Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
TALON
"Can you show me exactly where?"
Leo follows Arizona with a small camera in his hand as she leads him out of the small clearing where the camp she set up with her friend just a few days ago remains mostly intact even after the rangers and Salvation County sheriff deputies went through it.
Sagan's still gone, having disappeared into the thick forest long before we arrived this morning.
He and Leo tracked something pretty deep into the forest before it got too dark to keep going last night; today he's mapping the route and hoping it leads to where ever those men had been taking Zona's friend.
We're all not so secretly hoping it leads us to Astrid herself. Preferably alive.
"So what's up with you and Arizona?" Austin doesn't look up from where he's carefully photographing the ground, hoping his brother, Jaden will be able to isolate tracks and prints that could be useful with high tech computer software back at the base later.
"Meaning what?"
We've photographed every millimeter of the camp and the girls' gear. Zona is walking Leo through her movements of yesterday morning while he gets video of her re-enactment from every angle.
I've swabbed and bagged anything from Astrid's gear, combing through it for anything that could help us. Anything at all.
We don't just need to find Zona's friend, we need to find the men behind her disappearance, including the men behind them, since the bodies dumped at the trail won't be doing any talking.
"Just making observations." Austin finishes his photography, cussing at the mess law enforcement made of the scene yesterday.
"Sounds more like accusations." I stop what I'm doing, standing to my full height to face off with the man who leads this team. "Say what you need to say."
Austin plants his feet and squares his shoulders. He levels a serious gaze at me, dropping the affable demeanor I've gotten used to, reminding me that he's just as deadly as any of us, and crossing him won't be an easy win.
"Frost recruited you to Rogue, he sent you here and put you on my team. I assume that came with the same run down of his expectations that the rest of us got. Including the speech about integrity and appropriate actions in the presence of the at-risk subject we deal with."
"Arizona isn't a 'subject.' She's not a client.
She's a grown woman and she has the right to make her own decisions.
.." I take a deep breath, not sure how to address the matter and very aware that I probably have crossed a line with Zona that looks pretty bad from the outside.
I'm probably risking my place with the team, but I can't pretend I'd make a different choice.
"...it's not like that. There's something real there.
Do what you have to do, I won't be walking away from her. "
His response makes it clear that he wasn't expecting me to stand my ground. Austin's head tilts damn near imperceptibly and one eyebrow hitches over a narrowed eye.
"Frost trusts you. I respect Frost. Just want to make sure you understand that we don't typically spend our time chasing Sasquatch.
Most of the time, we're dealing with the kind of trauma that breaks people and it's our job to keep them safe and get them the resources they need to recover from whatever fucked up shit they've been through.
"Taking advantage puts you on the wrong side of the good guys verses bad guys line, Avis. We don't tolerate bad guys well in the Rogue."
I can't help the smile from forming. The guy basically just called me a predator and threatened to disappear me permanently, but damned if his little speech doesn't make me proud to join this operation. That's exactly the kind of team I want to play on.
"HUA," I snark at him through the grin I'm trying to hide.
"Drop it." Austin tense stance relaxes. "In case Leo and Sag aren't clear enough reminders, we're not in the service anymore.
Don't let Harlan's crewcut fool you, he's not running some kind of club for guys like us to relive our glory days.
Stay with us long enough and you'll work with plenty of people who never served--" His head turns to scan the forest, presumably to be sure our conversation stays between us, "and you'll find that not everyone who did was cut out for it. "
I'm about to ask what he means by that when Leo steps out of the trees, attention focused on the playback of some of the video he's been taking.
"Hey, Zone, could you-- where's Zona?"
Leo's head pops up, taking a closer look around us before aiming his question toward me and Austin.
"With you," I remind him sternly.
The man shakes his head to the negative.
"Nah. She came back your way about half an hour ago. After I had her walk me through where she saw the Bigfoot follow those two assholes into the woods with her friend. She headed back here while I followed the trail Sag's mapping out to see how far he's tracked them so far."
Dread coils in my gut, threatening to escape into my veins.
"She never made it. How far in were you when she turned back?"
My feet are already in motion, pushing past Austin and heading into the dense tree line Leo just emerged from, both men following behind me.
"The path is pretty well marked now with Sag's tape. I don't see how she could have gotten lost."
Leo's right, Sagan's got the path marked off clearly with high-viz tape tied around tree trunks and branches to designate where Zona saw her friend being taken. It'd be hard to miss the bright pink strips of vinyl marking the way back to the clearing.
I stop by a tree where the bark has been scored deeply by claw marks.
"What the fuck did that?"
I'm not an expert on wild animals, but the only thing I can imagine with claws long enough to do that kind of damage would be a grizzly-- and we're not in grizzly territory.
Austin looks as shocked as I am, but Leo shrugs. "Bigfoot," he says casually.
"She never said it was Bigfoot," I state for the record. What she did say has me eyeing the marks more carefully. These weren't made by opportunistic traffickers looking to kidnap a couple of women from their campsite unless one of them was Freddy Kruger.
"How far in did you guys go?" I turn to Leo, pleased to see that the man has the good sense to look worried in spite of his glib remarks.
"About twenty more feet." He raises an arm and points toward another set of pink ribbons swaying in the light breeze.
"How are your tracking skills?" Austin asks, pushing past Leo in the close forest to hand me a small, tactical flashlight.
"Good," I confirm. "One of my better skillsets. Not that I need them."
Shining the light just to one side of us, I point out the space where something-- or someone-- went through recently with no attempt whatsoever to hide their tracks.
"Shit. My grandma could follow that," Leo mutters, not waiting for me and Austin to follow him into the shadows.
Arizona
"...they'll believe me then, won't they? Yeah they will. I'm not crazy-- I'm not crazy!"
A harsh slap stings my cheek, pulling me back to consciousness. It takes a long minute for me to get my bearings and figure out what's going on.
My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton and I have to put effort into getting my eyes to focus.
At some point, I realize that my limbs aren't responding to my commands to move, and little by little, the tight cinch of rope cutting into my skin becomes apparent.
"They told me I was lying. Said I didn't have the balls to do the job. That son of a bitch actually laughed in my face, can you believe it?"
A man stands in front of me, talking nonstop more to himself than to me, I think. He watches me with interest while I slowly come to.
"Said I was soft. Accused me of letting the other one go-- said I let you both get away because I don't have what it takes for this kind of work. Said I'm too soft... I wasn't lying. I'll show him. I'll prove it."
Trying to ask him what he means is when I realize my mouth is taped shut.
"Shh, shh... not yet." He holds one finger over his lips to indicate staying quiet and moves his weight from one foot the other in a hopping motion.
This guy isn't right in the head, not by a long shot. His stringy hair hangs in his eyes, the stubble on his chin adds a feral quality to the dirty clothes hanging off his wiry frame. But it's the way his eyes move that clues me in that whatever this guy's plan is, there's no reasoning with him.
His pupils are dilated, his focus on anything and everything all at once and to call the guy "twitchy" is an understatement.
"You stay right there and be quiet." He shushes me again, and backs away, nervously scanning our surroundings while waving a pistol at anything that moves and several things that don't.
That's enough to make me stop struggling against the ropes, at least for now.
I'm tied to a tree. The rough bark digging into my back while the rope cuts across the front of my chest, arms, thighs, and ankles.
I don't know where I am, other than in the forest, and I'm too disoriented to figure out which direction is north and how far the sun has traveled since Talon and I met up with the other men at my old campsite.
My thoughts are still jumbled and I don't know how I got from talking with Leo about the way the shadows closed in behind the men as they led Astrid into the woods to waking up tied to a tree with a lunatic waving a gun and talking gibberish.
We're still in the woods. There's no vehicle in sight, but this forest is so thick, there could be a fire road or a jeep trail just a few feet away and there'd be no way to see it from here.
Which means I have no idea how far I am from Talon or any of the men he works with.
The fact that Crazy Guy doesn't want me to scream has to mean something though, right? If I can get the tape off of my mouth, maybe we're still close enough they can hear me.
It turns out to be surprisingly harder than I expected, but it gives me something to focus on that makes me feel less helpless until my captor returns.
When he does, he shares a plan that has me not at all sure if it's better or worse than anything my imagination had come up with.
"They're not wolves," he explains. "I don't know what they are-- dogmen or werewolves or fucking demons, man, I don't know. But they'll smell you. They'll come because they want the women. They take the women. He doesn't believe me but that's what happened."
He has the gun in one hand and a phone in the other, waving both erratically as he talks.
"I'm going to show him though. They'll come for you. You don't even have to scream. They'll smell you. They ain't wolves, they're something else."
He might be insane and rambling nonsense, but I can't help but remember what I saw yesterday morning. Oh my god, was it just yesterday? How can so much happen in such a short amount of time?
Still, remembering the way the darkness closed in behind those men as they led my friend into the forest. It wasn't natural. And those men were found dead just hours later-- but no sign of Astrid.
I don't like the way those images fit so well with this guy's unhinged ranting.
Behind the duct tape, I whimper.
"Yeah, you know I'm right. They got Diz and Jimmy. I only got away because they wanted the girl more than me. I don't know what they do with them but you're going to help me prove I didn't let 'em go. Ready?"
No. Absolutely not. I have no clue what this guy expects me to do, but I am one hundred percent sure that I'm not ready for it.
"Get ready." If possible, Crazy Guy's eyes get crazier, his fingers inching toward my face. "I'm going to get one. I'll show him that I'm not lying."
The tape rips off my mouth in one quick pull that hurts so fucking bad I scream my head off without even thinking of it.
The man cackles with a manic glee, like he's excited to hear me screaming.
And I do scream; after the initial shock of the tape getting pulled off turns to relief at being able to gulp deep lungfuls of air, I throw every curse word I know at the man who slinks behind a tree opposite of me.
I scream at him to let me go, I scream at him to tell me where Astrid is, I call him crazy, and I make some very confident predictions about where he'll be spending the afterlife.
I pull against my restraints with renewed energy and then I start screaming for Talon.
The man who was so excited about giving me back my voice a few minutes ago goes quiet in his hiding spot behind the trees. Something in the air changes as the entire world seems to go silent. It's like every living thing in the forest is holding its breath, including me.
Primal fear seizes my throat, refusing to allow air in or out.
The man hidden from my sight, however, seems to have found his voice.
A scream of utter terror rips through the forest and he takes off crashing blindly into the woods, reawakening the wildlife as birds leave the tree tops all at once, squirrels chatter angrily at having their routines disturbed, and my screams turn from angry and proud to terrified sobs.
Something crashes through the woods toward me. Heavy footfalls and the sound of brush being broken and crushed as something big runs in my direction.
My heart pounds so heavily at thoughts of what could be out there, my next scream lodges in my throat and I thrash at the ropes again, surprised that there seems to be more slack that there was before.
"Zona!"
Talon's voice is so unexpected that I can't even respond at first. Luckily, he doesn't need me guiding him to my location any more.
When I see Talon break through the brush with Austin close behind him I'm actually grateful for the ropes that keep me from collapsing to the ground as my body sags against them in exhausted relief.
It will be hours before the adrenaline wears off enough that I feel the sting of Talon's kisses on the raw skin where the tape was pulled away too fast.