Chapter 2. The Badge Trail #3
Nate clipped the radio back and turned to Grimm.
The Dutch Shepherd stood near the flat stones, nose high now, scent catching on the slight wind moving downslope.
His whole body had gone still before commitment, that suspended, focused pause Nate knew better than most men’s voices.
Then Grimm stepped onto the rocks, not nose to ground but casting air currents, following something human carried above wet earth. Nate glanced back at Lila.
“We leave the staged prints,” he said.
Her eyes held his. “Good.”
It was not approval he should have cared about. He cared anyway.
They climbed north through denser timber, away from the swale and deeper into the old maintenance zone.
The forest became rougher, less visited.
Blackpine’s public edge disappeared behind them, replaced by older growth, slick basalt outcrops, collapsed culverts, and the remains of a service trail no festival map would show.
Rain thickened, turning headlamp beams into silver tunnels.
The temperature dropped enough that Lila pulled her collar higher and checked Juniper’s paws during a brief pause, her hands fast and gentle.
Nate checked Grimm at the same time, clearing a thorn from the dog’s vest. For ten seconds they worked side by side without speaking, each tending their dog with a care the other understood.
“You were right about the human trail,” Nate said finally.
Lila’s hands stilled on Juniper’s harness. She did not look at him immediately. “That sounded painful.”
“It was.”
“Then I appreciate the effort.”
He glanced at her despite himself. There was no smile on her face, but something wry touched her eyes, there and gone.
In the rain and headlamp glow, with a missing child somewhere ahead, it should not have affected him.
It did. Not as distraction. As something warmer and more dangerous than respect.
He turned back to Grimm before it could become visible. “Don’t get used to it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
They moved again.
Fifteen minutes later, Grimm led them to an abandoned ranger storage shed half-collapsed beneath a cedar.
Nate would have missed it in daylight if not for the old service markers; in darkness and rain, it emerged from the trees like something the forest had tried to digest and failed to finish.
The roof sagged. One wall had split under years of wet rot.
A rusted chain hung loose from the door, recently cut.
Grimm stopped twenty feet away and gave a low, sustained bark.
This time the sound carried weight.
Nate raised one fist, and Lila stopped instantly with Juniper.
He moved forward alone with Grimm, light low, scanning the ground.
Adult boot prints at the threshold. One smaller scuff, maybe shoe, maybe drag.
Fresh scrape on the doorframe where metal had recently been forced.
A strip of blue fabric caught on a nail, darkened by rain.
Sophie’s hoodie.
Nate’s pulse kicked hard. “Command, we have abandoned ranger shed, north maintenance sector. Fresh forced entry. Possible blue fabric on doorframe. Grimm has evidence alert. Holding before entry.”
Mara’s reply came tight. “GPS received. Backup is nine minutes out. Do you have sound?”
Nate listened.
At first only rain. Then, from inside the shed, something shifted. Not a voice. Not a cry. A tiny scrape, followed by a soft, wet cough.
Lila heard it too. Her face changed, every line of her focusing into the same bright point. “That could be her.”
Nate’s hand went to the shed door. “Sophie Bell,” he called, voice low but carrying. “This is Nate with Raven Ridge Rescue. If you can hear me, make a sound.”
No answer.
Another cough came from inside, weak enough to break something open in his chest.
Lila stepped up beside him despite the rule, medical pack already sliding from her shoulder. This time he did not tell her back. “If she’s sedated and cold, she may not respond,” she said. “We need eyes now.”
Nate nodded once. He pushed the door open with his boot, Grimm at his side, the dog under tight command.
The shed smelled of rot, wet wood, mouse droppings, and something faintly medicinal.
His headlamp swept over old shelves, broken tools, a tarp, three plastic storage bins, and a corner where a child-sized shape lay half-hidden beneath a damp emergency blanket.
For one impossible second, all the past failures in Nate’s life went silent.
“Sophie,” Lila breathed.
They crossed the shed together, Grimm holding the doorway, Juniper moving only when Lila gave the soft command.
Sophie Bell lay curled on her side, blue hoodie soaked at the sleeves, red sneakers muddy, yellow hat gone, lips pale, lashes dark against her cheeks.
Her breathing was shallow but present. One hand clutched weakly at the strap of her backpack.
The backpack was still on her, but the zipper pull where the dinosaur keychain had been attached was empty, a clean cut in the plastic ring.
Lila dropped to her knees beside the child with controlled speed.
“Sophie, sweetheart, my name is Lila. I’m going to help you.
” Her hands moved with exact competence: airway, breathing, pulse, pupils, skin temperature, signs of trauma.
She did not crowd the child’s face. She placed one warming pack near Sophie’s core but not directly against skin, then glanced back.
“Nate, thermal blanket. She’s breathing.
Pulse slow but present. Pupils sluggish.
She’s hypothermic and likely sedated. I need EMS moving now and a stretcher team, but tell them no sirens near the shed.
If she startles awake confused, I don’t want panic. ”
Nate relayed the call, voice steady by force. “Command, Sophie Bell located alive inside abandoned ranger shed. Repeat, Sophie located alive. She is breathing, hypothermic, possible sedation. Need EMS and stretcher team to my GPS, quiet approach. Preserve perimeter. This is a crime scene.”
For half a heartbeat, the radio went silent. Then Mara’s voice broke through, rougher than he had ever heard it. “Copy, Sophie located alive. EMS moving. Declan and Asher en route. Marissa is being held at medical command until we can transport safely.”
Nate lowered the radio and looked at Sophie, then at Lila.
The veterinarian’s warmth had not vanished under pressure; it had transformed into something fierce and precise.
She spoke softly to the unconscious child while her hands worked, and Juniper lay down a few feet away, calm and visible, ready for the moment Sophie woke frightened and needed something gentle to hold onto.
Grimm remained at the door, a dark sentinel between the shed and the forest, nose angled outward, not done working.
Because this was not the end of the trail.
Nate saw it at the same time Grimm did.
On the floor near the back shelf, half-hidden beneath a torn tarp, sat a small medical pouch. Not Lila’s. Not rescue issue. Dark green canvas, old but clean, with a white label peeling from the side. Nate crossed to it slowly, photographed it, then angled his light.
The label read: RRVC FIELD SEDATION KIT.
Below that, in faded block letters, was a code.
Lila looked up from Sophie and went still.
Nate did not need to ask if she recognized it. The color had drained from her face in a way the missing child had not caused. This was different. Older. Worse.
“Lila,” he said.
“That code,” she whispered. “It’s the same family as the marking on Avery’s medical crate.”
The shed seemed to shrink around them. Rain hit the collapsing roof. Sophie breathed shallowly under Lila’s hands. Grimm stood at the door, his body rigid now, staring into the forest as if the person who had left the pouch might still be near enough to scent.
Then, from somewhere outside in the trees, a twig snapped.
Not rescue-team approach. Too close. Too careful.
Grimm’s growl filled the shed.
Nate moved between Lila, Sophie, and the door before the sound finished.
Outside, beyond the rain and the black trees, someone began to run.