shadow circled her. He rubbed against her thighs as she petted him. He was so powerful that when he bumped her, he nearly knocked her off her feet.
After a few minutes of this, he abruptly departed. He trotted to the cave entrance and slipped inside.
For a long moment, Raven stood outside the cave, conflicted. In the wild, adult wolves didn’t use dens unless they had pups. Wolf packs preferred to sleep outside beneath the stars.
Was it possible they had chosen this cave for her? Did they want her to come inside with them? Was that why they’d invited her here? If she dared to invade such a tight, intimate space, and the wolves didn’t accept her presence, it might trigger a defensive attack.
She had two options: find another tree and spend an exhausted, restless few hours feeling cold and incredibly uncomfortable, or she could accept the invitation of these strange, wild creatures and willingly enter a wolves’ den.
Raven chose the wolves.
Removing her pack, she retrieved some of her beef jerky and a bag of nuts, then hid the pack behind a nearby boulder. Though her throat felt dry as a desert, she took only a few swallows from her water bottle. She needed to conserve what remained and find a fresh water source first thing tomorrow.
Using her whittling knife, she cut several slender branches from a nearby pine tree to brush the dirt near the cave of her footprints and then covered the pack.
She crept to the crevice, careful to keep her balance on the sharp edges of the rocky shelf. Taking a breath, steeling herself, she dropped to her hands and knees.
She crawled inside the cave, dragging the rifle with her in one hand, the flashlight in the other. Dense darkness washed over her. The smell of earth, pine, and rotting leaves filled her nostrils.
Once inside, she flicked on the flashlight and shone it across the walls. The cave was around six feet across and four feet high. At the back, it narrowed into a small tunnel that led who knew where.
On the left, Shadow and Luna lay tangled in a furry pile. Shadow licked Luna’s muzzle while she nuzzled her head against his neck. The wolves lifted their heads as she entered.
Luna yawned, showing her gleaming white teeth, as if to remind Raven who was in charge.
Her heart thudded in her chest. “Trust me, I know.”
They did not appear threatening. Still, to be in close quarters with such powerful, lethal creatures was disconcerting.
Raven curled up on the rocky ground on the far-right side of the cave to give the wolves their space. She lay facing the entrance, the rifle next to her.
The cold hardness of the rock seeped through her clothes. Though the dank air within the cave was significantly warmer than it was outside, it was still frigid. Her breath expelled in white clouds. She shivered.
Feeling cold was a good thing, wasn’t it?
She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.
Still no fever. But her throat was dry and hurt when she swallowed.
She was so tired. Every muscle hurt. Was that a symptom of the Hydra Virus?
She couldn’t remember. She was too tired to think about anything.
Which was a good thing. Her eyes stung with a fountain of unshed tears.
Grief was always there, crouched deep inside her.
Her heart was a mangled wreck. Zachariah was gone.
Her father, dead. Everything she loved, in peril.
She was being hunted, forced to take shelter with huge furry predators who could devour her if they so wished.
No use thinking about any of that now. She could worry and mourn in the morning, if she lived through the night. And if she did live, she needed a plan.
After a few hours of sleep, she could think clearly enough to figure something out. For now, she desperately needed sleep.
Raven flicked off the flashlight to conserve the battery. She fought to keep her eyes open, determined to remain alert.
While she wasn’t afraid of the wolves—well, maybe a little—Vlad was still out there. So were the Headhunters. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.
Despite her best efforts, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. She breathed in the sweetly dank scent of wolf and watched the narrow sliver of daylight beyond the cave entrance blur and fade to darkness.