Is my grandmother in danger? That’s what she wants to know. Am I a threat to Émilie.
I’m opening my mouth to answer when I notice the man sitting between us, and I give a start, as if he’s appeared from nowhere. I’d wiped him from the scene. It’s me and Petra, butting heads as he sits silent and invisible, out of our line of sight.
Colin sits quietly, like a kid overhearing something juicy when his parents have forgotten he’s in the room. Keeping his mouth shut and hoping they don’t remember he’s there.
He’s heard, and I panic until I replay my words and realize how little I’ve actually said. No names. No details. Just vague references to settlements and some kind of tea. I’m sure he realizes that’s what I’m blaming for the wild people we just encountered, but it is indeed like overhearing a parental conversation, most of it flying past without context. Tantalizing glimmers of secrets and nothing more.
“I’m sorry, Colin,” I say stiffly. “You don’t need to hear any of that.”
“You think you know what’s wrong with these people, right?” he says. “Then you should help.” An empty-eyed look toward Petra, half puzzlement, half wary concern. “I don’t know why anyone would say otherwise.”
“No one is,” I say. “It’s just an internal dispute. Now—”
A bark. My head jerks up. There’s not a split second where I wonder whether that bark comes from any canine but Storm. It’s not just that I know my dog, it’s that a Newfoundland’s bark is very distinctive, especially when they’re in distress, and that’s what I hear. Storm’s deep woof of warning and rage and fear.
“Don’t you dare,” Petra says.
I turn and lift my middle finger between us. Then I walk away. I don’t run—she’d only accuse me later of running blindly into the forest at every provocation. I wouldn’t give a shit about what she thinks except that she has the power to get me fired, get me sent back down south.
I have never been more aware of that than in these last few minutes. Petra isn’t simply a resident. She isn’t just a comic-book writer or a friend. She’s a spy whose grandmother might be at the top of the Rockton food chain. That last gives her a power I hadn’t recognized because she hides it so well, taking on a shop clerk position in town, pulling her weight, accepting a tiny apartment. Camouflage, all of it, and I failed to see the threat hiding in the center.
So I walk from that clearing with a brisk and purposeful stride, as if I’ve just decided to go patrol the area. Nothing alarming, certainly not the fact that my dog is freaking out in the forest, a forest filled with angry hostiles, where she’s alone with the man I love. Nope, none of that. One agonizing step after another until I’m far enough away. And then I run.
THIRTY
On that run, I imagine every horrible scenario, and I will my muscles to move faster, my damn fucked-up leg to do better, driving myself through the rain-soaked forest, slamming down each foot hard, as if that will keep me from sliding. I run, heart hammering, the sun dropping as I strain to listen in the silent forest.
The barking has stopped, and my first thought was Good, they’re fine. Then other scenarios play, all the ways that a cessation in barking means anything but “they’re fine.”
I’m tearing through the woods in the direction I last heard Storm, and I’m telling myself that I’m still aware of my surroundings, despite the near darkness, despite the blood pounding in my ears. I’m certain I’m fooling myself, until a movement to the side has me spinning, gun up, and I see Dalton and Storm running toward me. I don’t ease my stance until Dalton waves.
As I jog to meet them, my gaze scans both, looking for injury. The only thing I see is that they’re both soaked, Storm a black mop impersonating a canine and Dalton dripping wet, his T-shirt sculpted to his body in a way that makes me temporarily forget I’d spent the last ten minutes running in abject terror. He catches me looking and laughs.
“You checking me out, Butler?”
As relief washes over me, I grin wider than the soft teasing warrants. “Looking good, Sheriff. Wet T-shirts suit you.”
“I’d say the same back, except I can’t see your T-shirt under that sweatshirt. You look like a bedraggled kitten. Adorably bedraggled.”
He starts to put his arms around my shoulders, but I throw mine over his, hugging him tight.
“Hey, you okay?” he asks, hugging me back.
“I should be asking you that. I heard Storm freaking out. Let me guess, just a fox or a hare, right?”
His pause tells me no, and I know better anyway. That was no animal-spotting bark.
“Ran into a couple of hostiles,” he says. “Well, didn’t run into them, thankfully. A woman and a guy. I heard people moving through the forest, thought it might be Edwin or Felicity, and we surprised each other. Had a bit of a standoff. The woman was hurt, though, so she backed off fast. Storm helped convince her.”
He lays a hand on the dog’s head. “The woman didn’t seem to know what to make of our pup and wasn’t eager to find out. The guy followed her lead.”
“Was he young? Maybe twenty?”
“Nah. Forty or so?” He squints down at me. “That was a bullet in her shoulder, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Shit.” His arms tighten around me.