Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The storm raged for hours. Early the next morning, the thunder dissipated, but the rain remained. The sky was gray as a bowl of ashes. The air was cold and wet as dawn broke over the horizon.
Raven ached all over. Exhausted, she could barely stand, let alone walk. But walk she did, because she had no other choice. Her hands were bound in front of her with zip ties. She hobbled between Damien and Vaughn, with Dekker right behind her.
Scorpio, Cobb, and a few others took up the rear as they entered the forest at the north end of the refuge. The men carried semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.
They wore camouflaged pants and hunter green raincoats. A few carried packs on their backs. She recognized the familiar camo-green pack Damien wore strapped to his shoulders.
She was too exhausted to be angry at yet another thing they’d taken from her. The map in Vaughn’s possession might as well be on Mars, for how inaccessible it was now.
She’d never see it again. She’d never see the hunting cabin again, either.
The Headhunters glowered and cursed as they hacked their way through the dense undergrowth. Rain pounded their heads and shoulders, dripping from branches, streaming in rivulets from the bushes. In minutes, they were soaked, their clothing sodden. Their boots sloshed through the mud.
They followed the narrow deer path that Raven had traversed earlier, which felt like months ago. They hiked for almost two hours. Raven’s wet pants clung to her body, though her arms and torso beneath her jacket were dry—still freezing, but dry.
She lifted her head and drank the rain, soothing her parched throat.
“Hurry up!” Dekker prodded the small of her back so hard she stumbled over a tree root. Pain stabbed her ribs with every step. She pushed it down somewhere deep inside.
Damien tightened his grip on her arm, holding her up. “Lay off. She’s doing the best she can.”
“This better be worth it, wolf girl,” Dekker said.
Raven summoned a flat smile. “It will be.”
Damien quickened his pace to create some distance between them and Dekker. He squeezed Raven’s arm and pulled her along. She hated that she needed his help, but she did.
He kept shooting her tense, worried glances. His brows knitted in concern. “You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“I know, stupid question.”
She said nothing. What was there to say? Her nerves were stretched taut. It was difficult to breathe from the fear and anxiety churning in her belly.
“I came to see you last night.” Damien lowered his voice. “I brought you medicine, but Vaughn wouldn’t let me give it to you. He wouldn’t let me inside the tiger house to talk to you, either. I’m sorry. I tried.”
“Try harder,” she muttered.
“I am, I promise you. I’ve been talking with my uncle nonstop, advocating for you. I’m the one who suggested you could find the white wolf for him, in exchange for your life, okay? It’s good he went for it. You’ll be okay now. Everything will be okay.”
She shook her head. How stupid was this guy? Things were as far from okay as she could imagine. “Dekker will just murder me anyway.”
“No, he won’t. He knows Vaughn will kill him for disobedience. He’ll do what Vaughn says. If my uncle says you live, you get to live.”
“Okay, sure.” She still didn’t believe it. Not that it mattered.
Vaughn marched on ahead. He paused, twisting to stare back at her. “You'd better know where we’re going.”
“I do.”
She’d been studying the tell-tale signs.
A paw print here and there, not quite smeared by the rain.
Mostly hare, raccoon, badger, and deer tracks.
But there were a few other prints, larger ones.
She noted bent and broken twigs, a torn spider’s web, a crushed leaf, a snarl of her own black hair snagged on a bramble.
Though she had no GPS or compass to guide her, her father had taught her how to find her bearings in the middle of the woods, how to track the creatures of the forest—even if that creature was herself.
“Keep north,” she said. “It’s not long now.”
“You know what will happen if you mislead us,” Vaughn warned.
As if she could forget. She didn’t need the threats. She was well aware of the predicament she’d found herself in. “I know.”
They trudged through the dank, miserable wetness, heads ducked against the rain. Her hamstrings tight, her ribs aching. Rain sluiced off her hood. Her skin was chilled, clammy. Dread and horror tangled inside her, growing heavier with every step.
“You shouldn’t have come back.” Damien’s voice was low enough that only she could hear him beneath the blur of the rain. “You were free.”
“I don’t expect you to understand. I couldn’t just leave her.”
He looked at her, eyes bleak. “I tried to do something. It wasn’t enough.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
“I didn’t want this to happen. What Dekker did to you…”
“You stood there and watched.”
“There was nothing I could do. I wanted to kill him, trust me.”
“Is that what you tell yourself?” There was no venom in her words, no blame. Not anymore. She understood the feeling of being trapped between two impossible choices, each with terrible consequences.
“I can keep you safe now.”
She glanced at him. His expression was solemn, pensive. Rain trickled down his narrow face, plastered his russet hair to his scalp, and beaded on the silver ring piercing his lip. His cunning features still sharply handsome.
“As safe as I am right now?”
He frowned. “After you give them the white wolf. You keep your end of the bargain, and Vaughn will protect you. I’ll protect you.”
She made a noncommittal, disbelieving sound in the back of her throat.
“I swear it. I’ll ask my uncle for you. I can keep you safe.”
She raised her cuffed hands, emphasizing the cuffs. “Right.”
“I’ll take those damn things off as soon as you take Vaughn to the wolf. That’s all you have to do, okay? Just take us there, and everything can be different. It’ll be better, I swear it.”
She saw guilt swimming in his eyes. Remorse. He wasn’t a monster, though he lived among them.
In his own way, Damien had found himself caught in a life he hadn’t chosen. He’d done what he had to do to survive. She couldn’t blame him for it, even if she disagreed with his choices.
“And if I want to leave? After you’ve supposedly saved me?”
“Then I’ll help you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I will, I swear it. Even if… even if it kills me.”
Survival was about more than keeping yourself breathing. It was about choices and sacrifices, choosing what you could live with. And what you couldn’t.
Everyone had to make that decision for themselves.
Her anger dissipated. She didn’t have the energy for it anymore. Not against him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She shook her head, blinked water from her eyes. “I can’t expect you to risk your life for me, a stranger. I shouldn’t have. It isn’t fair. That’s what I’m sorry for.”
“I’m choosing to. I want to.”
“Why, Damien? Why are you risking anything for me?”
“You were brave,” he said after a moment. “Back at the lodge. And now. Hell, every time I’ve met you. You’re doing something brave. Stupid, but brave. Or good. I… maybe I admire that.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah. I do. I really do.”
She said nothing. There was nothing to say. Bravery wouldn’t help her now. It was too late for that.
They trudged on. A few minutes later, her exhausted feet tripped over themselves. Damien caught her. His hands were strong. His nearness was strangely comforting.
He wouldn’t save her, but at least he was here. At least he was on her side, sort of. It was something.
“Move faster,” Dekker spat from behind them. “You need better motivation? How about a bullet through your hand? Or your shoulder? You don’t need your arms to walk.”
Raven gritted her teeth and pushed away the pain, forced it into a box, and locked it up somewhere deep inside her. She had to keep walking, keep going, just a little while longer.
She focused on reading the signs of the forest. Three yards to the northwest, a gnarled trunk of an oak with knots in the shape of a triangle. Ahead to the east, an outcropping of rock beside a spruce with its top half sheared off. Familiar signposts.
They were getting close.
The wind howled through the empty trees, rattling the bare branches. The storm last night had shorn nearly every tree bare.
The men cursed occasionally. Thorns raked at their clothing. They tripped over roots and rocks hidden beneath the damp, matted leaves filming the forest floor.
Scorpio hunched inside his coat, glowering at the wet gleaming tree trunks surrounding them on every side. “How much longer? I’m freezing. My balls are colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra.”
“We’re wasting time,” Dekker said. “Just give me the girl and we’ll be done with this mess. We could be warm by the fire with hot food in our bellies, not out here wandering around the wilderness like damn fools. Hell, she’s probably got us lost.”
“We’re not lost,” Raven said. “I know exactly where we’re going.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done.” Vaughn’s voice was sharp with warning. Scorpio and Dekker fell silent.
They reached a steep incline. Raven shuffled past the stump of a great oak as tall as her shoulder, the broken shards of trunk jutting like teeth. On her right lay a cluster of boulders. Mountain Laurel bushes creaked wetly in the wind.
She stepped into the clearing and lifted her head. The sky was dark and chaotic, though it couldn’t be past 10 a.m. yet. Turbulent clouds churned overhead. The meadow of ferns glistened in the rain.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dekker stepped into the clearing behind her. He gripped her arm and yanked her around to face him. “If you’ve tricked us, so help me—”
“We’re here.”
Raven whistled. One long note, two short ones.