Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
howling in his ears so loudly he thought he might shift in the car. He then turned on some soft jazz to help himself calm down.
They left Fate Mountain on the eastbound highway with the sun shining over the treetops. For a while there were still houses set back from the highway, an old man in a rocker on the front porch, a horse grazing in a pasture bright with late-afternoon sun.
The road then opened into longer stretches of timber and dry grass. The sun raced away from them as they drove east, and the sky ahead shifted from bright azure to deeper blue. At sunset, they turned off the highway onto the gravel road leading to the cabin.
Dust rose behind the Suburban and hung in the last light.
The cabin road was narrow, with pine and scrub closing in on both sides.
Ryder kept the speed low enough that the tires didn’t spit rocks.
Cell service cut out halfway up the road, but the route was still loaded on his phone.
Ryder parked in a secluded turnoff, about half a mile from the cabin, and killed the engine.
Axel opened his door and stepped out. The air was colder here. It smelled like dust, pine resin, and dry grass. The wolf pushed hard under his skin, driving him toward the cabin. It growled, demanding Axel tear Wade apart. Axel gripped the roof rail and held himself still.
Ryder went around to the back, opened the hatch, and started unpacking the drone cases. Foam compartments held the drone body, spare batteries, folded propellers, controller, tablet, and signal booster. He snapped the battery into place, checked the rotors, and then powered up the controller.
Axel stood beside him and watched the boot sequence load. The map was already cached. The camera feed came up black at first, then gray as Ryder lifted the drone from the case and carried it a few steps clear of the vehicle.
“Ready,” Ryder said.
Axel nodded.
The drone rose off the gravel with a thin mechanical whine, climbed through the break in the branches, and turned toward the cabin road.
Ryder kept it above the trees at first, then dropped lower where the road opened.
The controller screen showed gravel, pine trunks, scrub, and stretches of empty ground silvered by the last of the light.
The road wound through completely isolated country. No houses, no side roads, no lights anywhere. Reese was completely isolated.
The cabin appeared first as a pale shape beyond the trees. Ryder eased the drone forward, and the clearing came into view, small and closed in by darkness. The road ended there. Trees pressed around it. Wade had chosen a perfect trap.
Ryder brought the drone around the clearing in a slow arc, high enough to keep the sound above the trees and far enough back that the cabin filled only part of the screen.
The camera adjusted as the last daylight thinned.
The pale shape sharpened into logs, porch posts, a green metal roof, and the dark rectangle of the front door.
“There,” Ryder said.
The white Transit sat near the porch with its nose angled toward the road. Axel leaned closer to the screen as Ryder adjusted the zoom. The plate came into focus one character at a time, soft at the edges but readable.
Wade’s van.
Axel noted the confirmation. He’d call Dom on the sat phone as soon as they had eyes on Reese.
Ryder drifted the drone sideways, keeping the same height. The camera found the porch, the front steps, the side wall, the propane tank, and the tree line pressed close around the clearing. One window glowed at the front of the cabin.
Ryder eased the drone sideways and a little lower. He kept it off to the side of the clearing, using the angle of the porch and the dark trees behind it to keep the drone from hanging in front of the glass.
The first view gave them nothing. The lit window threw back a pale smear, lamp glare and reflected branches washing the room into shapes without edges. Ryder adjusted the camera, then the drone, small movements that changed the angle by inches on the screen.
“Hold there,” Axel said.
The glare thinned, and the inside of the cabin slowly came into focus. Part of the kitchen counter. The edge of a table. A chair back. Movement crossed the frame, and Axel’s whole body locked.
Wade stepped into view. His face was clearer than the plate had been. A red mark cut across one cheek. He moved through the room holding a mug, calm as if this were his cabin.
Axel’s hand tightened around the edge of the controller.
“That’s Wade,” he said.
Ryder adjusted the angle again, lower by inches, then farther to the side. Wade moved out of frame. For a moment, the window showed only the kitchen table and the edge of a chair. Then the drone drifted another foot, and the couch came into view.
Reese was sitting there.
Axel stopped breathing.
She was turned partly away from the window, shoulders rounded, one hand against her stomach. Her hair was loose around her face. Even through the glass and glare on the small screen, he could tell she was terrified.
“It’s her,” Axel breathed.
His wolf surged inside him so hard Axel’s vision sharpened and narrowed. His skin pulled tight. His bones ached with the first violent pressure of the shift. The wolf demanded he run straight to the cabin and rip Wade’s skin and muscles from his bones. He forced himself to breathe and calm down.
Ryder kept the drone steady on the window.
“I’m calling it in.” Axel took the sat phone from the open gear case and kept his eyes on the controller screen while it connected. Dom answered on the second ring.
“We’ve got visual confirmation,” Axel said. His voice sounded controlled. It didn’t feel connected to the rest of him. “Reese and Wade are both inside the cabin. Reese has no visible injuries and seems alert.”
“Any surprises at the location?”
“No,” Axel said. “It matches the map. We found the dead-end turnout and parked there. Closest residence is five miles south of the cabin. The tree cover is tight around the clearing.”
“Hold position,” Dom said. “We’re rolling now. The whole team is on approach. Reynolds has been notified. We’ll be there by 2100. Hold your location. Do not act.”
Axel closed his hand around the sat phone until the plastic creaked.
“Copy.”
The line clicked off. Axel lowered the phone and turned back to the screen.