Her phone confirmed what the weather around her had already suggested: they were well into fall by now. October 12.
October 12. It felt like a second birthday.
She pulled up her contact list and tapped Cooper’s name.
He answered on the second ring. She’d been expecting him to sound confused, maybe even suspicious, but instead, she heard a worry that was almost electrifying.
“Iz? Is that you? God, say you’re all right.”
“I’m all right,” Iz said. She felt tears welling up again, much to her annoyance. Shereallydidn’t want to make this crying thing into a habit. “I’m in Warrick Forest. You should be able to track my phone now.”
She heard the sound of rapid typing. “I’ve got you. Sending your coordinates to the rest of the team.”
“And I have a passenger.” She smiled at Logan, keeping her lips pressed together so they didn’t wobble. “Not to mention a medium-to-large dog with wings, an air-snake, and three fluffalo.”
“We’ll bring a van,” Cooper said automatically, and then Iz heard his brain catch up. “Wait, did you say fluffalo? What’s a fluffalo?”
“They look like buffalo, but they’re the size of Jack Russell terriers, and they’re very fluffy and pastel.”
Logan looked faintly embarrassed. “I can come up with a different name.”
Iz shielded the bottom of her phone with her hand and spoke around it. “Don’t you dare.” She returned to Cooper: “You can send someone else for us if you’re too far away, obviously. If they can’t track us, there are these silvery trail markings on the trees that they can look for, and we can try to meet them close to the road. I just couldn’t risk calling 911 on account of the animals, and we’re all kind of a package deal right now. But if you know any other shifters in the area—”
“We’re not far,” Cooper said. There was a kind of dry humor in his voice, which was a relief after hearing him sound so worried. “We basically closed up the home office and have been working out of the last motel you stayed in. We’re only about ten minutes away. I can’t believe .... You were so close, all this time. We must have searched those woods a thousand times.”
She answered on autopilot: “Magic. I’ll explain later. But—how are you all here? You’ve got homes, you’ve got lives—”
“We’ve got a teammate who went missing,” Cooper said simply. “We weren’t going to leave you out in the wind.”
Fine, evidently shewasgoing to make a habit out of this crying thing.
Chapter Fourteen
The next few hourswere so busy they were dizzying. It felt like time was moving too quickly for Logan to catch up to it. One minute he was spotting flashlight beams cutting through the dark and hearing human voices calling out Iz’s name, and the next, he was being helped into a crowded van and they were on the highway.
It was just so overwhelming. Everything was somuch. The faces were friendly, but there were so many of them that they were all a noisy, hectic blur. There was an onslaught of ordinary human concepts that he hadn’t had to deal with in who knew how long: roads, cars, artificial lights, chatter. Someone put a paper takeout cup of coffee in his hands and asked if he wanted cream or sugar. He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember how he took it.