The Edge

A.J. Scudiere

The Edge - Black Carbon #7

Copyright © 2025 by AJ Scudiere

Griffyn Ink. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

FIRST EDITION

Contents

Books by A.J.

A.J.’s Renegades

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

About the Author

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Look for other novels by A.J. Scudiere.

Available in bookstores, online, and at ReadAJS.com.

THE NIGHTSHADE FORENSIC FILES SERIES

Book 1 - Under Dark Skies

Book 2 - Fracture Five

Book 3 - The Atlas Defect

Book 4 - Echo and Ember

Book 5 - Salvage (A Shadow Files Novel)

Book 6 - Garden of Bone

Book 7 - The Camelot Gambit

Book 8 - Dead Tide

Book 9 - Sabotage (A Shadow Files Novel)

Book 10 - Vanishing Point

Book 11 - Beneath Memory

Book 12 - The Axis Legacy

Book 13 - Sacrifice

Book 14 - Snake in the Grave

NightShade Vol 1

NightShade Vol 2

NightShade Vol 3

NightShade Complete Series

THE BLACK CARBON SERIES

Book 1 - The Hunted

Book 2 - The Surface

Book 3 - The Tempest

Book 4 - The Swarm

Book 5 - The Taken

Book 6 - The Night

Book 7 - The Edge

Black Carbon - Vol 1

Black Carbon - Vol 2

Black Carbon - The Complete Series

THE HANGMAN’S SHADOW SERIES

Book 1 - Bad Name

Book 2 - In the Temple

FORTUNE

FORTUNE (Mia)

FORTUNE (Rafe)

FORTUNE (Mia & Rafe)

THE VENDETTA TRIFECTA

Vengeance

Retribution

Justice

Becoming (short story)

Inheritance (short story)

The Complete Vendetta Trifecta

STAND ALONE NOVELS

Resonance

Dissonance - a companion novella to Resonance

God's Eye

Phoenix

The Shadow Constant

The Landa Landa & The Aellai

Dumb Blonde (short story)

Twisted (short story)

Relentless Suspense Bundle: Resonance, God’s Eye, Phoenix, The Shadow Constant, Twisted, Dumb Blonde

A Collection of Blogs

Smart Chickens - Deliver Us From Email

Smart Chickens - We’re Not Like Other Families

Smart Chickens - Tele Me More

Smart Chickens - Omega Dog

Join A.J.’s Renegades here: www.ReadAJS.com

Praise for A.J. Scudiere

"There are really just 2 types of readers—those who are fans of AJ Scudiere, and those who will be."

-Bill Salina, Reviewer, Amazon

For The Shadow Constant:

"The Shadow Constant by A.J. Scudiere was one of those novels I got wrapped up in quickly and had a hard time putting down."

-Thomas Duff, Reviewer, Amazon

For Phoenix:

"It's not a book you read and forget; this is a book you read and think about, again and again . . . everything that has happened in this book could be true.  That's why it sticks in your mind and keeps coming back for rethought."

-Jo Ann Hakola, The Book Faerie

1

The wind whistled eerily beyond the walls of the cabin, rattling the windows and even some of the logs. The door thumped, none of it had been made for this kind of weather.

“Is it going to hold, Mom?”

Question of the hour, she thought. She wasn't the kind of mom who lied with platitudes. She'd always told the truth, even when it was scary. Still, she tried to be their safety and comfort.

“I hope so,” she told the two little faces looking back at her. Her arms squeezed them tight, tucked inside the large coat she'd found. But she looked away quickly as if she could fool herself into thinking they wouldn’t see her worry.

They should have been safe. It was supposed to be a beautiful weekend for camping, even if it was cold. She and her kids were seasoned campers. Before he died, their dad had been enthusiastic about camping in almost any weather except torrential rain. They had the proper tent, thermally rated sleeping bags, and the skills they needed. Or so she’d believed.

This wasn't the first time they’d camped in the snow. They’d even spent the first two days thrilled at the adventure. Not anymore.

The kids almost didn't fit inside the coat with her. She used to do this all the time, especially after losing Dean. But slowly, the coat had held all three of them less and less.

She was still the adult, and she still made the hard decisions. If her choices were wrong, her kids, at least, would never blame themselves.

Another large gust of wind made her rethink abandoning the campsite. The tent had bowed under the weight of the snow, so they’d packed up as best they could, leaving the broken tent behind.

The kids had been a bit upset about littering, but she promised they’d come back and find it and pick up after themselves later. So, the three of them had attempted to simply head back home, but the snow had gotten worse. White out conditions had taken them off trail, and they'd wound up here.

This cabin had seemed like a lucky break. But it was clearly intended for use in warmer weather, not insulated at all. Firewood had been stacked just to the left of the little stove and it had been thankfully dry, but not in high supply.

The snow had continued.

They'd lasted two days with the remaining rations. They should have been home by now. Someone should be missing them, but no one would be able to find them out in this.

They wouldn’t last if they stayed where they were. And if conditions were better, then this was their chance to try.

She thought for a moment about leaving the kids here in the relative safety of the little cabin. But what if she was injured? What if she didn’t make it back?

No. They wouldn’t split up.

“It'll be daylight in an hour. I think we should get on the move.” They just needed enough sun to find a general direction. Hopefully they would hit the edge of someplace with people soon.

“Let's get ready,” she told them, but they left some of the gear. They didn’t need to carry useless weight.

Oh hell. She was counting their time in calories.

The only food left to pack was the two remaining protein bars. Problems for another day. They just had to keep going long enough to get somewhere with help.

Outside, in the biting air with their faces covered, they were just colored blobs in the swirling snow. She was green, the kids blue and red. They'd be seen, she thought. Someone would find them.

An hour of the slowest hiking she thought she'd ever done in her life, brought her to the edge of the woods. How far had they gone? Had they pulled a Donner party and been close to salvation the whole time?

The open space before them glistened with a blinding white. The altitude wasn't high enough to spot peaks nearby and aim for one she knew. But there was a plume of gray smoke headed straight up.

It wasn’t wide enough to be a wildfire and it was too dark to be anything other than man made. She aimed toward it, across the open space.

“Slow, careful steps,” she reminded the kids. She couldn't see them, not with her eyes squinted, their faces covered and all that fluff around the edges of their hoods, but she knew they rolled their eyes.

Careful steps so they didn’t break the surface of the snow, as they had no idea how deep it was, except that it was deep. Putting herself out in front, she tested each spot this time. She didn't say it, but just looked back to be sure each kid was putting their foot in her tread. She kept her steps short, hoping not to wear them out.

Dear God, maybe, just maybe, they could think it was all an adventure and not know that she was petrified for all their lives.

They were halfway across the open expanse, when she could see the trail changed on the other side. She looked back for a moment, taking a deep breath, wondering how long they could hold out until they needed those last protein bars. Still, she told them, “We got this.”

But on the next step, the ground disappeared beneath her feet. And she wondered if she screamed as she fell.

2

The crackle and hiss of the flames was expected, as was the warmth on her front and the cold at her back. But Joule jumped as one of the windows popped and exploded.

“Jesus!” Leon exclaimed next to her.

“I didn't think it would do that,” Joule added.

“It’s not even glass, it’s some kind of polymer,” Cage muttered next to her.

That’s what she’d thought, and it didn't really shatter but flew out in a few pieces.

The line of people who were watching as the trailer burned all took a step back. All their monitors, all the computers were gone. The gray cloud of smoke funneled up into the sky, and Joule wondered what kind of toxic chemicals it was leeching into the air.

Working for Helio Systems Tech had made her supremely aware of the kinds of pollutants that existed in everyday objects. They all knew the world was full of microplastics. Hell, most of them standing around were young enough that they were almost definitely full of microplastics themselves. But used tech could go to a landfill where it was compacted until it cracked and leaked all kinds of things. Or, God forbid, like this, it burned.

“Do we know how it started?” Sarah asked.

Joule recognized her friend's voice though she couldn't see Sarah's face. The sound came out from under the puffy hood. The coat was a glaring shade of pink, and Joule hadn't commented on the bright, cheerful colors her friend wore. It was likely not because of some new sunny disposition, Joule suspected, but a desire to be seen. A desire to be missed on a moment's notice, should she disappear. Again.

Cage had chosen an olive green coat with gray fur trimming the cuffs, the hood and the bottom. A collar of it even ran around his neck because he could snap the hood out or even unsnap the length off. He never did either. Her brother tended to run cold, and he'd chosen the coat not for color or style, but for the fact that it was nearly a sleeping bag.

Joule had gone for a thin, high tech khaki. Her gloved hands were shoved down in the pockets, but she had to admit, maybe her brother and Sarah had the right of it with the big, puffy things. Or maybe it was just cold enough that she’d be chilly no matter which coat she’d chosen.

Her boots were rated to negative forty degrees, and this was nowhere near close to that. Her eyelashes were not freezing. The men were not breaking their facial hair from sub-zero temperatures.

They all stood silently, watching and waiting for the fire department to arrive, the guard holding point at the end of the long line. She’d radioed in the fire when she first noticed it, making her rounds on the small area. Constantly checking out the expensive equipment that had been brought up into the mountains.

Some of it had to be flown in by helicopter then hiked down to the site. Joule tried not to think how crazy that was. How remote the site was. The initial team that had scouted the location was a research team—a task force Helio System Tech had put together, made of engineers and program designers. And, to her great concern, mountain climbers and wilderness survival guides.

They had chosen this spot. She was wishing they’d chosen somewhere more accessible to emergency crews.

“How did it even start?” Sarah asked.

“No idea.” The guard’s navy blue hood shook back and forth with her negative. Her coat was not of her own choosing and was emblazoned with bright yellow letters: Helio Sys Tech SECURITY across the back. It looked like a version that might have said FBI at one point in its lifetime.

“Something must have sparked,” she said, and waved one puffy arm and gloved hand across the landscape. “Nothing else here is on fire.”

“And the fire department's on their way?” Joule asked. Because what if they weren’t? What if they were all just standing here watching it burn?

It seemed so surreal. Would HST just helicopter in another trailer and replace all the equipment? The data wouldn’t be lost. At least not most of it. It was backed up absurdly often.

Would the other trailer serve all of them and they'd just be cramped? Or take shifts on the systems that still existed? Could they get sent back home to come and start over at some later time? There was no telling.

The guard added, “FD’s coming. But I don't know when they're getting here.”

“Should we put water on it in the meantime?” Leon looked back and forth down the line. Most of them shrugged.

“What water?” the guard asked back. This time her hood turned so they could see her wry expression.

“It's all water,” Cage replied. Joule was thinking the same thing. Surely they could melt enough to at least be helpful.

“Yeah,” the tone expressed the guard’s disbelief as she replied, “so you pour it.”

Joule almost chuckled to herself, as if any of this were actually funny.

She wanted to call Kayla and Ivy, tell their surrogate mothers that the twins might be coming home for a little while. But there was no signal out here, and there was no more booster to link to with the trailer on fire.

“Are we supposed to save the other trailer?”

“Nope. Don’t worry about it.” When they all turned to look at her as to question her sanity, the guard added, “I managed an uplink and sent the fire department pictures. They said there's enough snow on the roof and the trailer is plastic enough that they don't think the sparks will jump from one to the other.”

She motioned with one hand, palms sideways, fingers flat. “The distance between them should help, too.”

It was probably why they were at that distance in the first place. Each time they worked one of these set-ups—from Alabama to Texas and beyond—the trailers had been set slightly apart. They could have been snapped end to end. The modular design was made for it and Joule had always wondered why they didn’t take advantage of that.

This was why.

She hoped the second trailer stayed safe. If not, she and Cage would surely be sent home to wait for this project to re-start or to get assigned to another one.

The one that had sparked had been older than the one still standing. And it wasn’t that trailer’s first rodeo either. They’d seen all kinds of weather and seasons. From high summer coastal humidity to New England cliff sides, torrential rains near flyover bean fields and Pacific coast mists. Or all the above.

No wonder something had snapped, or sparked, and it had gone up.

Another cluster of employees stood at a distance having their own conversation, winter coats moving slightly to punctuate thoughts as they talked. One of them turned around and called out to the guard, “Should we just go in the other trailer?”

“No!” she called back, her hand up, her feet starting to move the slow trudge between the two as if she could run one of them down if they decided to duck inside. “Fire Department said to be sure all people were out of all trailers.”

Hearing footsteps and voices behind her, Joule turned her head to look over her shoulder. She hadn't been here long enough to lose that automatic response, but she only saw the inside of her own hood. Shuffling her feet, she turned her whole body to see beyond the edges of her hood, because she sure as hell wasn't willing to take it down.

A group of men and women trudged up the trail behind her, bulky in their turnout gear, in good enough shape not to be winded by taking the climb at such a brisk pace. The fire department had arrived.

Looking at the face of the approaching firefighter, she figured they must be used to this weather, because they didn't have their turtlenecks pulled up over their mouths and noses. Because of that, she had the grace of a moment's notice. Surprise bloomed on the face of the man she was looking at as he watched the trailer behind her.

Joule didn't even register the sound of the explosion.

3

Joule lay face down in the snow for a moment, thinking she would gather her thoughts, then push herself upright. But her body fought back, automatically jolting and pushing to her hands and knees. Even before she realized she couldn't breathe, some primordial system was getting her face clear of the snow.

This was how people suffocated under avalanches. How they could go face down, unconscious, and not get back up.

Sucking in air like she’d broken the surface of a lake, she felt a hand reach around her arm. Awkwardly, she turned on her knees to look up and see her brother's face, his eyes peering at her from the fuzzy frame of his hood. Cage.

Thank God. He was always her first thought. Her second—Kayla and Ivy—weren't here. They were home, safe. Her third thought, Why wasn't she home and safe?

Because even home wasn't safe. And she and Cage always found the need to move to the next adventure.

Restless wanderers, they discovered.

As he pulled her to her feet, she noticed a spot on the front left part of his coat give up a little puff of its own smoke. Frowning at him, she pulled down her face covering to stare at it. As if exposing her mouth would make her sight clearer. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged it off, brushing at the spot. A burning spark fell into the snow and extinguished. “Those of us facing it had enough warning to get our faces covered.”

“Everyone's okay?” she asked. Maybe she was a terrible person, but it always took her a moment to think past her own brother and his survival to others.

“Yeah, our coats have burns, but we think all the flesh is good.”

What a concerning thing to think. But she understood. They didn’t have much exposed skin. That was a blessing in disguise.

“You took it pretty bad because you didn't see it coming,” he explained. “The back of your coat looks worse than the front of mine.”

Damn.

“Oh, well,” she sighed. She’d grown used to brushing off the near misses as if they weren’t life threatening. “I was thinking about getting one of those big, puffy things anyway.”

“Whatever we thought of our coats, we're all getting new ones.”

She would have chuckled at her brother, except for the fact that they were all getting new gear because they burned up one of their trailers and now their clothing.

The others waved to check on her and she motioned back that she was okay. The snow on her face had melted and she’d brushed at it with the back of her gloves.

She looked to her brother. “Do you think it was arson?”

It seemed ridiculous. Who would want to burn something up out here? But Helio Systems Tech had its share of haters. Progress always did.

His expression, still serious, honed in on hers. “Unknown. The firefighters are looking into it, though.”

“Good.” In the distance, she saw a familiar coat trudging up the hill: Dr. Murasawa.

One of the reasons she and Cage had agreed to sign on to this job was because they liked the woman. She was a fantastic leader, always fair, always more concerned about her employees than the job or the money. Joule had asked her once why she came back after everything they had gone through. The woman had simply looked back at her with one eyebrow lifted, her expression wry. “Why do you?”

“Fair.” Joule had replied. She couldn’t quite fully answer that question for herself and maybe her boss couldn’t either.

Whatever the reason, they all had those histories. She didn’t know Leon well enough to ask what things he’d come through, not yet, but she would put good money on it being something. She was glad to have Dr. Murasawa in charge of this op. In fact, she and her brother might not have signed on had they not felt comfortable with the familiar leadership.

It took a few more minutes of back and forth with Dr. Murasawa trudging her way over to where the fire chief was in charge. Joule heard her ask, “What happens next?” but she didn’t catch the answer.

It didn't take long, though, for their petite leader to exercise her relatively ample charisma and quickly gather all the Helio System employees. “There's nothing more for us to do here, except maybe be in the way. We need to get out and get warm. Then we're simply going to be awaiting further instruction.”

“Are we staying at camp or heading into town?” Sarah asked.

“Might as well head into town.” Dr. Murasawa seemed to have made the decision in the moment. “If we're going to be stuck, we should at least be comfortable.”

“Amen,” Joule heard her brother whisper beside her. He didn't like to say it, but he was built more for extreme high temperatures than for extreme low. She was the one who'd somehow gotten all the body heat in the family.

When no one moved, Dr. Murasawa waved her puffy coated arms, motioning to all of them as if they were children at a daycare or sheep on a farm.

The team, usually quick to react, was slow to turn and leave behind everything they’d built. But eventually they all headed down the trail, heavy boots stepping carefully in the snow. Despite daily maintenance, the trail wasn’t clear.

Cage and Joule brought up the rear of the line. As she turned and glanced one more time over her shoulder, she saw the smoke funneling up into the sky, pitch black. She wondered what might be hiding in it. What chemicals? What carcinogens? What crimes?

She hated the sinking feeling in her chest. Despite all the therapy, despite the fact that she knew she should be safe, that the odds were she would survive, she couldn’t change it. It hovered, reminding her that she had always survived, but not everyone else had.

“I can't help it,” she whispered to Cage, “it feels like an omen.”

4

Cage stood shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Helio Systems Tech workers. The trailer was packed full, the other unit still in ruins on the other side of the little clearing.

This was their standard conference space, so being packed in here was the norm. The extra monitors, servers and backup systems also crowding the space was not. There wasn't enough room for all of them and all of it.

The hike up the mountain was enough exercise that most of them had opened their heavy coats on the way, having warmed up on their own. Cage was used to peeling his outer layer after working inside the little trailers after a short while. But packing the whole team in like sardines was a bit much.

Their cold weather gear was too big. They were squished together, and they squirmed as they each tried to discreetly remove coats and gloves before they began sweating. Even Cage was a bit over warm, and that was saying something.

Joule's shoulder bumped against his right side and Sarah against his left. Sarah had stayed close to the twins since they arrived. Not a surprise. Maybe because they were old friends. They'd worked jobs together before, they'd even roomed together. They knew how each other worked, how they acted, how they reacted. Maybe because they’d saved each other’s lives before.

Also, maybe because at one point, Sarah and Cage had locked eyes across a room full of trafficking victims and not let their captors see that they knew each other.

It wasn't how he'd intended to build lifelong friends, but it seemed to be the way the world worked these days.

“Are we all in?” Dr. Murasawa asked.

Next to him, his sister nodded. Sarah voiced it, but the fact of the matter was that “In” was just a technical term. They were packed tight.

“All right.” His boss sighed, at least somewhat admitting this was less than ideal. “I know we can't all see everything up here, but we’re going to do our best. Let's shuffle around as we need.” She then flipped on the projector, setting an image on the wall on the short end of the trailer as a few more people adjusted.

“We're already five days late starting.”

Five nice days, Cage thought. They’d almost felt like paid days off.

“The fire took out everything in the other trailer. We lost servers, a full twelve hours of stored data and another forty-eight that we didn’t collect because we didn’t have the equipment to do so.”

He’d not thought about that. But the physical loss wasn’t surprising. There hadn't been much the fire department could do once they arrived, except contain it and make sure the flames didn’t spread.

“Are we replacing it?” a voice asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Murasawa answered quickly from the front of the crowded space. “However, it's not quite as simple as bringing the first one in was.”

Cage felt his brows pull together, though she quickly explained.

“That location was the proper location. The ground was flat enough, we didn’t have to level anything or build. The sunlight was right, the bedrock was stable. We’ll have to revisit our original evaluation to see if there’s another location to use or if we need to first clear the old one to put the new one in the same place. Then, of course, we have to dispose of the burned equipment properly.”

Of course they did. They were a company that routinely went out and installed solar farms, built environmentally friendly buildings, and so on. If they just discarded their burned-out trailer and all its fried tech in a landfill that would not be on par with the company's mission.

“Was it arson?” Someone else asked.

“Unknown,” she replied.

Cage was surprised. He’d heard the word from his own mouth a few times recently. Had he gotten it from their boss? He almost grinned. His father had always warned the twins that whoever they chose to surround themselves with, that was who they would begin to sound and act like. With Joule and Sarah on either side and Dr. Murasawa at the front of the room, he figured he was doing okay.

“Do we need to wait?” another voice asked from behind him.

“They're still investigating, and that's part of what makes it difficult to clear the old trailer. We have to wait for a go ahead. If it is arson, we'll let them hunt down whoever did it. A little counter intuitively,” she added with a shrug and an upward glance, “arson doesn't change our plans going forward, but some kind of spontaneous systems failure might.”

Though he hadn’t figured that out for himself, Cage found her reasoning sound. Next to him, he felt the movement of Joule’s shoulders, suggesting that she understood as well. There were always haters for what they were doing. It didn't matter what a company was building, someone didn’t like it. Someone didn't want it where the team was putting it, someone was mad about the way they were doing it.

Solar farms were no different. Supposedly, they destroyed the beautiful view. Cage was of the opinion that the view was the least of their problems. And that the people complaining about the destruction of the beautiful view were the reason solar farms were needed in the first place. But at least he could understand the issues with spontaneous technical combustion or even faulty wiring. The plan was to install the system and run it with minimal staff.

Dr. Murasawa picked up that thread. “This is a test case. Our job here is to see if we can do this the way we planned: if we can install a solar system, create a scenario whereby people can monitor it and keep it functional for enough of the year to make it worth doing.”

“Not enough people out here to complain,” someone added.

“We’re not far off the Continental Divide Trail.” Dr. Murasawa pointed as the screen flipped again to a new image, this time of an aerial view of the trail cutting through the landscape. “It's common for hikers to camp very near the trail. We've chosen a place that's not near one of these standard campsites, so hopefully people won't wander in. However, as the landscape changes, those places change.”

Cage took a deep breath to fight a yawn and instantly regretted it. Even the air in the trailer felt too warm. He'd be glad when the meeting was over. Next to him, Sarah shifted.

Dr. Murasawa seemed to catch on that the crowd was growing restless. “Don’t worry. I’m about done with the inside portion of the meeting.”

She lifted the collar of her shirt as if she too was overheating, even though there was a little bit of space around her. “Given the fire and the possibility that it was spontaneous, we wanted to double down on our safety training.”

Hadn’t they already done that? Cage wondered. On their days off—though they'd mostly been relaxing and getting paid to do not much at all—they had all been put through a series of online corporate trainings on dangerous local wildlife. They’d reviewed being careful where and how they walked, why it was necessary to stick to the trails and to always use the buddy system, and so on. He’d dutifully clicked through all the buttons, flipping the screens and basically proving he was paying attention. But he wouldn’t say he learned anything new. It was all things that he figured most everybody here either already understood deep in their bones or had—as he and his sister had—looked it up before they came.

Joule had pulled pages of local wildlife, so he knew not only that there were cougar and black bears, but also moose and elk. He knew the occasional bighorn sheep were more dangerous than people often believed. The twins had also speculated on how that wildlife might have mutated recently.

“Tomorrow,” Dr Murasawa was saying at the front of the room, “We'll get back on track. But first I've brought in a special instructor.”

Cage turned to look to his sister just as she turned to look at him. Oh no, he thought, special training often did not go well.

5

Cage stood at the edge of the open field, the snowscape before him covered in the wide, rough tracks of the other employees. His feet, slightly further apart than normal, were strapped into his new pair of snowshoes that the company had awarded to every employee on the job. In each hand, he held a pole.

Luckily, he still had his original thermal gloves, they’d not been burned in the explosion. Though he was wearing a new coat, Joule had teased him that it was virtually indistinguishable from the first. The twins and Leon and Sarah had all gone shopping together to replace any gear the explosion had damaged.

Ezra Tapper was the fifth employee living in their unit with them. But he’d taken the smallest bedroom to himself and didn’t want to mingle with the rest of them. He’d gone by himself to replace his own gear, and Cage admitted he couldn’t see a difference between the first coat he’d had and this one. He couldn’t see a difference in the man’s expression either. Older than many of the other employees here, he wasn’t in charge and didn’t seem pleased or interested in any of it.

Cage did his best to leave Ezra be. The other four had done their trainings together and gone out together and eaten dinner together. But they all had their new snowshoes. At least the company did their best to take care of the employees—the conditions often didn’t.

The four of them had talked each other through new purchases, with Joule deciding to choose a high-tech synthetic down this time. Sarah had managed to convince her to go for a bright blue, though Cage thought his sister might have taken it just to assuage her friend. They’d all turned in their receipts for reimbursement together too. Which he was grateful for, or he might have forgotten until it was too late.

Sarah had found herself another pink coat and her new yellow gloves were bright beacons in an already overbright landscape. Leon stood on Cage’s other side, snowshoes on and poles in hand, though he seemed to hardly need the lesson. But Dr. Murasawa wasn’t letting anyone go without passing a check out from the new instructor she’d brought in. The wide, strap on “shoes” had an open front and none of the tennis-racket string lacing he’d seen in cartoons.

“I didn't realize we'd be this deep in the snow,” Joule said next to him.

Parallel but winding trails cut their way across the landscape as one after another, the employees had tested out their new equipment. Only a few of them were not first timers—Leon put them all to shame.

“Yeah, I thought the snowshoes kept you on top.”

“You're a lot more on top than you would be with out them,” Jeremy said. The instructor then added, “If the snow is firmer, if there's any kind of freeze in it, you will stay on top, but this is fresh powder, so you're going to sink a little bit. What the snowshoes are doing is stopping you from sinking up to your knees.”

Cage understood the physics of that. Though, like his sister and Sarah, he had to admit he'd expected to just walk across the surface. He sighed. “I just didn't expect my butt would hurt.”

He was using muscles he hadn't known he had, and he’d not been prepared or even forewarned. Dr. Murasawa seemed to catch on to the groaning. It wasn’t just him.

She, however, was not a first-time snowshoer, and so while all the employees were wearing the same model, she had her own, clearly a bit more used. She grabbed everyone’s attention, “There’s one more thing you guys need to know before Jeremy here gets sent home for the day.”

Cage listened as their guide talked them through taking the snowshoes off and putting them back on easily. He watched, checking each of them until he deemed them capable. It wasn't a difficult system, but Cage tried to pay attention. It was also important that they knew when they needed to use them.

“If you walk across rock on them—” Jeremy was holding one of his own snowshoes up to demonstrate. “For example, even if it's just slightly below the snow, it can start to wear the grips at the edge of the snowshoe.” He pointed to the little teeth along the edge. Cage had noticed. They weren't sharp enough to cut a finger, but they were strong.

One of the other women raised her hand. “Can we take them off and leave them off this time?”

Jeremy nodded, much to Cage’s relief. They all had to still get back down to the parking lot and then drive into town. Cage was not looking forward to either the hike down, or the one back up to the camp tomorrow morning.

Having decided that everyone passed their initial training, Jeremy dismissed the class. Though it had been fun, and he didn’t mind being gifted a pair of high-end snowshoes, Cage was ready to quit. He was also curious why they’d been brought in now.

Thirty minutes later, the four of them finally arrived in the parking lot. Different groups had wandered down the trail at different speeds. But today, of course, it had taken longer than usual for the four of them to make their way back.

One by one they pushed their snowshoes and poles into the trunk of Leon's large SUV.

“How do we tell them apart?” Sarah asked, frowning. They’d all been given identical pairs. “We need colored tape or something.”

“Markers,” Joule added. Then, looking back and forth between the others, she added. “We need to write our names on them. It’s not just four of us with identical shoes, it’s almost twenty of us. If I lose one, I’d like it returned.”

“I've got them back at the house,” Leon said, nodding along with her assessment.

“The house” was a strong term for where they were staying. They’d been put in houses before. And apartments, and occasionally hotel rooms. Those were Cage’s least favorite assignments, though he knew some of the others liked having a daily maid.

This time, they were in a townhome. The four of them occupied the three-bedroom middle unit, along with Ezra. Helio Systems had paid a large sum of money to the builder to let them rent them before they were sold. But that meant that—even though the company had invested in furniture—it was bare bones and average looking. Definitely the kind of furniture that could be rented.

“So that solves our problem later, but when we get back, how will we know whose is whose?” Sarah hadn’t stepped away from the trunk. As if turning away would make her forget which ones she’d just put in.

Leon sighed as he stood with his hands on the top of the open trunk, as though he was about to pull it down, but he didn't. The dark skin of his cheeks looked almost shiny in the cold weather. “I guess right now, we just remember the order we put them in. Mine’s furthest left.”

“I snapped the clips on mine down. So that's one thing that's different.”

A few moments later, they'd figured it out, and they were in the car and pulling out. Though Cage and Joule had driven cross country as a little vacation and to have their own vehicle while they were here, they quickly realized their car was not fit for Colorado. Leon, however, had an SUV with snow tires and a reasonably high clearance. He quickly became the group's designated chauffeur. Though their housemate had shrugged them off for carpooling, the others stuck together.

The trudge back down the hill had been long enough that Cage was still feeling the muscles in his butt, and he was grateful not to be driving. From the passenger seat, he could look in the mirror and see Joule and Sarah squirming in the back. If they hadn’t felt it before, they were all feeling it now.

The roads weren't bad, but they weren't good either, and he didn't envy Leon the heightened level of concentration that regular daily driving took during this season. Maybe they wouldn't be here long enough to get used to it.

There was no telling how long this job would run, because there was no telling how long it would take for the system to either fail or for them to figure out how to fix it. It could be declared over tomorrow, or they could still be driving this same path six months from now. He told himself he liked the chaos.

At the condo, they took turns showering, then found themselves all sitting on the couch and picking a TV show. They ordered pizza, because, as Sarah pointed out, “Tomorrow, we're back to the real work.”

When the pizza was gone and the tv show was over, Leon picked up the remote and started surfing channels. They were all too tired—or maybe too sore still—to argue with him or just leave. The channels clicked and clicked and clicked again until it showed the weather. Cage watched as an almost enthusiastic brunette in a red sweater moved her hand across what he was now recognizing as the topography of the state. First, she said this weather was warmer than expected for this part of the season and the temperatures would stay reasonable for the rest of the week.

Reasonable? This was not reasonable where he was from. His attention wandered but was yanked back by the second half of one of the weather lady’s sentences.

“—is bringing a cold snap this weekend.”

He hated the feeling of his heart squeezing down tight at the sound of the words. It was stupid. It was just a weather prediction. And beyond three days out, weather predictions weren't that accurate. As solid as the science was, it was much better at explaining how and why things had happened than at predicting what would happen.

Then the report ended. He wasn't sure who picked up the remote, but the channels started clicking again. Like the images on the screen, his mind wandered. The other day, when Joule said the trailer burning felt like an omen, Cage told her exactly what he thought. He didn't think it was an omen. At this point, bad things were simply more statistical than portentous.

Storms and weather had gotten worse, borders and beach lines had changed, whole towns had been washed away—either by rising tides, or floodwaters. And everyone here, at least Cage thought so, had suffered from it.

But the cold weather was coming in and the company had made a massive investment in getting them all snowshoes. The trailer had burned through some mechanism no one had yet figured out. Omen or not, it wasn’t adding up to anything good.

6

Joule told herself to be excited about the assignment. She'd known something was up when they'd been messaged this morning to dress for outdoor work. As one of the engineers on the team, she often spent plenty of her time out in the field.

She was just used to being able to see the field. She was trained in taking core samples of dirt or clay, maybe rock. She knew how to find the water table. This was entirely new to her.

“We'll be going in groups of three or four,” Dr. Murasawa announced after they’d all been lined up and had their snowshoes checked by Jeremy again.

“Not buddies?” Sarah asked.

Joule wondered the same thing. At least they weren’t being sent out alone.

“We don't have enough experienced snowshoers to send out pairs.” Dr. Murasawa stood at the front of the line of employees—mostly biologists like Cage and engineers like Joule—all dressed in their snow pants and thermal rated boots and gloves. The gifted snowshoes, strapped on in gray and bright neon yellow, made an identical pattern all down the row. The coats and hats and the rest made it possible to tell who was who.

Further down she recognized Deveron Swan by his blue coat. Dev had roomed with the twins and Sarah on a previous job. Ji Lee was here, too. Like the twins, she seemed a bit out of sorts in the snow and cold. Aliyah had joined the group just a few days ago—after the trailer fire. Joule enjoyed working with her in the past. But there were others she’d only met here in Colorado, like their roomie, Ezra. He appeared bored by all of it at the other end of the line and she hoped she wasn’t grouped with him.

He was the tech specialist, here to set up and maintain the monitoring equipment. It was his work that had burned down the other day. But he’d managed to seem both full of himself and irritated with everyone well before that had happened. She turned her attention back to the others she’d aligned herself with.

Today, she’d worn her thermal hat. She’d made sure to bring it after getting the message they would be in the field. More than willing to hike to the base camp with her hood up, Joule wasn't willing to spend a day out in the field with her vision constrained. Cage, Leon, and Sarah had done the same and—as per Sarah's wishes, whether because it was a good idea or they were just placating their friend—the four of them showed off their brightly colored hats like little beacons.

“Also,” Dr. Murasawa added, “the more of us there are in each group, the less likely it is that something will bother us.”

Cool, cool, Joule thought sarcastically. She knew that “something” would likely be an elk or moose—either apparently could be very dangerous or worse.

“At least, we don't have to worry about mosquitos,” Cage said with a light nudge to her puffy covered elbow.

Jesus. She remembered how her heart had pounded when Cage was bitten. When their tour guide had slapped his neck and dropped dead just a few minutes later. She would hate mosquitos until she died.

“Leon, you're leading your home team of four.” Dr. Murasawa pointed her dark glove at the four of them already clustered together.

“He's supposed to be the leader leader?” Cage asked, and at that moment, Joule very much appreciated where she worked. No one questioned Cage's odd verbiage.

Dr. Murasawa simply answered, “Yes. We want the most experienced out in front. There are places out here where the landscape changes rapidly, but with this heavy snow cover we might not be able to tell.”

Joule understood. She remembered once driving through Big Bear as a kid. The whole family had gone on a skiing trip—before the twins had lost their parents, before the night hunters were even an idea. Back when she’d been excited to find new animals she hadn’t seen. The town had plowed the roads clear, so they could easily see the pavement, but sheer snow walls lined either side of the street, sometimes seventeen feet high. She’d been in awe.

The houses inspired the snow to drift around them, and their father had pointed out how easy it was to see who was in town for the winter and who wasn't. It wasn't that there weren't houses there. The gaps and empty looking lots that were just a mound of snow were places where people hadn't dug their tiny summer home out. Joule wondered now if they might snowshoe their way right across somebody's empty home.

Still, that seemed far preferable to walking into a space where the land simply gave way, and they didn't know because of the snow cover.

“I'll lead one team.” Dr. Murasawa pointed to three more employees, motioning them into a line near where she stood. “Jeremy will be leading the remaining three.”

She looked out to make sure she still had everyone’s attention. “We're looking for several things today. For example, spaces open enough to land a helicopter.”

Joule paid attention, taking notes on the listed requirements. There were more than just actual measurements, but also their ability to check for solid ground underneath the snow as well as for the height of nearby trees.

“We're looking for trails and paths that may be well used either by humans or wildlife. We need current information about these trails. Are these trails we want to be near or far away from?”

The team was still at least a couple months away from installing even the first solar panel. While there was already a chosen, preferred spot, the team that was here now had to do all the checks and balances while looking for alternate spots as well.

They had to make a series of decisions. Would all the panels be placed in a single cluster and operated off one power grid? Or would they be put in multiple smaller clusters? That meant greater chance of partial failure but lower chance of full failure.

“We have one more addition to our assignment.”

They'd all been looking at their phones, downloading information that was sent to them even as Dr. Murasawa talked. The trailers were their own Wi Fi hotspot. The temporary tower in between them offered limited cell service. But limited was the key term. They were all strapped with radio signal walkie talkies, and Dr. Murasawa handed the leader of each team a satellite phone as well.

“It’s not part of the necessary assignment, but if you get the opportunity, please keep your eyes peeled for any place good for upright wind turbines.”

Interesting. But Joule didn’t get to ponder the addition of wind power to the landscape.

“Everybody, double check your team!”

With that announcement, they turned and looked to each other. Joule was grateful her friends all took the work seriously. They didn't just assume the sat phone worked. They turned it on, checked the battery status, linked it, and made a call. When it rang—though she was barely twenty feet away—Dr. Murasawa looked over and gave them a thumbs up.

They checked that they had an extra battery and that it was charged. They divided what to carry by weight and bulk. The little team checked food and water. Though Joule would be carrying most of that, they all had at least some on them in case they were separated. They went down the list carefully because, while this might be an average outing for their team, if something went wrong, their preparedness would be what saved them.

When they passed all their checks, Dr. Murasawa told them, “You guys are A-team and you're headed up. You can go ahead and go.”

Behind her, as she turned to begin the trek, Joule heard her boss giving extra instructions to the team that Jeremy was leading. While Jeremy was their safety operator, he had no idea what they were looking for. The team members knew what they were looking for, but none of them were experienced enough to be turned loose by themselves into the wilderness. Joule reminded herself she was among the inexperienced. Leon would be the final say for safety.

“You good?” she asked her brother.

Cage nodded, then turned and asked Sarah the same. One by one they started toward the edge of the space. The bio sciences team—Cage and Sarah—would have the job of photographing, noting location and tagging, whenever possible, the appropriate wildlife. Joule did not expect them to be tagging any moose or elk today. But who knew if the situation presented itself.

Though the kind of work that they did with Helio Systems Tech kept her and her brother in good shape, the twins had been at home for several months before this job. Though they’d intended to rest and recoup, nature had other ideas.

Who knew she'd be thanking the night hunters for the long walks through the dark at night? For the extensive impromptu hiking. How she’d spent her time carrying heavy weapons. It wasn't quite the same as trudging through the thick snow up the side of the mountain, but one by one, they fell in line behind Leon and made their way.

She wanted to look around to check the species of trees. Sarah and Cage would know better than she, but she needed to look at the height. It would give her an idea of what kind of soil they were treading on. She might be able to calculate how deep the topsoil might go, what the root systems might look like if they had to dig into anything, and how they would preserve the existing trees. Instead, she kept her focus on the team, following Leon right in front of her, constantly turning and checking for Sarah and Cage behind her.

It was a good twenty minutes later that Joule heard Leon exclaim, “Oh, wow. Take a look at this.”

She had no idea what he meant. None of the other three were as fast as him. Their lack of experience had them trying to walk in his steps and her focus was down at her own feet, not up.

Was the view pretty? Was he about to be killed by a snow leopard? It took her a moment to catch up. She wasn't quite as fast as she wanted to be, not on the gangly snowshoes that she still hadn't quite developed a fluid gait with.

But as she stepped from between the trees, she saw what he was talking about. An open field greeted them, almost blinding white with the fresh snow that had fallen.

Sarah and Cage moved up beside her, forming a line as they looked back and forth.

“Is that—?” Sarah pointed but didn’t quite finish her question.

“Yes,” Leon replied, clearly understanding. “Whatever was packed over there gave way.”

Joule wasn’t sure she would have figured that out. The new snow had formed a slight mound with one side dipping sharply away. She wondered if it had caved like a glacier at first, but a little bit of additional snow had built up and covered the evidence.

Blinking, she looked across the open space back to her right, toward the edge of the trees. “Are those tracks?”

7

“Don't look at me,” Leon said to the other three, even as Cage did exactly that.

“But you're the leader,” Cage pointed out.

“Only because I know how to snowshoe, not because I know how to track various animals through the Colorado wilderness.” As he said it, Leon shook his head, looking cool and in charge with his stable stance and his dark sunglasses.

Everyone else had put their sunglasses on, too. Polarized lenses had been on the recommended product list.

Leon was on the engineering team. If anyone would know the tracks it would be Sarah or himself.

“Are we going to follow it?” Joule asked, “or just note that it's here?”

“Follow it.” Sarah voted firmly and quickly. When the others turned to look at her—and Cage wondered how much of her decision was emotional rather than logical—she at least backed it up. “We're supposed to be noting what wildlife is out here. Leon already admitted he isn't a tracker. Is anyone else?”

She already knew the answer to that. Though he and Joule had at one point tracked Sarah, Cage and his sister shook their heads.

There were however a few things they’d learned the signs for. He pushed back the thought that sprang to his head, if there were night hunters out here, he and Joule would be able to track them. This had better not be that.

“We won't get a better idea what it is until we either follow it somewhere where we can read the tracks easier or catch up to it.” Sarah looked back and forth between the three as if daring them to fault her logic.

“Looks like it's been a while, though.” Leon pointed, his pole moving along as his hand gestured.

When Cage looked more closely, he saw the original tracks appeared to have sunk into the snow a decent amount. But it was difficult to tell just how much with the new layer of fresh powder dusting everything, smoothing the edges and rounding the corners.

“I hate to say it,” Cage told the others, even as he still tried to figure it out, “but I'm guessing some kind of large cat or fox maybe.”

“Why?” Sarah asked, leaning forward and looking as though she could see what he saw.

“Because they often bound through the snow, making deeper impressions at uniform distance.” Jabbing his pole in the snow to leave it, he used his right hand to point at the deeper marks along the path, noting their regular spacings.

“Do we want to follow a large cat?” Leon asked the others almost rhetorically.

They didn’t take the bait. It was Joule who said, “Shouldn't we? The whole point of there being four of us in the group is for this kind of thing. Even if we find it, it shouldn't want to tangle with us.”

“Can we tell which direction it was even headed?” Leon pointed again.

This time no one answered, but slowly, the group moved forward. Careful not to step into the tracks and ruin what little information they had, they all peered forward, to get close enough they could examine them a little better.

Sarah snapped pictures, the fake shutter noise of her phone and the soft echo of their breathing the only sounds in the eerie stillness. Then she asked, “Are we sure it's a large cat?”

“Not at all,” Cage replied. “That’s just my first guess.”

“Could it be human?” Leon posed. Slowly, all four of them tried to lean even closer.

It was Joule who shook her head first. “It's too small, and I think it looks like it was going this way.” She pointed toward the right, not back the direction they had come. The tracks came out of the tree line toward the center of the space and then turned and headed back into the trees aimed a different direction.

“Wait.” Leon held his hands up. “Tracking the animals is a secondary assignment. Our primary job is to look for a helicopter location. To check the tree height, see if this field is a good place to land, to set up a command base, or even to put in solar panels.”

Cage pulled out his phone, grateful for the thermal gloves that were also made to activate the touch screen. “He’s got a good point. Let's get this first. We'll record all of it, send it back, and then we follow the tracks.”

Even though he knew it didn't necessarily do anything, Cage held the phone up toward the sky, squinting into the brightness of the midday sun. “I think I've got signal.”

“I've got one bar,” his sister replied, not even looking at him.

Despite them having their own cell tower at the base camp, Helio Sys didn’t manage to cover everything up here with solid signal. The tower itself was a temp model and not that tall. Additionally, the landscape was rugged enough that most everything signal-wise got blocked.

“Let's get our measurements,” Leon added, and they split two and two, with Leon and Joule heading to the far side where the tree line curled around again and Cage and Sarah making their way back toward where they'd entered.

The four of them hollered out the readings they got, their voices carrying. He could run a physics experiment here on how sound bounced at clean angles. It was almost like he could see their voices. They called back their notes with all four of them keeping their numbers before switching their positions to get the measurements in the other direction.

“Joule and I will go this way,” Leon called out then pointed to Cage and Sarah. “You two go to the tree line.”

But even as they turned away, Cage could hear him telling Joule to be careful and what to look out for. He worried about them, but had learned long ago that worry did nothing, being ready was what saved them time and again. Who was to say the danger wasn’t going to come from the trees itself?

Ready for anything, he reminded himself and headed right for the tree line.

Leon and Joule were moving much more slowly, carefully checking each step, so Cage and Sarah approached the tree line faster.

“We have to cut right through the tracks,” Sarah pointed out. Clearly, she didn’t want to.

“It’s the only way to get to the tree line and get an accurate measurement.” He didn’t like it either. It seemed disrespectful in some odd way. But getting the measurements was the job they’d been hired for.

Carefully, they passed through, their snowshoes shuffling the snow along, making their own tracks perpendicular to the first. Despite the snow, he flashed back to an image of footsteps in the desert sand and he breathed a deep sigh of relief that Sarah was here beside him now. She nodded slightly at him but said nothing. Her silent understanding was enough.

They created their own four tracks, dragged through the fluffy white, almost in perfect alignment, until they got to the other side. Sarah turned around and stared at the snow, her head swiveling to the right and then back to the left.

Cage still wasn't sure which direction whatever it was had traveled.

But Sarah looked up at him, as if imploring him for help. “I know we said it couldn't be human, because it’s too small to be human tracks. But what if it was a small human?”

He was trying to ponder the reasoning behind that when, from the other side of the field, he heard Leon scream. The sound bounced all around him.

8

Whipping his head around at the sound of Leon's shriek, Cage spotted his friend and his sister on the other side of the field. He took barely a moment to register that they were looking down over the edge of the snow before he began to run, or he tried to.

The snowshoes and the snow beneath him didn't allow him to run or even just walk the way he usually did. Immediately, his forward momentum was more than his feet moved and he almost face planted.

“Shit!” he swore out loud. But next to him, Sarah was already on the move. Level-headed, she'd simply lifted one foot and moved it forward as if she knew there was simply no way she could go faster no matter how much she tried.

For a moment he considered snapping the snowshoes off. But really, there were no better alternatives. He'd only be slower without them. Trying again to move his feet, Cage was faster, but still they felt tangled. The steady rhythm he'd achieved earlier was completely gone now. On the other side of the field, Joule and Leon had turned back, waving their hands.

“It wasn't me!” Leon called.

“Wasn't me, either,” Joule offered with a confused shrug.

Cage and Sarah stopped, looking at each other. His attempt at running in Jello now seemed to be an attempt at stopping in Jello, almost as difficult.

“Then, who was it?” he called back.

“It came from . . .” Even as he was pointing oddly off to his right, Leon added, “I mean, sound bounces out here.”

“I thought it came from over there.” Joule motioned with one gloved hand. At least they were gesturing into the same quadrant if not actually the same direction.

“Well, I'm glad it's not us, but . . .” Cage commented as the four looked at each other. It was clearly unanimous that they needed to go check it out.

Leon simply asked, “How do we get over there?”

“I think we have to go through the trees,” Sarah commented, even as Joule—still on the other side of the field—leaned forward, searching.

Tipping her head, his sister added, “I think there's a trail.”

Cage was already turning and heading that way. If someone was in trouble, it was going to be a while before their little team could get to them. He hoped they could hold out. This was not going to be fast.

Leon was clearly the most experienced and moved faster than the rest. He called across to Cage and Sarah. “Should I go on up ahead?”

Shit. This time though, Cage only thought it. It was Sarah who clearly said, “No, we're supposed to stay together. That's the whole point.”

“But if someone's in trouble⁠—”

Sarah cut off Leon's protest. “And if you get separated and become even more trouble, then what have we accomplished?”

“Okay,” Leon seemed to agree, but added, “Let's see if we can pick up the pace.”

Cage wasn’t sure they could. They were calling back and forth across the field, their own voices bouncing as they turned and headed from their two different directions to the spot in the woods where Joule pointed.

They were almost to the other side before Cage realized that their voices had bounced plenty and that the bouncing voice was the problem. But maybe it could help. He called out loudly, “Can you hear us?”

“Help!” The sound came back, and the four stopped, all going quiet as they tried to pinpoint the location.

Deciding they were heading the right direction, Leon passed through the tree line, entering the trail. Joule was there right behind him. Cage and Sarah, who hadn't been quite as quick across the open field, filed in behind.

“Try to keep up,” Leon said.

Cage called out again, “We hear you! Can you hear us?”

“Help!” the voice said again. Did he hear a demanding tone?

What if the voice couldn't hear them? They wouldn't be able to give instructions or ask for better directions.

“We're coming,” Leon called out from the front. Then he added again, “Can you hear us?”

“Of course, I can fucking hear you!” The voice yelled back. Though it seemed to be filtered by cold air and trees and snow, it didn’t sound that far away.

Ignoring the obvious irritation of their ‘victim’ Leon tried again. “Where are you?”

“I'm at the edge of the stupid snow field!”

The four of them looked to each other, their movement slowing down as they clocked the words. Hadn’t they just come from a snow field? But he hadn’t been there. Was there another one? Cage wondered.

Leon turned around, cutting a hand back and forth through the air and motioning to his feet. “It's rocky under here.”

Exactly as Jeremy had warned them. Reaching down, they all snapped off their snowshoes, exactly as they’d been taught. Leon made quick eye contact with all three of them. “Do not twist an ankle.”

Cage agreed. Whoever it was they were clear headed enough to swear at their rescuers.

“We’re coming!” Leon yelled back, snowshoes and poles in his hand, equipment he was now carrying in addition to the backpack. He tried for better directions. “Which snow field?”

“This snow field, god damn it!”

Clearly, getting directions from whoever this was was probably not going to happen.

Unimpressed with their victim, Cage wondered if maybe the irritation was born of pain. “Are you hurt?”

“No!” The voice was adamant, as if it was stupid that they would ask. “I'm just stuck.”

From the front of the line, Leon turned the upper half of his body around and made a braking motion with his hand. Good point. The person wasn't hurt, they were irritated enough, however, to swear at the people coming after them. Cage was not going to risk himself, his sister, or his friends, for whoever this was.

A few minutes later, after the voice had called out again, “Are you even coming?”

Leon looked ahead. He didn’t yell out his answer. “Oh, look. There’s another field here, like the one we just left. Wild.”

They were clearing the edge of the trees when Cage heard a deep rumbling noise. Had the sound not been petrifying, he would have laughed. They stood in a line at the edge of the field, their boots sinking into the thicker snow of the open space as all four of them held out their hands to the side—like mothers holding kids back as they braked the car.

He didn’t fully register what the deep rolling noise was, until he saw it. He just knew that he didn't want to move into it. Sure enough, slowly, the snow began to vibrate in front of him.

9

Joule watched in horror as the top layer of the snow slid to her left. This field looked much like the one they had just left. Trees wrapped almost three quarters of it, and on the south side, it appeared more open. The view beyond would be gorgeous, if not for the terrifying movement of the snow.

It was over almost before it started, and the snow that was left behind looked almost like it had been sheared away. Still, she held her breath for a long moment before whispering, “Is it safe?”

“Let’s still give it a minute,” Leon commented, and they all stood quietly.

“Are you okay?” Cage called out to their stranded hiker. He did it in a low tone, though Joule didn’t know if that was their best option. She didn’t know it wasn’t either, though. Clearly, he didn't want to just yell out and trigger any more snow slides, but if the person who was stuck had been buried, they would need to move faster than this. Asshole or not, they shouldn't die when people were just a handful of feet away.

“Goddamnit!” the voice called back, angrier than before.

No one said anything in response, but Leon raised an eyebrow and jerked his head to the side, as if to say, this guy.

“Was that an avalanche?” Sarah asked, and Joule agreed with the confusion. It did look like the snow slid, but it didn’t go very far.

Leon quickly shook his head, “No, not big enough, barely a snow slide. I think it’s called a sluff.”

Joule felt her own eyebrows rise, but Leon kept going, gesturing with one hand, having left his pole stuck in the snow that was now deeper at the edge of the field than it had been. “The trees help disperse the energy and minimize the movement and damage.”

Leaning down, their leader began working his feet back into his own snowshoes, the others naturally following suit. “Something like this could definitely be bigger and more of a problem when you've got say, like a ski slope, where you've got wide space, lots of exposed snow. But that’s about the end of my knowledge.”

Joule looked back and forth. The field itself was relatively small, there simply wasn’t too much snow to move. Maybe that would be a good thing.

When they all had their shoes strapped on, Joule tried wiggling her toes in her boots, as if that was an appropriate systems check. Leon asked if they were ready. With several quick nods of their heads, the little quartet headed into the open space to figure out who was the asshole in need of help.

“He's got to be down there.” Leon pointed to the open side.

Joule agreed, and it seemed so did everyone else. They made their way across the field as quickly as they could, routinely calling out. They continued to make sure the voice was calling back. Even though he was an asshole, they kept him talking.

However, the closer they got to the open edge, the slower they all moved. Joule leaned slowly forward, regulating her breaths. As if even that little amount of air would make the snow shift in front of her. She couldn’t see their person yet but didn’t want to move closer to the edge or lean further out.

They’d been warned that there could be issues. However, the job was supposed to start after the snows melted. They’d also been warned about mudslides and flash floods, too. Being the massive group of nerds that HST employees were, they’d been updated with the statistical likelihood of each concerning event.

The numbers had been low. She and Cage had discussed it and felt the risks were worth it. Besides, they’d been home the last handful of months and the risks had found them sitting in their own living room. Taking the job seemed like the right thing. However, HST had forgotten to calculate the risks that the winter temperatures would carry into the early spring longer than they were supposed to. They’d not figured that there would be fresh powder to hike through most days.

The snowshoes had been a gift, maybe not from pure graciousness but to admit the miscalculation.

She’d not been prepared for the rumbling noise and the concern that the top layer of snow would slide away like a sheet in front of her. In fact, she could see where it already had. The voice sounded like it was coming from beyond the edge of the field and maybe the last shift had swept him across the open space and down over the side.

“Oh my God!” Clearly, this person was pissed at them stopping momentarily for their own safety. “Are you even coming?”

This close, she recognized the voice. As she looked to her left and then her right, she saw her other housemates did, too. Resident number five: Ezra Tapper.

Things clicked into place—the surliness, his irritation at them not solving his problem faster. Maybe because she'd already dealt with Ezra more times than she cared to, she figured the odds were solid that his team had abandoned him with good cause. He’d simply never found it in himself to be pleasant.

A person could only take so much of that before they decided they were better off without it. Ezra’s only saving grace had been that he thought the rest of them were beneath him, so mostly he simply didn't interact with anyone. He showed up in the trailer, monitored the data and told them what they needed to know, usually as if they were stupid for not already psychically deducing what the newest data was.

Joule had been grateful that Ezra usually locked himself in his room and didn’t want to join them. Now she faced the fact that none of them here would be able to abandon him, even though they might want to.

“Do you have a satellite phone?” Cage called out, and Joule wondered why she hadn't thought of that herself. Hell, Ezra could have called for his own help.

“Of course not! The team took it.”

She raised one eyebrow. Or, maybe, the sat phone was with the team because that’s where it was supposed to be. He’d been given the same protocols as them.

“Cell phone?” her brother questioned back.

Joule and Sarah were already holding theirs up. She shook her head at him. “No signal.”

Even as she said it, Ezra rudely yelled back, “Of course I have a cell phone. How stupid do you think I am?”

Joule pressed her lips together. She could recall with great clarity a conversation with both of her parents when she'd been much younger. Though her parents were gone, their advice lingered. They’d pulled her aside after the school had called them about “an incident.” She’d seen them trying to hide their laughter when she told them what had happened, but they’d been firm. In no uncertain terms, they instructed that she should never answer that question again.

So now, she withheld the answer that immediately sprang to mind and turned to Leon. “How do we get down to him or get him up to us?”

They stood for a moment that way, the four of them quiet. Each of them clearly lost in thought, they tried to figure out how they would solve what Joule was now considering “the Ezra situation.” After a few moments, no one had spoken, but it seemed the mountain had something to say.

The rumbling noise came again.

10

“We did not abandon him!” Jeremy protested. “He decided to split from the group and there was nothing we could do about it.”

The rumbling had come and gone again, but the snow hadn’t moved. Jeremy pointed out that the noise was coming from further away. He seemed to have some kind of sound location ability that Cage certainly didn’t. But then again, that was why Jeremy was here: he was the expert.

He retained a full range of motion, too. Despite the poles in his hands, he managed to throw them up in the air and offer a massive, frustrated shrug. Cage understood.

“In fact, we got here so fast because we have been looking for him!” Jeremy was maybe even more frustrated with the man than the rest of them.

“All good.” Cage hoped his undertone of we absolutely understand came through. For whatever reason, he found he didn't want to say the words in front of Ezra, though the man surely deserved them. Maybe it was just self-preservation.

His sister looked across the short space and Cage felt their eyes connect. Yes, he heard her loud and clear, Ezra was surely old enough to have become a better person by now.

Jeremy sighed, his two Helio Tech companions lingering behind him. They looked like Cage felt: new to the snow and awkward in their own shoes. “He kept separating himself from the group, which forced us off our planned path! Now look where he is.”

Cage nodded again. Nothing they could do about that now, though he laid zero blame at Jeremy’s feet. The guide might be startled by who he was dealing with, but the rest of them weren’t. “How do we get him up?”

Jeremy leaned over the side, looking down. Cage had done the same, spotting the man’s head and upper torso sticking out of the snow.

“Do you still have your snowshoes on, Ezra?”

“Of course, I do.” The man replied back. He was stuck facing away from them but had managed to work one arm free by the time Cage and the others had gotten close enough and had felt safe enough to look down at him. He was still struggling to get the other arm loose, to which Jeremy sharply scolded him to stop. To no one's surprise, Ezra didn't listen.

“Why does it matter if I have my snowshoes on?” he yelled back angrily.

“Shut up!” The guide finally snapped.

Though he didn't fully grin and show his teeth, Cage knew there was no suppressing his smile. He could only hope the puffiness of his coat hid the way his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

It took a moment, but Jeremy finally called back. “It matters if you have your snowshoes on, because they're strapped to your feet. They make your feet larger and wider. Which is great if you don’t get yourself stuck! But now it’s making it that much more difficult to simply just pull you straight up out of the snow.”

“Fine, I'll unsnap them, and we'll leave them behind,” the older man grumbled.

Jeremy shook his head and turned easily to look at the rest of them as if to ask if they were all this stupid and mad about it. Cage couldn’t help putting his own hands up in surrender. He had nothing to do with this and would be refusing to have Ezra on any of his own teams in the future.

They all understood that if a person could just step out of their snowshoes without bending down, using their fingers, or at least toe at the heel of the other foot, then the devices would come off too easily. That would be as dangerous, or more so, than what they were dealing with now.

They waited a moment for Ezra to realize he was too stuck to get the shoes off and they were going to have to deal with it.

Jeremy turned to the others in the group. “I wish we had a rescue dog.”

Cage was opening his mouth to ask if they could call one, not that he wanted to stay here and wait until help arrived. But if getting support was for the best, then it was for the best. His thoughts were cut short by another round of rumbling in the distance. The team—now seven across, with the addition of Jeremy, Aliyah and the new guy, Axel—all braced.

Like the last one, this noise came from the distance. Still, it took more than a moment for all their shoulders to relax.

As Cage looked down the line again, he saw only six sets of shoulders had dropped. Jeremy's remained tight, as did his voice.

“We don't have time to call for a dog. Sooner or later, one of those slides is going to come through here again.” Turning with a deeply concerned look in his eyes, he motioned behind them toward the trees. “Whatever we do, we need to do it fast.”

11

Cage forced the shovel down into the snow, using momentum and just a little bit of his weight. The probes stuck out around Ezra’s body, showing them all exactly how deep the snow was, where to dig, and where they couldn't. If they plunged the edge of the blade in too close and hit Ezra, they could cut him or even break something. Though it was tempting, Cage knew it would create more problems than it solved.

Luckily, the current snow fall was light. They had to work faster than it fell or they’d be going backwards despite their best efforts. Tipping his head up, he let it hit his face and cool him down. Cage sighed as he felt Ezra glaring at him for stopping even for just a moment.

The brief training they'd had on snow rescue had not fully prepared any of them. In addition to the job of shoveling, he was also operating with a strap of webbing tied around his waist for safety. But his movement was hindered, and he simply hadn’t been ready for the day to go so sideways. He was also more than a little mad that it was all avoidable.

They each carried a large coil of the webbing along with signal mirrors, GPS, and more as part of their emergency backup kits. Cage was grateful he was tied to something. They’d also managed to loop some of it under Ezra’s arms.

But the combination of the way things usually went and Ezra should have let them all know that they were going to need their emergency gear sooner rather than later.

“Ready to trade out?” Jeremy called down to him.

Looking up the slope, Cage made eye contact with their new group leader. He didn’t feel ready to trade out yet, but he should. The goal was to work in short bursts and not overtax any one of them. He was down here at the bottom of the small drop off next to Ezra. They’d gotten the snow dug out down near the man’s knees and Cage was grateful the end was in sight.

Now if they could just finish the job before another snow sluff came through. Or worse.

He hadn’t heard any of the rumbling for a while and that made him more nervous than secure.

He continued to dig while Ezra continued to grumble as if he hadn’t caused the whole problem in the first place. But then when Jeremy asked again, Cage agreed to tap out.

They were working with one person digging on one side while, on the other, the team worked through the arduous task of helping to lift the current worker out and replace them with a new—supposedly fresh—digger.

The main problem was they had to dig all the way down to get Ezra’s snowshoes out. Otherwise, he wasn't going to be able to walk back, which would again cause more problems. From what Cage was learning, that was typical of Ezra: complain about problems, then get into the job and make them happen. As if to prove that he was right. People who’d worked with him before were clear that Ezra didn’t believe in cleaning up his own messes.

The second problem was that Ezra was a halfway brilliant monitor. And the team needed someone in that position on this trip. The number of times Dr. Murasawa had told them how much they needed Ezra let Cage know that she understood exactly how much of a pain in the ass he was. Business wise, letting him go didn't seem like an option.

Joule stood at the top of the small precipice looking down. “All right, I'm ready to tag in.”

“It's about time to get me out of here,” Ezra muttered.

Cage ignored it as he folded his shovel back up and turned to head back up the slope. As sharp as it was, he was glad that he had the strap tied around him and people at the top were helping haul him up.

“If you didn't trade out so much, this would go a lot faster!” Ezra called up behind Cage.

“If you weren't an idiot who got yourself stuck, this wouldn't be a problem at all,” Joule called back, her tone singsongy, but Cage heard the irritation underneath it.

While he might hold his tongue, Joule had never seemed to catch on to their mother's silence is the better part of valor sometimes rule.

“It's not my fault!” Ezra protested as Joule was slowly making her way down the slope.

She carefully planted her feet as Cage watched from the top, his breathing a little heavier than he would like to admit. It just didn't feel like it should be as difficult of work as it was.

“Oh, it's entirely your fault,” Joule said with a saccharine smile as she dug her shovel into the snow and began the work of undoing Ezra’s bullshit. “You weren't supposed to leave your group. Leaving your group gets you in trouble like this.”

She was working, but there was no stopping her from letting Ezra know exactly how irritated she was that she was having to do it.

Next to him at the top, Jeremy declared, “Once he's out, we all have to go in. We weren't dressed for even a full day trip, and now that we've done the extra work, we've been sweating inside of our clothes.”

Then Jeremy muttered under his breath, “Ezra just made this whole thing a hell of a lot more dangerous for everyone.”

Leon went next, making his way down the slope, trading out with Sarah, who had just been pulled up. If they weren't actively digging, they were helping to trade out the person on one side or the other. There wasn’t much rest time in between. Luckily, soon they had Ezra wiggling his knees and pulling his snowshoes out.

When at last they pulled Ezra to the top of the small slope, Jeremy put his hand up to his eyes, shielding them. “This day is shot.” Though he didn't glare, the pointed look he gave Ezra let everyone know exactly who Jeremy thought was to blame for the wasted day. “We have to go straight back. We're all overheated.”

“Well, I'm cold!” Ezra declared as if to make sure no one else could be right about anything. Cage fought the urge to push him back down the slope and leave him there.

“Well, when you get back, you can get some heat on, in the meantime how about you eat some Shut-the-Fuck-Up-Cupcakes?” Joule told him with a smile and a venomous glare.

Ezra gave her a dirty look in return. “You won't get very far without me.”

“We're not getting very far with you,” Cage snapped back, his own patience finally at an end.

Clearly, Jeremy had had enough of all of them, but he turned it on the one who deserved it. “Shut up, Ezra.”

He motioned them into a line to return to the base camp, putting Ezra in the middle of the pack. “Everyone stays with the group. Everyone keeps an eye on everyone else.”

Cage was nodding his agreement, helping to roll up the webbing lines to carry back. They weren’t as good as a full body harness, but they'd done the job. He just hoped they didn't need them again before the end of this trip. Between hydrating themselves while they worked and making sure they were fueled, almost all their food and water was gone.

But they all made their way—finally, blessedly quiet—along the trail through the trees. At the edge, one by one, they snapped off their snowshoes and carried them along. Cage realized he couldn't quite just dangle them at his side. The bottoms had grippy teeth, and he rotated them facing outward so they didn't bounce against his leg. They weren't walking side by side, so he didn't have to worry about anyone else catching the sharp point of a tooth. But he paid attention when they cleared the trees at the edge of the first field his team had passed.

One by one, they snapped the snowshoes back onto their feet and started across the trail.

“We found more tracks over there,” Cage pointed out to Jeremy. “We weren't sure if they might be a large cat?”

“Or a small person,” Sarah added quickly.

With a huff of concern, Jeremy stepped out of the line and motioned them to keep going straight through. “You stay on our path. I’ll check it out.”

Looking over his shoulder as he headed slowly forward, Cage watched their leader head to the other side of the field, peering at the tracks. While they had worked, another light dusting of snow had fallen, light enough that it hadn’t hindered their work, but enough to add just another layer to the mystery.

Jeremy was in charge so, while Cage wanted to follow him over and look, he decided it was best to do as he was told. After all, Ezra had wasted their entire day by failing to follow even simple instructions.

They were almost exiting the second field on the far side, when he heard Jeremy behind him. “Well, that's not good.”

12

Joule headed to the couch and slowly sank down next to Leon. The cup of hot cocoa cradled in her hands made her feel a little bit warmer.

She wasn't one for feeling cold very often. Even though she was home and they had all rotated through hot showers and eaten their dinner, she still didn't quite feel fully warmed. An electric blanket had been suggested for the trip, so she and Cage had each gotten one. She knew now her brother would be curled into his with the setting on a level she called hell tonight. But even she thought it might be a good idea to put just a touch of the heat on.

“This is good!” Leon told her, motioning to the mug.

It was how her mother used to make it. A mix of whole milk and water in the microwave made a standard hot cocoa packet notably richer. So much that the family lore included a story about Joule suggesting that their grandmother call her mom to learn how to make hot cocoa correctly.

“I'm supposed to be going to bed early, and I should be tired . . .” she commented. They’d been out all day doing an activity she wasn't used to.

Of course, once Cage had said his butt muscles hurt, she’d noticed that hers did too. Now, her arms and shoulders felt the repeated motions of the shovel. Snow was supposed to be light and fluffy, but that shit was heavy. And she'd had enough of Ezra to last a lifetime. They probably all had.

She sighed into the darkened living room. Luckily Ezra had taken himself upstairs earlier and not come down. “I'm just not actually tired.”

“Me either,” Leon shrugged next to her.

“Old movie?” Sarah asked as she motioned them to shove over and sat down in the far corner of the couch.

She'd skipped the hot cocoa and gone for a hot mulled cider. It smelled wonderful, Joule thought. Maybe they could get some popcorn.

Even as Leon was flipping through their options with the remote and said, “Oh, look, we can watch the first Tremors,” her brother came in with a big bowl of fragrant popcorn in his hands. He held several smaller bowls along with it, which he quickly began distributing.

Had he read her mind? It didn’t matter. She had hot cocoa, popcorn, and a movie about beasts that lived under the sand in the desert.

So far, she still enjoyed the old campy horror films. None of them had come true.

Yet.

Despite the existence of the night hunters, she'd not once been afraid of sand worms under the desert. If something new and unique and even petrifying made the tracks they’d found today, at least it lived above the snow.

By the end of the film, she'd finished her popcorn, drunk her hot cocoa to the dregs, and the clock said it was later than she wanted to go to bed. But she thought she might stand a chance of crawling in and falling asleep if she could get that electric blanket to give her a little extra push over the edge.

Next to her, Sarah hadn't moved much. With a side glance, Joule checked that she hadn’t fallen asleep. But Sarah more looked like something was brewing under the surface. Her still posture worried Joule.

Speaking into the now quiet room, dark as the end credits rolled, she told them, “I’m worried about the tracks today. What if they were people?”

“But they didn't look like our tracks,” Cage commented from the big chair that sat just to Joule’s left.

Joule thought it even as Sarah said it out loud, “That only means they didn’t have snowshoes.”

No one said how much work that might make for someone trying to walk through. Using up that kind of energy and being that slow could be dangerous in the cold.

“Could easily be a big cat, though,” Leon added, as if that was comforting.

In a strange way though, it was. He hadn’t been there when Sarah was missing. He'd not been searching the desert, praying for tracks—any tracks—with them. Though Cage and Joule had done their best to catch him up, Joule thought maybe it was telling that he hadn't flinched at the story.

She hadn't met anyone in a while who didn't have some kind of battle scars. She didn’t know of anyone who hadn't either gone on a rescue mission to save a family member or a friend from something or hadn’t needed the rescue themselves.

The missions didn’t all end as well as it had for Cage and Sarah. For that, Joule was grateful. But she tried to comfort them all. “We'll go back out tomorrow. If it's a person, we'll find them.”

Sarah's lips tightened, her fingers curling to white knuckles around the mug. Her friend didn't have to say it out loud. The snow was deep, and the night was cold. They were all worried. What if they went out tomorrow, and what they found was in fact a person, but too late?

Trying to reassure both Sarah and herself, Joule added, “They weren't wandering in circles. The tracks clearly came out on one path and headed back into another. There's every possibility they knew exactly where they were going, and the only ones confused here are us.”

Sarah nodded as if she'd had these thoughts herself, but they weren't enough. Joule understood. Her goal was to comfort Sarah. Her other goal was to get a good night's sleep. Because they'd be back out tomorrow to follow the mystery tracks, and she would start the day even more sore than she was now.

Eventually, their muscles would adapt. But today had not been that day, and tomorrow was not going to be better. She hadn’t told Sarah what Jeremy had told her when he rejoined the group. She was the one he'd confided in when he said, “I'm pretty sure they're human. Small human.”

13

Cage traipsed through the snow, the wide flat snowshoes starting to feel like an extension of his own feet.

It wasn't anything he'd ever planned on getting used to. His family had always teased him how cold blooded he was. Though he wasn't horrible about it, he was the one who wore a full hoodie in the Nevada desert in triple digits. Because, why not?

He'd agreed to take the job in Colorado because it sounded interesting. Joule wanted to go, and they both needed the work—needed to get out of Rowena Heights and back into doing something more useful—more proactive and less reactive.

Lifting his foot up, he planted it ahead of where it was. His muscles were still angry at him for the previous few days, but he kept slowly plowing forward anyway. He'd taken the job because it was supposed to be for a limited time, but it was also supposed to be during less snowy conditions. How were they ever going to build if they couldn't reach the ground that they had to sink pylons into? It certainly wasn't thawing as fast as it was supposed to.

While he didn't feel like anything was deadly yet, he certainly wasn't comfortable in the cold weather. His fingers felt cold, his toes felt cold, and he might even drag that stupid electric blanket out onto the couch tonight and wrap himself in it. Because, despite the hot shower, he hadn't felt warm for the whole movie last night. Even Joule said she didn't, and that was saying something.

“Crap.” Jeremy declared. Up ahead he and Dev were leading the way. Cage and Joule were bringing up the rear. Maybe his sister was as sore as he was.

Jeremy was leading this little search party because that was his job. He was here to train the HST workers and make sure that the snowshoeing was safe where they were going. He was also good with the climate and wasn’t slowed down by the snow or protesting muscles.

Ezra was not on this little trip. Though Cage felt that asshole’s name should have been in the hat and should have been drawn first, no one wanted to work with him. He was a danger to everyone around him. Weaponized incompetence at its finest.

They'd all taken the greater likelihood of having their own names selected for today’s sojourn. Both Cage and Joule’s names had been drawn. He took another few steps forward, trying to figure out what Jeremy was softly swearing about.

At least he wouldn't be on the crew that might have to come out tomorrow. Today’s outing at least bought them a day off tomorrow.

“What is it?” Joule asked, somehow moving a little faster. Had she done things smarter? Had she just been better yesterday? Maybe she was in better shape than him, although Cage wouldn't have guessed it.

Ever since high school, when things had gone so terribly wrong, the two had stuck together. Peanut butter and jelly, Joule said. Peas and Carrots, if their mother had had her say in the nicknames. He would have expected the two of them to react much the same way.

But none of that mattered now. He had to keep up.

“There's more snow over the tracks,” Jeremy pointed with his pole.

Dev was peering across the way. “Can we move it? Clear out the new snow and see the original tracks?”

“I doubt it.” Jeremy was shaking his head. “If the snow underneath was frozen, it might work, but it's not. Blowing the top layer off also blows the tracks away. Maybe completely. But it's been straight powder this whole time.”

Then Jeremy looked up at the sky. “It cleared up a lot a few weeks ago, before you guys got here, and it stayed clear. We thought it was spring. But then, boom, we got this big snow, and it just keeps coming down.”

Cage looked up. He hadn't even really noticed, but Jeremy was right, and it was still coming down in such small amounts that he’d quickly acclimated and now didn’t even feel it. But as he looked across the field to the tracks, he saw the problem. “We can't even tell which direction they were going.”

“You saw them before.” Jeremy turned to the twins as they finally pulled up alongside him and Dev. He asked Joule, “What do you remember?”

“To the right? I think that way.” She looked to Cage—the only other one who'd been here when they first discovered them.

He shook his head. “I would agree, but I'm not sure what that's worth. Even then, they'd already been filled in a little bit with fresh snow, and we weren’t sure which way they were going then. It was just a guess.”

“Well, we're here to search, so let's search.” Jeremy said with a lighthearted shrug. “We go that way.”

He took off at a pace that Cage didn’t want to follow—one that he was equally certain was dialed down for them. They followed what remained, now just mild indentations in the snow.

Ahead of them, Jeremy reached the tree line, pausing for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to take off his snowshoes.

Was there too much snow even within the woods now? Cage wondered. It hadn’t fallen in any great amounts, except for once overnight, since he and his sister had gotten here. But he could see now that every little bit added up.

After a few moments of deliberating, Jeremy reached down and undid the clips. Without question, the others followed suit and removed their snowshoes before entering the woods. Luckily, it was barely midday, and though the woods themselves were shaded by the tall trees, the sky beyond remained bright and sunny. Some of the light made it in, and they could see their way easily enough.

An hour later, snowshoes still off their feet, they were far from the little clearing. Cage clutched the devices at his side and wondered if they were going to leave them off this long, why they simply hadn't strapped them to their backpacks or figured out some better way to carry them. Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d figure out a better way.

He was watching where he stepped, trying not to turn his ankle. Well ahead of him and his sister, Dev, having rotated to the first in line declared, “Holy shit.”

14

Joule ran forward, but Jeremy put out his arm to stop her. “Wait! The people out here . . . It's not like the cities.”

She frowned, slowing down, not getting a chance to say she was grateful that he stopped her before she twisted an ankle or worse.

He was still talking. “People in the rural areas can have very different ideas about someone knocking on their door. A lot of people have cabins out here that they don't use in the winter. Someone who does spend the winter out here—” he motioned with one hand and a pole, “—those are people who specifically don't want others knocking on their door. We even have the occasional sovereign citizen.”

It took Joule a moment to place the term, but she’d heard of it. People who didn't believe that they should pay taxes to a government they didn't take from. They mostly lived off the grid, but Joule had always raised her eyebrow at the fact that they did take from the government. They often wanted to use the roads without paying tolls. They would occasionally come into the grocery stores and argue even about paying tax on the items they purchased. She didn't have any problem with people who didn't actually use the services the government provided. If they didn't want to pay taxes, it was fine, as long as they truly stayed off the grid.

But that didn't necessarily mean it was what they were looking at now.

“We'll go slowly.” Jeremy turned to the group as if they were all making a pact. “We'll call out and let them know that we're here first.”

Joule watched as her brother and Dev nodded along.

“The good news,” Jeremy added more gently, “Is the smoke is coming from the chimney, not the house in general, not even something burning behind it.”

“But the tracks were so small,” Joule commented, concerned. Maybe she'd just been hanging around Sarah for too long, concerned about a child out in the snow by themselves.

“I'm not confident a child would have simply found this cabin and been able to start a fire in the fireplace.”

That was valid, Joule thought, and hopeful.

“Remember, as the snow keeps falling, it fills in any tracks and the indentations gets smaller and smaller with each layer,” he added.

Also true. It was probably nothing, she told herself. They would march up to the front door, declare themselves, hope they weren't shot in the face, and solve the mystery of the tracks. Go back to civilization, sit on her couch. Drink more hot cocoa. Maybe talk the rest of the roommates—minus Ezra—into ordering a pizza.

“Hello?” Jeremy called out. His voice took on a tone that carried cleanly through the sharp cold air. Joule would have raised her eyebrows, but she was too anxious waiting to see what happened. “There are four of us. We followed some tracks here and wanted to be sure you were okay.”

Something came back to her ears. Someone was inside.

For a moment, she imagined it might be a raccoon or even a bear, but that didn’t explain the fire. The air out here was still. The lower temperature made the sound travel differently. She knew. She'd had more than one physics class for that engineering degree.

Though she’d started as a bio/biochem major and her brother had been aiming for marine biology, once the flood had come, they’d shifted. Engineering had pushed her through more chemistry and physics. Now, she could swear she heard voices carrying beyond the walls. Voices. Plural.

“There's more than one person in there,” she whispered to Jeremy, her head turning to look if Dev and Cage had caught it, but they were nodding in agreement.

With a frown, Jeremy turned, once again aiming his face back toward the door of the small cabin. “We just want to be sure that you're okay, if you don't mind could you come out and say hello?”

As Joule looked again, she realized the building did not look very warm. It seemed made for the summer months, maybe for a hunter. From this angle, it didn't appear to be insulated, maybe not at all. The fireplace would be the only thing holding the cold at bay.

As she tilted her head, she thought she was catching little bits of light through gaps in the wood. That couldn't be good. But her examination was cut short by the front door slapping wide.

Her jaw dropped open.

15

Joule moved her feet across the snowy field, her muscles straining, and she tried not to let tears run down her face. She wasn’t sore enough to cry—not yet—but she was heartbroken enough.

Two kids had eventually come running out of the tiny cabin. The arguments had escalated to whether or not it was safe, until Jeremy had changed his tone. This wasn’t a gun happy prepper behind the door but children. The girl was nine. Her younger brother barely six.

Though they were in warm gear, it wasn't entirely dry. They didn't have snowshoes. They'd run out of their own food several days ago, but luckily, the cabin had provided more. The worst part, though, was the story they’d told. They’d found the cabin after losing their mother in the storm.

Horrifically, they’d been following her and then had watched the snow fall away from under her. They'd heard her scream. The little girl looked to them, hopeful. “She told us not to follow if we saw something happen. We had to stop if the tracks didn’t look safe.”

She’d said it with a tone of self-consoling that she was right to not follow. It was Dev who squatted down and told her she’d done the right thing. Just like her mother had said.

“Mom said to try to find a cabin, to stay warm. And if the cabin had food, we should stay put until she or someone else comes for us.” There was a pause. “I guess you’re someone else.”

According to the kids and to the tracks this had all taken place a while ago. It sounded like they’d been in the cabin a few days. The team had quickly called the police from the satellite phones. They'd walked the kids down to the base camp, grateful they seemed sturdy enough and willing to go—though both made it clear the adults were to go get their mother right away. They would meet up with her later.

Joule and Dev had looked at each other, eyes wide, over the childrens’ heads, but didn’t say anything.

Though they all hiked their way up from the parking lots each morning, a few of the hardiest vehicles could make it to the trailers. The police had met them there, put the kids in the back of one of the cars and promised to get in touch with the aunt they said would come get them. They promised to help find the mother, too, leaving the other two officers behind. They also asked the team to lead them to where they’d found the children.

Having made it back to the trailer, and then needing to leave immediately again, made Joule even more weary and concerned than she’d been at first. It didn’t matter that none of the HST team seemed to think they would find the mother. At least not alive.

That's what broke her heart.

The younger boy had talked over himself. His vocabulary was passable, but he still made little sense. The older daughter had told a story that was clearer, though Joule didn’t like it any better.

“After mom fell, we waited. We called out but she didn’t say anything. But she told us to stop if anything happened, so we did. Then she finally talked to us.”

Jeremy had asked them when it was, but all the little girl could say was “it’s been a while.” She added, “Mom told us not to come any closer. She said we would be fine once we were found.” She’d made the team promise to look for her mom, and Joule was pushing to keep that promise now.

The son seemed to think they would just return with mom post haste, but the hurt look in the older daughter's eyes made it clear she had doubts. Still, she'd clung tightly to them, forcing cheer and hope in a move clearly designed to help her brother.

In that moment, Joule was grateful she was a twin. Now she wondered what that did for birth order, because the older daughter was clearly taking a parental role as if it wasn’t the first time. The twins had never been older or younger than each other, aside from the few minutes they teased each other about mercilessly.

She followed as Jeremy showed the two police officers the cabin where they had found the kids. Heading inside, the officers examined the place, leaving the HST team waiting outside. They did share information though—that they discovered open cans of vegetables like green beans. Freshly opened boxes of bran cereal. One of them had commented even as Joule thought it, “The kids must have been hungry.”

At least there had been food.

What she asked was, “Are you collecting evidence?”

They'd both shaken their heads at her. One was older, broader and burly. The younger one had a thick mustache and beard and said, “There are no signs of foul play here. Both kids were very clear about their stories and are generally considered too young to have made up something like this.”

After they left the cabin—seeming to have taken pictures but no other evidence—they asked the team, “Did you see any tracks go over to whatever ledge they said their mother fell off?”

Joule, Cage and Dev shook their heads. Jeremy added, “The tracks are even more difficult to see today, and what we followed didn’t go to a ledge, but out of the tree line and back in. We can take you and show them to you.”

Not that Joule wanted to go further, but they’d all promised the kids.

They were looking for the place the little boy described: open snow, mom out front, then the snow just disappeared under her. But it hadn’t been the field where they’d first seen the tracks—they would have noticed. Wouldn’t they?

They moved now in reverse of the path they’d taken this morning. Jeremy told the officers how the daughter said they hadn’t thought there would be snow, so they had gone camping anyway. That they put their feet directly into their mother's footsteps. Then, once they'd lost their mother and turned the other direction, she'd done the same for her little brother.

At the edge of the field, Joule and Cage frowned to each other, clearly having the same thought. She didn’t say it, but she shook her head at him then looked out over the field. There hadn't been any tracks going directly across the field, just the ones they’d followed. The only other tracks here were theirs. Were the mother’s tracks just completely obliterated?

She hoped not.

Her muscles were getting sorer and her heart heavier. Probably they were on some kind of body retrieval mission.

Ahead of them, the younger officer turned and looked back. “The kids claimed they were in the cabin for about three days. Do you think that matches the tracks?”

Jeremy thought for a moment, then nodded. “It means they would have made the tracks the morning after the big snow fall. We're just dealing with the fact that it hasn't melted off and it keeps building up little by little.”

“We had difficulty even telling which direction the tracks went,” Joule added. She noted then that her brother had hiked along beside them, but aside from a few pointed looks, he hadn’t said anything. This was weighing on him. Did he see a connection between these kids and the two of them?

The officers nodded in response and again she found she was pushing herself to pay attention.

The second one replied, finally. Big and burly, he was plausibly even bald under his thermal cap. He didn't speak much, and Joule wasn't quite sure what to make of him. “We keep going this way then.”

Upon seeing what was left of the tracks the little team had first followed, they'd reverse engineered them. Now they all moved across the small field Joule was growing far too familiar with. She could see the deep breaks in the surface, the churn from where the four of them had passed first, and then eight of them had returned after digging out Ezra. There were even newer tracks, but again they were from her own team this morning.

But the quiet one looped back into the trees, and now even Jeremy was following the tall, burly, officer. They emerged into the second field, although from a different path than the one they had taken before, probably the one the kids took that first day.

“We were here, too,” Dev told them.

“We can tell,” the younger officer replied, wryly. But Joule didn’t fault him. Again, the tracks were incredibly obvious. Not only had they trekked back and forth but they’d torn up the snow over by the edge where they'd pulled Ezra up.

The younger officer stepped back a moment, motioning to the others to stop as his partner slowly walked ahead. Whatever it was that needed to be done, he understood they weren’t part of it.

As Dev opened his mouth, the officer turned around and held one heavily gloved finger toward his mouth.

The larger officer was faster on his feet, maybe even more so than Jeremy. He’d snapped his snowshoes off and on in the woods, then—without even looking—flipped them up and connected them easily to a hook on his backpack, leaving both his hands free.

Joule had noticed her brother watching carefully. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow, they'd almost definitely be purchasing or designing something like that of their own. When they’d stepped out into the snowy field again, the officer had tugged the devices loose, tossed them at the ground, and seemed to step perfectly into the straps.

She didn’t even have that goal. She just wanted to get home, get warm, and not find a body.

Now he moved easily across the open field, stopping, looking, and eventually he turned back to his partner. Without a word, he pointed out a line along the ground, and only then did Joule see it. More buried tracks.

Maybe, in fact, three days old. Shit.

He moved, walking parallel to the small indents in the snow, not damaging the evidence like they had. He moved until he stood in the middle of the torn-up snow, almost directly where they had pulled Ezra out. Then he looked back at the group. “Down here.”

16

Cage found an outlet near the small oval dining table, and he’d plugged the electric blanket in even before he draped it over the chair.

The four of them sat clustered at one end, leaving two chairs empty, as if Ezra might come and join them. As if they might let him if he did. The man had thankfully been out all day, and no one had missed him. More than once in the past, he’d called out something from his room, and they'd all been surprised that he was home.

So as the other four ate together, Cage quietly flipped the sides of the electric blanket up and over his legs. His sister made it through half of her meal before quietly getting up and returning with her own blanket.

“That bad?” Sarah asked.

With a soft but heavy sigh, Joule replied, “We were out there a long time. Also, our muscles are sore⁠—”

“They were sore before we went out,” Cage added.

“True,” his sister agreed. “And it's not a bad idea. I mean, I'd sit on a heating pad anyway.”

Both twins had taken long hot showers when they came home, Leon and Sarah graciously stepping out of the way. The others had been clear that they should stay in as long as they wanted. When Joule emerged, clean but with wet hair, she found dinner waiting. Cage had waited for her while the roommates had made soup and cheesy, crusty garlic bread to go with it. The meal was hot and hearty. Though he was mostly quiet, Cage was grateful.

His chair was warm, but he had an odd feeling in the pit of his belly that he couldn't quite shake. Something that wouldn't be solved by an electric blanket.

When he finished and cleared his place setting, he'd unplugged the blanket and moved the set up to the edge of the couch. He grabbed his backpack, spare webbing and anything else he could think of before settling on the floor in front of the coffee table and then wrapping the blanket around him again. Reaching for his snowshoes he flipped them over and looked for anything that would tell him how to do this.

Leon was right, the colored tape made it easy to tell whose was whose. The four had worried that if the adjustments were similar, they might spend a day in another person’s shoes. If they then moved the straps to fit their own feet and shoes, all previous settings might be lost. They would never develop the ease the officer had in simply tossing them to the ground and basically stepping in.

Cage looked again. Though he’d had a mental image of two oddly shaped tennis racket type attachments, that wasn’t what they looked like on today’s market at all. They weren’t even flat. The toes curved up. The portion the wearer stepped into was slightly raised and then covered in straps. They didn’t even push all the way down. He tried laying them, top to top. Then bottom to bottom and bottom to top. They didn’t lie even.

Top to top made the most sense to protect the foot part—the rest was beyond sturdy for walking in harsh conditions. But then the teeth faced outward and would rub against the heavy rip stop nylon of his backpack. Would it eventually tear? That didn't seem wise.

The packs the HST team wore weren’t large—not like a good hiking pack. While he'd quickly found some online designs for carrying their snowshoes inside, Jeremy had been clear that it likely wasn’t the best decision to try to put their shoes away. Too much time to take them out when they were needed again. He’d been carrying his at his side, too.

Both the twins had been impressed with the officer who quickly reached up to what appeared to be a little Velcro strap that held his equipment on the outside of his pack anyway. Cage searched his memory for more details, but the man had been too fast, and they’d all been trying to keep up and stay back.

Joule appeared next to him at the coffee table. Though she'd brought her own blanket to the dining table, now she simply motioned him to move his a little further over so she could share it. Maybe it would be enough to just sit on it. For a few minutes she simply watched what he was doing.

He explained. “If we put them back-to-back with the edges out, then the teeth will face the backpack. They'll also face out to anyone behind you. I’m worried if someone trips.”

The others were crowding around the coffee table now, catching on to what the twins were trying. Everyone would be happy to not have to carry the shoes along. Then again, everyone would be happiest if the snow just did what it was supposed to and melted.

Cage wasn't sure if he was designing something that could quickly become useless. What if they woke up tomorrow morning, discovered the temperatures had risen, and he would never need it again? But tonight, he desperately needed to occupy his mind, to scrub away the images of what he had seen on the downside of the slope. He put his with the treads together next, rotating the pair in his hands.

Joule said, “I noticed that the treads might bounce against each other. I wondered if that would cause wear and tear.”

“You know what?” Leon stood over them, watching. “Fuck it. If it harms the treads, it's not going to wear them down enough to make them unusable.”

“Not any time soon.” Cage was catching on.

“We have to have our hands free, even in the snow. If, God forbid, we do this often enough that the teeth on our snowshoes get worn down, then we go back to Helio Systems Tech and explain that they need to replace them.”Cage pointed at his friend in agreement even though he was still staring at the upper loop on his backpack. It was made of webbing too, and sewn into the top of the pack. Normally it would be used to hang it up in a bathroom stall or on a wall hook. It would make sense to use this piece that was already here and very sturdy, but it wasn't in the right place. Again, Helio Systems Tech had provided their packs with the intention of them hiking in cold areas, but not on a foot or more of fresh powder.

He moved through several more iterations of putting the shoes together to see if they fit better when rotated or such. If he found a way to hook them directly to the top loop, then they would stick out. The pack was rounded, and they wouldn’t hang along the back, not from where they were tied.

“Does it matter?”

“Is it uncomfortable to wear?”

“What if you put a longer piece of webbing through the loop?”

They had cut a piece already. Now—because it was a prototype, but he didn’t want to half ass it too much, they used a lighter on the edges and put in some heavy duty staples to hold it. “Do we have any Velcro?”

“Is Velcro going to be enough? I have carabiners.” Sarah added even as she hopped up.

A carabiner wouldn't be enough to clip the snowshoe directly into it, the front toe pieces were too wide to just clip into them. But if they made a long enough piece of webbing to hang down the back then the carabiner could hook the webbing to itself once the snowshoes were in place.

After a few more iterations Sarah declared, “I think that's workable.”

“Are we getting it patented?” Leon joked.

Joule laughed, “Doubtful, really. Cage and I tried once before to get a device patented. It takes an expensive lawyer and designs and a lot of effort.”

“It's just a strap,” Sarah added. “And it’s just for us.”

“And whoever at work decides to copy us.” Joule grinned. It happened all the time. The teams were almost entirely comprised of nerds. And HST tended to let them just design what they needed. Which was part of why he’d had no trouble thinking he should just alter the pack he’d been given and try out the attachments in whatever way they came up with.

A short while later, they all had the webbing straps on their backpack. Leon had even brought a kit he'd bought the day before. The pack had a ton of other first aid and cold-survival pieces, but it also had a variety of webbings in a variety of colors. Leon motioned for all of them to use it. “I wrote it off as a business expense.”

“Bungee cords!” Cage exclaimed looking into the pack. “You had bungee cords?”

“I know! I didn't think of it until now.” But Cage did like the webbing better. Maybe for next time.

While they all had the same black backpack with the Helio Systems Tech logo on it, they used different colors of webbing and tape. Now their backpacks were identified much like the snowshoes were. Sarah even suggested that they color code them the same. Cage had used a piece of bright blue webbing that was close enough to the tape on his snowshoes.

When they were done, he headed up to his room. In the hallway before she turned the knob and disappeared for the night, Joule turned and told him softly, “I know. I don't think I'll sleep either.”

Because, right next to where they had dug Ezra out just a day earlier, they’d found the spot where it looked like the children's mother had first fallen. They hadn’t noticed the indents and evidence of human movement in the churned snow, probably because they were so focused on getting their teammate out. But, when the police officer began to dig, traces of brown showed.

At first Cage had thought he was hitting dirt, but when Joule’s hand reached out, her thick gloves frantically tapping at his puffy arm, he realized he'd been lying to himself. It was blood.

17

Three days later, Joule was out doing a site survey. She and her brother had been granted two days off from being outdoors after the search that went on much longer than it should have.

They’d gotten one day completely off from all work and another in which they'd been allowed to work in the lone trailer. Trailer time was supposed to have been more plentiful for all the workers, but with the first trailer not yet replaced, there simply wasn't as much room for it.

The leadership was now discussing the possible need for night shifts. Joule wasn't sure how she felt about that other than that it might help them get out of this job on time. She'd taken the assignment because it would be an adventure. The mountains, which she expected to be snow covered in the distance, had been snow covered at her feet. The cold air had been frozen, biting to the bone, and sometimes just warm enough to be drenching.

At night, the temperatures occasionally fell to the lower end of what she truly felt her boots could handle. They were rated to negative forty degrees, and she’d felt smart when she bought them. But she also understood that “rated to negative forty” simply meant you were less likely to lose your entire foot to frostbite should you find yourself at subfreezing temps for an extended period of time. She hoped that sure as fuck never happened.

Joule stood up holding the survey pole in place, allowing them to align it before they planted it. She was grateful they’d not heard any of the soft booming or rumbles today. But she was listening into the still moments and beyond the voices and talk at hand. She did not want to be surprised again.

Joule, Leon, Axel and Aliyah were the team out doing the install today, all engineering. She looked back across the field and called out, “Everybody out of the way.”

Using her laser level, she waited a few moments to get the reading. “This is the last one. I think it looks good.”

Nodding, Axel moved around awkwardly as if to get a bigger picture. She’d tried walking backward in the snowshoes and wasn’t a fan. Like running backward on a treadmill, it used different muscles and was simply inefficient. He didn’t look any smoother on his new feet than she did. Maybe worse.

Waving her free hand at him, she yelled, “Hey! Don't go any further back!”

Then she froze in place. Had she triggered anything? Had she just buried her coworkers in snow?

Nothing happened and she breathed a little easier, watching as Axel turned his whole upper body to see he was too close to where the snow fell away. This little field had a sharper decline at the end than either of the other two they’d grown more familiar with. She didn’t like it.

Though the team had called Dr. Murasawa the moment after they’d called the police upon finding the kids, she hadn’t come out to join them. The police were there, her business wasn’t involved, just a few of her workers that she’d granted half a day to find what was in the woods. She said she’d thought it would be an animal and she might discuss whether or not they should tag it or bring in someone who could.

It had not been a big cat.

Later, however, she’d come out. Dr. Murasawa had met them in the field, peering over the edge with them. All of them less than ten feet to the right from where they had pulled up Ezra. They’d hauled each other up and down the slope. They’d stood at the bottom, shoveling and loosening Ezra’s limbs. And none of them had seen—or at least registered—what was right beside them.

It had taken several days for Joule to acclimate to what the officer had said. Maybe she still hadn’t fully absorbed it.

First, the officer commented about the blood. “It's possible she broke her leg or just cut something on the way down.”

He’d stood there in the snow, having used just a few quick motions to get his partner to harness him and lower him down. Then a few more and he’d exposed the blood under the snow. He'd spoken casually, as if he did this every day. Then again, maybe he did.

“If it wasn't her leg, it might have been a head wound. That would bleed a lot and they did say it took a little while for her to tell them to go. Anyway, it's possible that once she directed the kids to leave, maybe she crawled away.” He pointed back up the slope, which now bore his own tracks from the way down.

But his steps were clear and even Joule could read them.

“Either way, their mother wasn’t strong enough or stupid enough to try to crawl straight back up, so maybe she crawled off.”

That had kept Joule awake at night. The mother would have been alone, stranded deep enough in the snow that she couldn’t get back to her kids or let them come to her, no matter how carefully. The kids had said they were seasoned campers—and their actions showed it. They’d found a cabin, not been attacked by anything, and even managed to start a fire and pry open cans of veggies. Joule hoped she did as well if she ever needed it. But the mother still thought she shouldn’t or couldn’t get the kids to her.

And that was the best version of the story.

Without any change to his expression, the officer added, “It's entirely possible something else came and dragged her off.”

Joule felt her heart stop. There couldn't be night hunters out here! Or could there?

Next to her, her brother had frozen still, both of their breathing gone shallow.

Their friends, Dr. Banza and her assistant Nikkiki Mulongo had found pale night hunters in Finland. What would be here in Colorado? She didn’t know.

The officer hadn't noticed. He seemed to notice all kinds of things, but not the people. He just kept steam rolling ahead. “We've got bobcats, big mountain lions, packs of wolves.”

She waited for him to say, “strange new canines that hunt in packs at night.”

But he didn't.

Jeremy didn’t seem to be concerned by the creatures that might have dragged a bleeding woman away. “Which direction do we go to find her?”

Again, with no change to his expression, the officer held his hands up. “There's no telling. Basically, the trail ends here.”

From his tone, it was clear that he did not expect to find the children's mother. Probably not at all. Certainly not alive.

Though she appreciated his clinical nature—no hysteria, no false hope—Joule wished he would not be the officer who would inform the children of the assessment. Now, as she and the team double checked the alignment of their stakes with a physical level, Joule kept an eye on Axel.

He hadn't heard the other thing the officer had said. That this side of the mountain had, at some massive geological point in history, sheared away in various places. While most of the mountain went up and down at normal angles, these little fields could appear. Even without a field, maybe in the middle of the woods, the ground would simply end.

And if you got too close and the snow got too loose, you could go right over before you even knew it had happened.

18

“You've got to be shitting me,” Joule muttered to herself as she pushed her legs down into the thermals.

From the other side of the room, Sarah muttered something much the same. Then she looked up. “How often am I supposed to wash these? Shouldn't I have washed them already?”

Joule shrugged. When she’d been hired, she was told she would have outings, but that she would be in the trailer as often as not. That wasn’t proving true.

“We'll wash them tonight,” she said, as if that made up for any of this.

Halfway into her gear and already starting to sweat, her head snapped up at the angry voice from the hall. “Can you all just shut up? I didn't even get any sleep until you left the first time. Why are you back?”

Ezra was working nights, and Joule was working with very little sympathy. Without thinking, she yelled back, “Shut the fuck up, Ezra.”

“Why are you even here?”

“Because Dr. Murasawa sent us back.” Sarah called, obviously as irritated as Joule. “Please feel free to take this up with her.”

In the hallway, a door slammed, and Joule heard footsteps.

“We're here to do our job, Ezra, with the same company that you work for.” Joule could hear in her brother's tone that he was holding back.

“We got sent back to change. If you got sent in for night shift and you can't deal with it, then complain up the line to the brass. Or just get your own fucking house, Ezra.”

“I didn't ask to be in here with you little shits.” Ezra's tone clearly conveyed that he did not know that Joule and her brother were both black belts in MMA.

They’d been eleven when they earned their first-degree black belt. They were fourteen when the twins got their second. As a kid, she remembered going to karate classes. Her mother had taken her to ballet for a year or two, but also to karate, and it was what had stuck. Cage had been in the karate and judo classes from the start.

They'd quit relatively soon after getting that second degree. For a while she'd looked back on it—all the work, the training, the diets, everything—wondering what she'd been thinking. But now, with a few more years between her and it, she was grateful that she knew how to put all her weight and speed behind a punch.

Cage had told her a story one day—one that neither of them had ever told their parents—about him getting called in to the principal's office with a handful of other middle school boys. The assholes had been teasing someone, and Cage said he didn't do a full stand up and he didn't pick a fight, but he certainly got in the way. So later, he'd been walking down the hall alone and found himself surrounded.

When they’d come at him, he'd swept their feet out. Just like he’d been taught in MMA school. Two of them had slipped on the linoleum hard enough to conk their heads. One had tumbled backwards, smacking his hand on the corner of a locker. He was bleeding and holding his hand.

When the principal had seen them all lined up on the bench outside the office, she had apparently pointed to the other four. “You, you, you, you in my office.” The way Cage told the story, the principal rolled her eyes at him. Sighing, she said, “I know this wasn't you,” before sending him straight back to class.

Joule didn't think her parents ever knew about that, and they never would now.

She waited to hear as Ezra attempted to throw a first punch. Lucky for him, he was smart enough to stomp back into his room and slam the door, bitching about these kids the whole way.

They were hardly kids anymore. Hell, Leon had an advanced degree, and Sarah had been working on hers. Joule was considering it, maybe something online. Though that probably wouldn't be possible in a field she needed. Besides, she was already online enough these days, dealing with videos they'd posted about the night hunters. And fielding spam emails. Aside from the usual, people tried to sell her movie scripts and suggest they could help her write a TV series. For pay, of course.

The twins were no longer the only ones posting how to deal with the hunters. And it was no longer just her; Cage was more fully involved. They had a channel, they vetted videos from around the world, and shared or linked to them if they seemed reasonable. She worked on disclaimers, on vetting sources, and more. Though they still hadn't put their faces on any of it, they now had a devoted and massive online following.

Which she found utterly ridiculous and absolutely petrifying.

Also, the places around the world where people felt the need to keep up with how they could gain control of the night hunters was math she did not like to add up.

With a motion to see if Sarah was ready, she turned and opened the door. Already overheating, Joule made her way downstairs. In the kitchen, she pulled open the fridge and then a cupboard.

“What are you even doing?” Sarah asked from behind her.

“Making a sandwich.”

Sarah looked at her like she was nuts, until she explained.

“It's going to be cold. We're going to be burning fuel. If I take two minutes now and eat a sandwich, it's one less granola bar I have to eat.”

“I don't know if I could eat now,” Sarah said, but she at least sounded like she was considering it.

“Well, it's a bit of a drive back.”

Without another word, Sarah joined her at the counter, and then Cage did, too. He pulled sports drinks out of the fridge.

“Can I get a coke?” Sarah asked when he aimed one at her to ask if she wanted it.

“You can . . .” He looked at her dubiously. “But between the caffeine and everything else in it, do you want to pee in the woods?”

“Jesus, no,” She commented. “Then I don't want anything to drink.”

“But sports drinks are isotonic,” he told her with a nerdy grin. “Less likely to make you have to go, and it will keep you hydrated.”

She didn't answer but rolled her eyes again and tipped her head toward the blue one that Joule thought looked more like antifreeze than anything else. Cage packed one for her, too. There would be more food waiting for them. Their packs would be ready at the base.

Breathing a sigh of relief as she stepped out into the cold air, she would wait out here until Dev showed up. But it was only a moment before he pulled into the lot and the three of them were climbing in. He already had the heat turned down, lest they all sweat inside their layers before they even got there.

Leon had driven them up this morning, with all of them planning to spend the day in the trailer. When Joule, Cage, Sarah and Dev had been reassigned, Dev had agreed to drop them off and pick them up, so that Leon didn’t have to take so much time out of his own morning. As Dev parked in the far side of the lot, Cage tumbled out of the car reminding everyone to get their snowshoes and poles out of the back of Leon’s car where they were storing them.

The hike up the hill from parking to the one lone trailer and the burned-out hull often made Joule’s fingers and toes cold. Not today, though, not when she was geared up for this. Once they reached the trailer, they started looking at each other to see who was going to go in and get Dr. Murasawa. No one wanted to step into the heat and humidity inside. Not like this.

Luckily, while they were still trying to decide who would go, Dr. Murasawa let herself out.

“We're sorry. Actually, I'm sorry,” she said to them. “We had an emergency read on the monitors, and now I've got extra people in the trailer. We need you to go and check out the reading.”

She pulled out a tablet, pointing out three spots. “We need these looked at. We need to see what the damage is and how much snow has slid, if any.”

Though she nodded in agreement, Joule was getting tired of all the snow. “I'm assuming you've checked and it's not worth it to just wait until it all thaws?”

Dr. Murasawa shook her head. “It sucks ass, but it's a blessing in disguise. If we built it without this, then next year, what if this was the level of snow that we got?”

Joule understood. They had to build for the worst possible scenarios. No one expected tornadoes here, but who knew what next year would bring? They would build the array to be resistant to tornadoes. No one expected a flood on the side of a mountain. In fact, Joule wasn't even sure how it would occur, but they built the array to withstand that kind of water. So now they would figure out what they needed to do to withstand the kind of snow they were seeing, to work through this lingering winter, even if the snow itself wasn't too bad.

They took a moment to gather their packs, snowshoes, food, equipment, and more. Then they spent another few minutes double checking each other. They started out with snowshoes on their feet, the four of them ready to conduct multiple site surveys, ready to send back data.

But there was no way they could have been prepared for what they found.

19

“This is massive,” Cage said in awe.

He stood back from the edge of a sheer drop off. He was pretty sure if he could fly out like an eagle and look back at where the four of them stood, he would see exposed rock with a foot or even four or more feet of snow on top.

The snow drift had slanted up, catching on something—a breeze, a rock, a bush?— and the snow built up toward the edge. It created an illusion—a dangerous one. When they'd first walked up to it, none of them had been sure what it was. It could have been just a small hill, but instead, as they neared the crest, there was nothing beyond it. Once they realized that, the four of them had held their breath and slowly backed down.

It didn’t help that they were even more awkward going backward on their snowshoes than they’d even been the first moment they put them on. The shoes weren’t designed for going backward and for the first time, Cage looked around and realized none of them were experienced at this. They’d always gone out before with someone who was.

What if they had walked right off the edge?

If the buildup of snow gave way, or even just slid off, they would go right over with it. He was certain they were a good three to four full feet back from the edge—they were over solid rock—but snow could shift and slide. He’d even seen some going almost directly horizontal, moving with the flow already assigned to it. It would take anything with it if it had enough momentum.

He stepped far enough back to feel safe to breathe and tried to look beyond the drop off. It was early afternoon, and though the trek had not been long, it had been trying. Beside him, Joule sighed. “At least the snowshoe straps worked.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything out loud. He had to count that as a win. On the other side of him, Dev added, “We got two of the three sites surveyed.”

“The assignment was three,” Sarah added.

Though they all nodded along, they peered out into the open space in front of them.

The sites were already marked by Helio Systems Tech employees as possible locations for future installations. Cage didn't know for certain, but he was beginning to bet at least a little money that they would ultimately go forward with multiple small arrays, rather than attempting to put up one large one.

Up until now, they hadn't seen any snow slides in the areas that Dr. Murasawa had marked. Mostly, she and the others in charge had chosen relatively flat spaces. Nearby trees could change the way the snow built up or moved. Here, it had built up the illusion of a small hill when it was actually a sheer cliff.

He and Joule had been off for several days, and it occurred to him only on this hike that the snow was shifting almost like sand dunes in the Middle East. Sometimes it blew up against the trees, creating a soft overall upward slope. Sometimes it was almost perfectly flat and still. Other times it turned full objects into nothing more than a slight bump at the surface—dangerous for anyone or anything sinking down into the fluff.

Then, they’d run into this. He was fighting with the knowledge that they could have walked a few more steps forward and taken a sheer drop to all their deaths. As it was, it all could still go differently if they took a wrong step, or maybe even just breathed too heavily.

“Can we back up a little further?” Dev asked. “I don't like this.”

“I don't like any of it,” Joule muttered. “We had all zeroes until now.”

Cage agreed. They’d registered everything they’d seen. No sluffs, no slab movement, no slides.

But, when he got close enough to peer beyond the drop off, he was looking at the downward slope of an adjacent peak. It had a huge triangular patch of rough snow. If he hadn't recently learned better, he would have thought it would be a beautiful place to ski.

That would be stupid.

“The initiation point is up there,” Sarah commented, her gloved arm outstretched.

“Just back up, please,” Dev begged, and Cage realized his friend had already taken his own few steps back.

Though they weren’t good at it, they moved slowly and managed three more giant steps each. Cage could hear Dev’s sigh of relief through the cold sharp air. Beside him, he heard his sister’s low voice as well. “That's no sluff.”

It was not. It had been a full avalanche.

“Was that what Dr. Murasawa was registering back there?”

They had passed several sites that she had put on the list for them to check out. They’d looked for shifts in the snow, rough patches that indicated recent movement, changes in depth. But they’d not found anything, registering zeroes along the way.

“I don't know.” Cage replied but then looked back over his shoulder. “Do you think this is enough to have caused something to register elsewhere?”

“What do I even know about it?” Sarah asked, almost light-heartedly as Dev answered as well.

“I’m slightly more informed than I was a week ago, but I'm a bio-mechanical engineer, not a snow-ologist.”

Cage had to at least chuckle at that, not that anybody could see it. They all had balaclavas up over their face, sunglasses protecting their eyes. It wasn't so bad that they needed goggles or anything, but it was a hell of a lot brighter than he was used to.

“Our third check point is on the other side of that,” Joule said, motioning to the rough and bumpy patch that indicated a large block of snow had recently slid down it.

“I really don't want to cross it,” Dev argued.

“I thought it was safer after,” Cage added. They’d been told that, once the avalanche had already gone down, it took the snow with it.

“It is,” Dev added, “but look. There's a hell of a lot more snow up there now, and there's nothing down here to block it.”

“If we walk up there, above the break point,” Sarah added, pointing beyond the zone where the snow had already cracked and fallen or rolled or slid away. “It’s already precipitous.”

They agreed, but she kept making her case. “The mountain has already shown that it’s willing to let the snow go, and there’s no longer any pack below to help keep it in place. We could easily trigger the next one.”

“Look how far down we would go,” Joule murmured as she peered down and to their left. Cage couldn’t see where it ended. Not a good sign.

Sarah motioned downward with an open palm. “What happens when we trigger the next one? And if we cross in the already sluffed area, what if something happens to trigger at the top? We’ll not only be carried, we’ll be buried.”

He didn’t like that. Digging Ezra out had been bad enough. The videos of rescue when someone was under the snow and time for oxygen was running out had been eye opening. Besides, his toes were getting cold.

“I say we've registered the avalanche and go back. We've got two of the three site surveys,” Sarah proposed. “We can come back if things are more stable tomorrow.”

“Maybe it already is tomorrow though.” Joule proposed.

As Sarah and Dev looked at her oddly, Cage understood. “She means, maybe the avalanche occurred yesterday, and things stabilized already.”

Dev was shaking his head again. “There's still snow up there, if we cross below, it comes down on us. You saw the same training video I did.”

Cage remembered that if they got caught in the avalanche, they needed to try to ride it. Keep your head up. Don't get buried. But the video had been very clear, the best way to survive an avalanche was to not be in it.

Dev was still talking, “If we cross above, who knows what will trigger? There's too much snow up there. Everything below has already been cleared. It'll just slide.”

It was basically the same argument Sarah had made, but it was now two out of four, and Cage wasn’t going to push them. They were right about the options. Besides, even if he did want to go forward, he didn’t want to do it with an unwilling team. That could be its own disaster.

Dev looked to the other three. “Please tell me you are not considering going.”

“I just want to be done with the assignment,” Joule said on the other side of him and Cage felt the weariness in it.

They were supposed to do a job, even though he didn't think they would get in trouble if they went back in and said, Look, it just didn't work out. Or We didn't think the snow was stable. No one was going to reprimand them for that. In fact, they would praise the team for following their safety protocols.

“But if we don't do it now, someone has to come out later and do it. We're already here.” As he turned to look at his friend, Dev was still shaking his head hard.

The decision was probably already made, but he figured he’d call for a vote. He and Joule could be on the record as voting to go forward at least. He was opening his mouth when the sound came.

20

Joule hit the ground hard. Luckily, both her padded ski pants and the fluff of the snow helped to soften the blow. As awkward as she was, she went entirely over, her breath getting knocked out of her.

Snow dust filled the air, creating white out conditions, and she hesitated to even gasp in a breath. She couldn’t not breathe though, and hoped the balaclava over her face would be enough to filter the snow swirling around.

She tried to listen for sounds of her brother and her friends—they were all more than just coworkers to her. She lay still in the whiteness where, for a long moment, she couldn't even see her own hand in front of her face. Stunned, she wondered what had happened to them.

There were no sounds, not from her friends, not over the rumbling that seemed to take over everything. The deep bass rolled in great waves and knocked out every other noise that might have made its way to her. It seemed to go on forever, but it had to stop, didn't it? And it had to stop soon, the mountain was only so tall. There was only so much snow in the first place. Eventually, all of it had to be at the bottom.

She wondered who was down there and whether they were unsuspecting or prepared.

“Joule? Joule?” It was Sarah.

“Hey, I'm here!” Then she called out. “Sound off!”

“Cage!” Her brother stated his own name.

The white powder was thinning in the air, and she now could make out Sarah's form. Turning her head to the left, she could see her brother too, but she was laid out flat, and she still needed to get up. Sarah was starting to move.

“Dev?” Joule called out to no response. Using her hands and rocking awkwardly to one side, she tried to push herself upright, grateful that Sarah and Cage looked just as awkward, but she was frightened by the lack of response.

“Dev!?” she called out again, but a hand grabbed her arm just as she made it to her own feet. Joule braced, assuming Sarah was going to help pull her up.

Instead, Sarah uttered a harsh whispered warning, “Don’t. Yell.”

Shit.

Just as Sarah let go, she heard a request from her brother on her other side. “A hand?”

They'd all been laid out flat.

As she had imagined it would, the powdered snow in the air settled relatively quickly, but it was a good reminder that temperatures had stayed low enough that none of it had melted and packed together. The tons that had moved down the mountainside went almost like sand.

Her eyes darted frantically back and forth, and she spotted blue in the distance. God bless Sarah for making them get brightly colored coats and hats. She pointed as she called out “Dev!”

Though her body started to run, her feet didn’t. Her legs weren’t responding to the commands to lift and leap. The snowshoes were almost like cement, and she fell forward, toppling onto her hands.

Pushing herself back up right, Joule felt her brother tugging on her as well. When she was finally righted, she was mad. She’d wasted time not paying attention, doing something stupid. What if Dev was in trouble?

But she followed along where Sarah had already started to make her way over to their friend.

“Dev?” She leaned down and jostled him a little. Only a heavy moan came back in reply.

Alive, Joule thought and hated that that was always her first response.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“What happened?” His eyes didn’t open.

“Are you okay?” They all asked at once. “Did you hit anything?” “Can you get up?”

Another moan, followed by, “Too many questions.”

Cage dropped forward onto his knees, down close to Dev. “First, are you okay?”

“Mostly,” he replied, “I hit something.”

“Your head?” Her brother stayed calm and for that she was grateful. The snow still swirled around from after the avalanche, and she couldn’t see much further than the little cluster of the four of them.

“My back.”

Shit. She asked him, “Can you wiggle your toes?”

Of course, as soon as she did, she realized what a dumb question it was. “Can you move your feet slowly?”

One snowshoe shifted just a small amount, and then the other.

“Good.” They didn’t want him doing anything that would hurt him further, but at least he wasn’t paralyzed. She asked the next question. “Fingers?”

With one hand up, he wiggled the glove covered fingers, and then did the same with the other. She saw that his head turned to look at each hand as he did it, and his eyes tracked. All good signs. “Can we get you up?”

She hoped he didn't need any more serious aid. Whatever decision the group might have eventually made about the third site had been made for them now.

“What happened?” Dev asked.

“Sarah was right,” Sarah replied.

His mouth quirked in response and Joule's heart relaxed just a little.

The snow hung in the air, and she waved her hand in front of her face as if she could simply move it out of the way. “When is the snow going to settle?”

Her brother looked up and around. “I don't know that it is.”

“Is this all just from the avalanche?”

No one would answer.

“Avalanche?” Dev asked as he made a motion to try and sit up.

“Yes,” Sarah told him as she put a hand to his shoulder, stopping him from getting up on his own. Hell, Joule thought, none of them had quite gotten up on their own. “It was exactly what I said could happen. All the snow above the break point slid down the mountain. It blew us all backward.”

Dev looked surprised at that.

“I think what happened is that the powdered snow blew up in a fluff, and it came up over the cliff edge. I don’t think it actually blew us backward, but it startled us, and we all tried to jump back. Which apparently we all suck at,” Joule added.

“We just fell over? Cool.” Dev said. “I'm going to have a massive bruise over my back because I'm not smart enough to just stay put?”

“Sounds like.” Holding her hand down, Joule was glad when he clasped her wrist.

On his other side, Sarah reached out, the two together acted as a brace to help him up. “We don't have to tell anyone.”

Though he made it relatively easily to sitting, getting his snowshoes flat under his feet was another matter. She wasn't sure if he was complaining or groaning from the pain.

“Where did you hit?”

“My whole middle back, more on my left.” Once he was upright, she moved the toe of her snowshoe at the indent he’d left.

“Oh, wow, looks like he went right on top of a boulder.” The snow had completely disguised it. Walking in their snowshoes, they didn’t sink too deep. They could move right over things and never know they were there.

She wondered again what else might lurk beneath the fluffy surface.

Her brother looked around and declared, “Well, no matter what, we're going back.”

“Agreed. Should we wait until the snow settles first?” She looked through the air. While now she could see her friends, she still couldn't see much further than them. Why hadn't the snow settled yet? she wondered.

She didn’t get to say it, because her brother awkwardly turned a full circle, probably seeing just as little as she was. “Which way is back?”

21

Cage didn't like what he was seeing—or actually what he wasn't seeing.

“The snow is not settling,” Sarah commented.

“No.” He finally caught on. “It did settle. This is new snow.”

He could see now it was falling from the sky at him. The weather must have just kicked up when the avalanche had gone by or they hadn't noticed the increase in snowfall until it was too late.

“What if it gets worse?” Joule asked.

“I think the trick is to get out of here before it does.”

“Can you walk, Dev?” his sister asked.

“Better than I can stay here,” their friend replied.

“How do we get back?” Sarah looked between them.

Cage understood that she wasn't simply asking, What on earth should they do? She was asking, Which of the methods at their disposal should they start with?

He reached around for his pack and pulled it off. Rummaging through, he suggested “GPS is best.”

“Will it even work out here?” Joule asked.

He shrugged. “If it does, it does, and if it doesn't, then we try something else.”

Ten minutes later, they had tried his GPS, and Sarah's, and Joule’s. It hadn't been worth getting Dev to take his pack off when he was already sore to test a system that was identical to the other three.

“So, no GPS,” Cage declared. “Map?”

His sister nodded, already rummaging through her own backpack. She produced the map like magic. It always impressed him because Joule wasn't normally the most organized person. Her room was often a mess, clothing strewn about, bed never made. But when it came to things like her pack and her job, she was precise.

He sighed as he took it from her. “Mom always told us that we needed to be able to read paper maps, and here we are.”

The three of them crowded around, heads close while Dev stayed back. No one commented. They would not make him take any more steps than were absolutely necessary.

“We can just go back along the trail we came from.” Sarah moved her finger along the map. It unfolded into several rigid laminated pieces, the gaps allowing the white of the snow behind it to show through, a reminder of what they were dealing with.

He agreed that just turning and retracing their steps would be the easiest and fastest way, but . . . “Which way is it?”

He turned around and noted that Sarah did the same.

“I think the edge is right there.” He pointed at a spot that offered a slight change of color beyond the snow. “That would mean the trees are back this way.”

“Did we change which way we faced when we all stumbled backward?” Joule asked.

“I don't think we stumbled far enough to get close to the trees.” Sarah looked about, but Cage could tell she couldn’t see any more than the rest of them.

The field was a reasonable size, which, of course, was why Dr. Murasawa had marked it. Why it might ultimately house an array. It had to be big enough to get enough direct sunlight to the panels. And they had to get that despite the trees on three sides for as many hours as possible.

The south facing edge with its precipitous drop was completely unhindered. It would buy them more sunlight time.

“Should we send people in different directions?” Sarah asked.

Though the field wasn’t big, Cage didn’t think so. “If we get too far away, we can't see each other.”

“Light beacons?” Sarah asked.

“Probably a good idea.” Again, he watched as his sister reached down into her pack, and before he was able to find his own, she had hers attached to her jacket, blinking with a small red light. She reached up with her second beacon and clipped it to the back of her beanie. In a few moments they had all done the same, with Sarah reaching into Dev's pack and clipping his to him.

“I'm about to tie us together with the webbing,” Cage said.

“I don't think it's that necessary,” Sarah added, “but we might do well to hold hands like a preschool line.”

They all agreed that between the lights and the bright colors, they should be able to find each other. Still, Cage set a ground rule. “But if we start to notice that we can't see, we tie ourselves together.”

“You're assuming it's going to get worse?” his sister asked.

“No, but I'm planning for in case it does.” He was close enough now. He could see the expressions on their faces as Sarah and Joule agreed. Dev looked, though, like he needed it to get better.

He was going to be sore all the way back. Hopefully, he had no additional injuries that would cause more problems.

“We stick together, and we aim for the tree line.”

“The field is here.” Joule pointed on the map again. “And the trail leaves this way.”

Standing with their backs to the edge, the trail should be about forty-five degrees to their right. That was if they were aimed right. When they finally agreed it was their best bet, Cage—with the map in his hand—took the lead, and one by one, they linked up.

They made sure to put Dev between Sarah and Joule. They had one leader and one injured. Joule would be the back. They moved slower than he would like, but without exactly planning it, they’d all reached out and linked hands like the preschool line Sarah had suggested.

This close it was a challenge to walk without bumping their snowshoes. He was surprised when, a handful of minutes later, he saw the trees. And even more surprised when, just to his right he saw the opening to the trail.

“We've got it.” He could hear the smile in his voice and wondered if they could too.

He was grateful for the wooded path. Between the wind and the cover of the trees and the snow that occasionally fell off the leaves and little clumps onto their heads, the ground here was clearer. There were more rocks, more roots, but less snow.

One by one, they unclipped their snowshoes and hung them on the straps at the back of their packs. The women each reached down and helped Dev unsnap his before they worked to put them on his pack themselves, not making him lift his arms.

Hopefully, now the going would be faster in the woods. For the first time, Cage pulled his sleeve up just a little. He’d wrapped a watch around his wrist before they left, realizing the first time they were out that getting a phone out wasn’t going to work here. He’d put the strap over his thermals so he wasn't exposing any skin.

The watch told him something a bit disturbing: It was already late into the afternoon. Where had the day gone? But it didn't matter where it had gone. It mattered that they were running out of time to get back.

22

“Are we sure this is the right trail?” Sarah asked, her tone uncertain.

“Nope!” Joule replied, hoping that her response was sunny, though her answer was not. She’d begun wondering the same thing herself, not that long ago. Though she didn’t say it, Dev did.

“I was thinking the same. And if three of us are thinking it⁠—”

“Four of us!” Cage chimed in from the front.

“—then we're probably on the wrong trail,” Dev finished.

They’d gone up a little more than Joule had expected, more than she remembered coming down on the way in. At the front, her brother moved a few paces off to the side. The trail wasn't wide enough for them to walk side by side, though that was similar to the trail they'd come in on. Still, this one felt narrower.

Though the trees kept the snow flurries to a minimum, there was still some white in the air. There were moments where the snow on top of the leaves became too heavy and the leaf bent too far, and it all just slid down, often busting into puffs as it hit branches along the way. Or plopping onto her head. She tried not to be annoyed. They couldn’t afford it.

One by one, they moved into the spot Cage had vacated and formed a tight circle. No one had to give directions or ask. The day was beginning to suck major monkey balls. She was grateful to be in a team she trusted, a team that worked so well together. Now, if only Dev wasn't injured, but her friend was moving pretty well. The problem was Joule didn't know how much of a lie it was.

She might have done the same thing if it were her.

“If we're not on the right trail, are we on this trail?” Her brother pulled the map back out. They’d put it away, expecting to simply follow the trail until they reached the other clearing.

“Does it matter if it's the right trail?” Joule asked. She could feel the worried expression on her face.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if it's the wrong trail, what do we do differently? I don't think there's time to turn around and go back.” Damn.

She wasn't wrong. The looks on Sarah's and Dev's faces said the same.

“Can we get out the sat phone?” Sarah asked. “If we call in, we can bring them up to speed at least.”

“Can they pinpoint us?” Dev asked, even as Cage added, “Are we really going to have them send in a rescue team?”

Joule agreed. They might be a little lost, and the snow might be falling, but sending another team out into this seemed a bit much.

“We need to call it in.” Sarah sounded adamant, and Joule agreed. “We have to let Dr. Murasawa know what happened and that we're on our way in. If we let them know where we are right now, at least later, if we truly do get ourselves lost, then they'll know where to start looking.”

Ouch. But true.

Joule was glad the others all readily agreed to the little plan, and she watched as her brother pulled the hefty satellite phone out of his pack. They didn't each carry one. It was one of those supplies that was too much—too heavy, too expensive, too everything—to be reasonable for everyone to have one.

She wondered for a moment what would happen if they got split up. So far, that wasn't on the agenda, at least. It took a moment for the phone to connect up. When she heard Dr. Murasawa’s voice on the other end, she breathed out warm relief into the cold air. She was grateful for the technology they had.

“It'll take us a moment to pinpoint you.” She heard from the other side.

“Of course,” Cage replied.

“So don't move.”

While they waited for someone on the other end—not Ezra, Joule thought because his ass was on night shift—to find them, their boss asked questions.

“What happened?”

They'd only called and said they were off the trail and that they needed to be pinpointed. Though they hadn't used the word, clearly, they were lost. Cage held the phone out, and they all talked over each other as they tried to explain. They said they made the first two surveys, then had stopped to make a decision about crossing an avalanche zone and so on.

“Well, I'm glad you didn't go any further forward!”

Though Joule nodded with all of them, she felt foolish. Sarah had been right. Joule had wanted to push on and get the job done, not get sent out on another day. But they would have been right in it. This all could have gone so wrong. Luckily, they were here, still on this side of the moving snow, all upright, not having to dig anyone out or worse, worried they couldn't find one of them.

“All right, I've got you,” Dr. Murasawa said finally. “You have your map?”

Of course they did. Cage had handed it to her when he pulled out the phone, and Joule held it up for everyone to see.

Dr. Murasawa explained an alternate route, suggesting that they continue on the trail they were on. They had been right about being on the incorrect trail and even about which one it was. So that was a relief. The boss directed them to a cut across that would take them back to the original trail and return them to the base camp.

It sounded easy enough, and Joule was grateful that most of it would occur under the cover of trees, meaning no snowshoes. Though the hiking was not easy by any stretch, and she wished that her hiking shoes had claw teeth like the snowshoes did, it was better than snowshoeing the whole way.

With that decided, Dr. Murasawa calculated an ETA for them. Then she said she would have people posted to meet them as they came in and to take care of Dev. Though Dev had protested, the others insisted that they report his injury, he'd replied over the phone line at least three times. “I'm fine. I mean, I'm bruised, and it doesn't feel good, but I'm fine.”

“Even better,” Dr. Murasawa replied, but did not rescind the offer of a team to meet them as they got closer.

With the call disconnected, Joule looked up. The day was not getting any brighter, but they had powerful flashlights. And they would be okay. At least, that's what she told herself.

They continued down the trail, once again in a quiet line. Probably they should have eaten something or had a drink, but no one was talking, and no one was stopping. Joule wasn't going to be the one to do it. As the last in line, she wondered if she was the only one who heard the rustling under the brushes. Could have been anything, maybe even just a rabbit.

It didn't sound as big as a night hunter. At least that's what she told herself. She wouldn’t say anything, not unless it got worse.

“Flashlights?” Dev asked from right in front of her.

“I'd rather not,” Cage replied from the front of the line. “Right now, we're all adapting to the lower light. If we get the flashlights out, we won't be able to see any further than the light goes.”

That seemed to be the end of the discussion, but only for a bit. They went further, finding the connection trail Dr. Murasawa told them about. They stopped for a very brief discussion, trying to decide again if this was the right way. They’d been wrong last time, but Joule didn’t say it. They were navigating by committee, but it was the only option.

They walked until it was getting dark enough that Joule was wondering if they should pull out their flashlights. They weren't able to see very far now anyway. If Dev didn't ask soon, she would.

But, up ahead, her brother called out for them to wait. She hoped he’d seen the original trail. They should be linking up with it soon. Though they hadn't walked it that often, she believed in her heart that she would recognize it. But this side-cut trail leading between the two other major trails hadn’t shown as more than a few marks on the map. She wouldn't have known it was here if Dr. Murasawa hadn’t talked them through.

Giving up with the darkness, she was opening her mouth to request the flashlights herself, when her brother said, “A cabin!”

They all looked to each other, Joule and Cage remembering what they'd been told about people who stayed in cabins out here. She was opening her mouth to ask what to do next, when Cage added, “Occupied. Smoke.”

He stepped to the side and motioned the others to come up even with him. It must be getting dark, they were almost on it before he’d even spotted it.

Did they really want to bother a prepper? Maybe they should just get on with their little trip, their ETA was already late enough. But they would need to get out their flashlights and get on their way home. Even as Joule was getting ready to say exactly that, the smell of the smoke hit her.

Her gaze flashed to Dev. Sarah and Cage were biologists, and though they'd had general chemistry and organic chemistry, they'd not had the upper levels of lab training that she and Dev had. As she saw his wide eyes, she realized he'd come to the same conclusion she had.

Her brother, not sensing the same thing she did, started to step forward to the cabin.

Hoping to grab his coat and hold him back before he alerted the occupants they were here, she swung her open hand at him. And missed.

23

“Don’t!” The voice was harsh and clear as Dev stepped up behind him.

Cage stopped in his tracks. “What?”

He turned around to look at the others as, behind him, he heard the front door of the cabin open. Though Sarah looked confused, Dev and Joule did not. They looked incredibly worried.

There wasn't time to ask. Maybe it was better to turn around and face whoever was behind him? Cage made no sudden movements, trying to rapidly analyze the situation and somehow make the best call when he had no idea what was going on. He expected to be looking down the barrel of a shotgun, but as he turned and didn't see it, he realized he hadn't watched any of his friends raise their hands.

A gun wouldn’t have made sense. Instead, what he saw was a man in his thirties. He wore a polo shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, and it appeared he had hastily thrown on a large jacket that went all the way down past his knees before he opened the door.

“Wow,” the man offered with a half-smile. “Don't get visitors out here much. Are you lost?”

“Yes,” Sarah said behind him right as Cage replied, “No.”

He wanted to roll his eyes. The man couldn’t tell what the problem was, but he could figure out that at least one response was an error. Dev and Joule seemed to have some knowledge he and Sarah didn’t, but they hadn’t answered.

“Which is it?” the man asked, almost as if it were humorous.

“We were lost, but we're cutting back over to the trail that we know,” Cage explained.

“Ah,” the man replied, as if it all made sense now. With no gloves on his hands, he tucked them under his arms for warmth. Standing with the door open, he let some of the heat reach Cage. The place must be warm, he’d been wearing short sleeves. Not a leaky cabin with canned beans like where they’d found the kids.

Cage could see through the gaps at the doorway to a couch in the living room and some flickering light. Cage assumed it was a television, even though he couldn't hear anything. But what would they be watching anyway? Maybe it was movies, a DVD player or such. Whatever it was, the living room seemed pretty comfy, but the man didn’t invite them in to warm up or call a friend.

Looking side to side, he seemed to be checking for anyone else around or behind them. That, combined with the worried expressions he'd seen from Joule and Dev, made Cage concerned.

“You're out awful late.”

“Later than we intended.” Cage hoped he didn't give away too much information.

“We got off track and we radioed in,” Joule said, stepping up beside him, her words a little bit clipped and fast. She clearly had an agenda. Though he didn’t understand it he was willing to let her play it out. Maybe he would catch on as she went.

“Our manager checked out the map, told us about this cross trail.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction they’d been heading. “We didn't expect to see anyone on it, though.”

Her tone and words had evened out, becoming a little more casual. Maybe too casual? Though Cage hadn't quite caught on, Dev had. “We're just running later than expected.”

“Oh, do you need anything? Energy bars? Drinks?”

Unsure what was going on here still, Cage was tempted to accept the offer. Even though they did have enough food to get themselves all the way in, it would take all the extras they had carried along, and that assumed nothing else went wrong.

On either side of him, Joule and Dev quickly added, “We have enough. But thank you, that's very generous.”

And, “We're good, and our team is coming out to meet us. They'll be bringing extra supplies.”

Again, Cage couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something heavier in the way Dev said that there were others coming to meet them. Whatever was going on, his sister and his friend sensed a threat.

“Oh!” the man said as if he’d figured something out. “Are you with the tech company? The one that's building out here?”

“Yes,” Cage replied. There was no point in lying. Their backpacks all said Helio Systems Tech across them in bold lettering. The man would be able to read it as soon as they turned away. He couldn’t count on the snowshoes to hide it, and he wasn’t sure one of them wasn’t wearing anything with labels on the front. It hadn’t occurred to him that they shouldn’t be ID’d that way.

And lying might be perceived as them issuing their own threat.

In his peripheral vision, he saw his sister offer a reluctant nod. This time she added, “Thank you for the offer, but we need to get on our way in order to meet our team on time.”

“Of course,” he replied, “Good luck.”

Cage waited for him to add, if you get lost or stuck or injured, feel free to come back here. But he didn't. The door closed and the light faded again.

“Flashlights?” he asked.

But Joule only pushed at his shoulder and whispered a harsh, “Move.”

He wanted to argue, having stood there in the light of the open door for enough time, his eyes had adjusted to it. Now they would need to adjust back to the dark, and they weren't doing a good enough job. It had grown noticeably darker while they were standing there and talking.

But he pushed forward even as he stepped on a root and felt his ankle try to roll. The only thing that saved it were the thick hiking boots and tight lacings. Cage led the way for a short distance, the team staying silent as they marched. Was no one going to explain?

As he turned around to ask what was going on, Joule pushed at him again. She looked back over her shoulder though he couldn’t see the cabin beyond her. Hadn’t they gone far enough for whatever it was?

“Can we get the flashlights out?” he asked. “Walking like this is dangerous.”

“In a minute,” Dev replied. Whatever Joule knew, Dev knew too, and Cage felt stupid now because he had no clue.

When Joule, having moved to the back of their line and constantly checking nervously over her shoulder, finally said, “Okay, flashlights,” Cage stopped.

The whole line stopped with him. All but Dev carefully slung their packs down and pulled out their lights. As Sarah rummaged through the pack for his light, Cage felt it as a solemn reminder that their friend might be keeping up, but he was injured.

Once they had the lights out, he looked between Dev and Joule. “What is going on?”

24

“It's a meth house,” Joule said, her voice low and steady. She watched as her brother's eyes widened in surprise. Before he could ask, she told him, “It's the smell.”

“You've cooked meth? You know what it smells like?”

He frowned at her, but she tipped her head and gave him a dead-ass glare. “No, of course not. You would have known if I was cooking meth. But I've used those chemicals in the lab, and I know what it smells like.”

“Same,” Dev added, then asked, “You noticed his short-sleeved shirt?”

She watched as her brother's gaze turned, along with Sarah's, to look at Dev.

“What about it?” Sarah asked.

“Who's running around in a short sleeve shirt in this weather? It’s because the house is overly warm which is because they have a lab running.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” Sarah replied, drawing the word out long.

“Exactly.”

“And that's why you were adamant that we didn't need anything and that they knew we were meeting up with our team.” Cage nodded at her as he said it. He was right. She was trying not to make a stir. Not to eat or drink anything from the too-bright, too-warm house either.

It was Sarah who turned to Joule and Dev next. “But do you really think they would have done anything to us?”

“What do you mean?” Joule asked. She didn’t like standing here but they needed to have this conversation. They all had to be on the same page.

“Well, the way you two were acting, it seems as if you thought maybe they would just kill us and hide the bodies.”

Joule shrugged. She wouldn't put it past anyone. She’d had the misfortune to walk into a drug stash before. Disasters had a way of shifting things around and exposing all the things people thought they kept buried. “With that kind of money at stake, it wouldn't matter if they wanted to kill us or if that was the plan. They might have felt it was necessary.”

“Well, shit,” Sarah replied.

There was nothing more to add, so she only said, “Let’s keep moving.”

Joule started off down the trail, heading the same way, this time taking the lead. Sarah stepped in right behind her, and then Dev. Cage hung back and brought up the rear. She didn’t like her brother in the most exposed position—or at least what she thought was most exposed. But she wouldn’t put Sarah there, or Dev for that matter.

Even as she began to push forward, she commented back over her shoulder, not too loud, but loud enough. “Keep your ears open for anything.”

She didn't want to believe that someone was going to hunt them down. They’d not seen anything obvious. They would have nothing to report to authorities except a smell two of them recognized and two of them didn’t. And that the man was strangely wearing short sleeves. It meant nothing.

They hadn't wandered inside the house or even around back. The windows were all covered. But she knew that smell and, given the way the four of them were acting, it might be clear that she and Dev had understood what was going on.

Stepping faster than she should, Joule tried to put distance between them and the little house. Her flashlight was trained out along the trail in front of them. They were lit up. The little group would be obvious to anyone looking, so she should at least get the most out of it. Maybe it would scare off anything that wished to cross their path.

Behind her, Sarah kept her light aimed at the ground, allowing all of them to see where they were stepping and what they were stepping on. Or at least what the snow revealed. Though they hadn’t discussed it, behind them, Cage and Dev occasionally swept their lights in all directions. Though Joule wanted to slow down and give Dev a chance to baby his injuries, she just didn't think they could now.

They pushed forward until they found the other trail. It T’d in front of them so they stopped for a moment. Once they agreed they were all in the right place, Joule started off to the left.

“Anyone else feel better now that we're on the regular trail?” Sarah asked.

Joule quickly replied, “No.”

“We were just standing in front of the cabin,” Sarah protested as they moved. “They don't know which direction we were going.”

“They're running a meth lab in the middle of the woods,” Joule commented. “If they didn't see which direction we came up, they certainly watched which way we headed.”

Behind her, the rest of the team stayed silent, but for whatever reason, she just couldn't keep her mouth shut. “He also asked if we were with Helio Systems Tech and we said yes.” Not that they could have said anything else. Out in their similar gear, matching backpacks, snowshoes, and flashing beacon lights. “They know that we're heading back to the base camp where the trailers are. And the fact that they know about the trailers and the team means they're paying attention to what goes on around here. And we still haven’t been told if the trailer burning was arson!”

Of course they would know those things. Anything illegal with that much money involved would not want surprise visitors at their door. “If we're lucky, they take this as a sign that there’s too much activity here and they pack everything and move on.”

And if they weren’t lucky . . . She didn’t say it out loud.

“We could call the police,” Dev offered.

Joule planted her feet and spun around. “Shut. Up.”

All three of them snapped their heads back at her harsh dictate.

She pushed in close, creating a tight little group of the four of them. Though she wanted to move forward and get back to the trailer, she took the break. Dev might even need it. “If they follow the other trail to where it intersects this one, they’ll know we came this direction.”

This was the direction to Helio Systems Tech, the only saving grace they had was meeting up with their other team. Joule hated to think it, but there were plenty of ledges around here, all the dealers had to do was get their bodies to a cliff and shove them over the edge. Alive or already dead, it would do the trick. There was every possibility that after they hit the bottom, they would be far too damaged to identify. It could cover snapped necks, broken limbs, maybe even bullet holes. She didn't know.

Instead, she issued a dictate. “We do not say the words call the police.” She dropped her voice for the last three words. “They are possibly following us. Right now, there is no obvious reason to take us out, but if we talk about calling the cops, we give them reason.”

Sarah looked at her, and Joule understood. “I shouldn't have said what I said, either.” She shouldn't have explained why she knew what she knew. Because if someone was listening, then they knew, too.

They all fell quiet, realizing—as she had—far too late, what they'd done wrong. They were all staring back and forth at each other, quietly asking the question of what to do next?

The answer, Joule felt, was obvious: Get back and meet up with the team. They were still a ways out, and the going was slower in the dark. It would be easier to ambush them in the dark.

“Let's go.” She motioned with one hand for everyone to follow along behind. But as she turned away, they all heard the twig crack behind them.

25

Cage spun around, as did Sarah. Though Dev tried, he didn't quite make it. Once again, it was clear he was injured.

Heads swiveling, they checked for what they could see. Sarah even swept her flashlight around, but nothing showed. No glowing eyes, no human shapes.

Eventually they breathed out again and, without comment, they started walking the trail again. Hopefully it was just an animal, something that was supposed to be out here at night. Their own footfalls and noises were the only ones in the night now—the leaves and twigs and snow that crunched beneath their feet, the times one of them grunted having stepped the wrong way on a root or a rock. Cage hoped it was all them and not anything more sinister.

The little band didn't stop or pause. And they weren’t that quiet. There was no point in trying to be with the lights acting as beacons—both the flashlights and the blinking red tags they each wore.

He thought he heard something bigger moving behind him and he sucked down a cold breath. Damn, he’d tangled with the non-human things in the night, the ones that created that size of noise.

But this didn't sound four-legged, and that was a problem.

Tapping Dev’s shoulder, he shook his head and whispered, “Sounds human.”

Dev reached forward gingerly and tapped Sarah’s shoulder. Though they all kept moving forward, the information passed forward until it got to Joule.

“Fucking fuck balls,” his sister whispered into the night. The sound carried back to him, and that was the only thing that could make him smile right now. She continued, her voice low over their own sounds of moving along the trail.

It felt familiar to him, though they’d not walked it at night before. He was finding blessings in the small things now.

“I thought I was hearing something,” she said, her voice low, hopefully carrying only between the four of them.

“Thoughts?” Sarah asked. “Do we make a stand?”

“A stand is no good against a gun. None of us are armed.” Even as he said that though Cage found the need to ask, “Right?”

Unfortunately, everyone agreed.

“We need to run.” Joule said it casually, but it was a scathing commentary about what danger she thought they might be in.

Cage shook his head. She couldn’t see it, so he whispered. “We can’t.”

Dev couldn't. He was keeping up with the rough pace she’d set, but even that seemed to be a lot for him.

She nodded, though she didn’t turn around to say it directly to them, she did look back. “Then we split up.”

Her eyes caught his and Cage understood. “Sarah and Dev hide. Joule and I run.”

“That doesn't seem—” Sarah was starting to argue back, but she was interrupted by the heavy crack of a branch behind him.

Cage pushed her out of the way and turned around. He could only hope that whoever was behind them was too far back to extract any real damage. The sound carried out here, so he believed it was from a reasonable distance back. Whoever was stalking them wouldn’t want them to be able to swing a flashlight and pin them or blind them.

But he heard it. Too many cracks and crunches. Too clear a pattern to be anything other than human feet.

Someone was stalking them.

This time when Cage gently pushed Sarah out of the way and off the trail, his eyes locked on Dev. He whispered harshly into the night air, hoping his voice didn't carry. “Hide!”

Even as he said it, he felt his sister's gloved hand slap into his and tug. She was already running, their flashlights on the ground would show where they were, and hopefully it would be enough.

He pushed forward, feet pounding, ignoring when he stepped oddly, when his ankle wanted to twist. They had to keep going. They would run and make noise.

Because they were the bait.

26

Joule ran until her breath came heavy. Her feet pounded over the uneven ground as she prayed that the support of her hiking boots and the tension of her laces would be enough to keep her ankles from twisting. She didn't know what would happen if one of them went down.

Her gloved hand clung tightly to her brother’s. It seemed it was all they could do: stay together and keep running. It was clear now someone was crashing through the brush behind them. Her brain worked overtime trying to figure out what was happening, what they should do next, what their best course of action might be. For a moment, she wondered if maybe it was their own team sent to meet them and wondering why they had fled.

But anyone from Helio Systems Tech would have recognized the backpacks, the snowshoes, the blinking lights. They would have called out for the twins to stop, that they weren't a threat. No such call had come.

Joule kept moving forward, she hadn't looked back, at least not enough to see if Sarah and Dev had done the reasonable thing and gone dark. Though their flashlights had quickly blinked off, they each had two additional red-light beacons.

Behind them, branches snapped and the occasional grunt let her know someone was giving chase. She jumped a fallen tree, clearing it with reasonable ease, grateful that she remembered it was there.

Maybe whoever was behind them didn't know this trail as well as they did. It was the best she could hope for.

At least it seemed there was only one person in pursuit. She had no idea what their directives might be. Follow the group and listen in? Maybe try to find out what the young crew that had stumbled across their cabin in the dark might have figured out? Or maybe it was just to take them all out.

One against four wasn't a good number, but hikers generally weren't armed.

Joule wondered if they would make it back to let Dr. Murasawa know that might need to change. Because if whoever this was shot them and dumped their bodies over a cliff, Helio Systems Tech might conclude it was an accident.

She sucked in more breath. Hell. She was not in as good of shape as she wanted to believe. She'd been going on long nighttime hikes. Stalking night hunters through the woods and their neighbors’ backyards. She’d been doing rock climbing at the gym. But she’d not been snowshoeing. Or running in the cold air.

When she was not the hunter, but the hunted, it spiked her adrenaline, burned her resources, and drove her breathing into the stratosphere.

“Soon,” her brother whispered. The one word was enough.

It was probably the reason her brother had decided that the twins should be the ones who ran. As much as she loved and communicated well with her coworkers and her friends, she and her brother were so often on the same page that they were the safest combination to do something like this.

If they kept going all the way back, they would likely lead their pursuer right to other employees. The question was, would that stop him? Or would it just give him more people to take out? People who, unlike the twins, would be absolutely unprepared for something like that to happen.

If she had to go down, if he succeeded in killing them, she sure as hell didn't want him taking out more of the people she liked along the way.

Sweeping her flashlight along the trail in front of her, Joule looked for a way out. When she saw it, she had no idea if her brother did too. She squeezed his hand a little tighter and carefully whispered back.

“Now!”

27

Cage and Joule understood each other even better than other siblings. They didn’t have the problem of being different ages, being first child versus second. Sometimes different economic situations existed when children came into the home. Those things all played a role, but for the twins they had all been the same.

They'd even been in the same class at school more than once, though that was generally frowned upon. Though they approached thirty and did not have their own generated language, they certainly understood each other very well. Cage never doubted when his sister said now what he was supposed to do.

Hitting the button, he turned his flashlight off. As soon as he went blind, he felt her hand tug him to the side. Taking the sharp left, he trusted that she'd found some place off the trail to duck into.

Their feet crunched twigs, leaves, snow and more. His feet still moved as fast as he could, but he shoved the small maglight into his pocket so he could reach to the back of his cap, yanking at the beacon there. This was a little harder to turn off, which was the point. But he clasped his hand firmly over it to block the blinking red light as best he could. Pressing and holding the button on the back for what seemed like forever, he waited until it calmed before grabbing the one on the front of his jacket.

Ahead of him, Joule had gone completely dark, and with his eyes adjusted to the white-blue glow from the maglight, he blinked at how little he could see now.

It didn't surprise him when his sister grunted and her momentum slowed suddenly. Either of them could run directly into a tree. They were basically blind.

“This way,” she whispered. His own rate slowed and hopefully meant less noise. Less noise hopefully meant they would be harder to follow.

When she gave him the next signal, she didn't make any sound at all. It was just a directional tug at his hand down and to the right. Joule ducked behind a boulder, and he saw enough of her then to see that she had managed to get every one of her own lights off. A tiny bit of moonlight caught a dark blonde curl peeking from under her cap as she tucked herself down.

He pushed with his hand still clasped in hers, motioning for her to push just a little further in. Maybe they could make themselves just a little harder to see, a little harder to find, a little harder to kill.

They wedged themselves into what was barely a slight indentation between the two rocks. This time, Cage was not pleased with the bright colors of their coats. His was an almost olive green. He'd told Sarah it was visible enough, and now he was grateful that maybe it was invisible enough. Though unzipping it was absolutely not the right thing to do for body heat, it might be the best thing for their safety.

Moving closer to his sister, he held the front open, partially covering the blue of her coat. His breath was coming too heavy, and he wished he could hide the sound of it. Wished he could hear more of what was happening. But the footsteps in the distance, the ones that had been crashing through the wooded path behind them, had slowed down and almost disappeared. Whether that was good or bad, he didn’t know.

If he was right, his sister had ducked off the trail just prior to where they would have stepped into one of the open fields. He could envision them stepping into the moonlight, onto the glaring white of the snow that, even at night, was bright enough to let anyone know what was there. The person behind them could have easily taken them out from the cover of the woods.

If they'd been shot, they would have left bright blooms of red in the snow. It wouldn't even be worth moving their bodies. But whoever was chasing them—whether it was the man who opened the cabin door or someone else—was now silent. He could have left.

The snowfall seemed to have lessened. He might even leave footprints for some investigator to find. But if the meth cookers could pack up their shop and move away, they might disappear into the wind. Cage pushed his teeth together and tried to breathe in slowly and softly. He hoped the balaclava masked enough of the noise to keep him silent in the still night.

Even so, the cold seeped into his lungs. He hoped that Sarah and Dev were okay. They had ducked off the trail, their own lights quickly blinking out. Hopefully they’d been fast enough that no one had followed them. Cage hoped there weren't two people hunting them, because if so, one could have stayed on Dev and Sarah. Luckily, he hadn't heard any gunshots, and he had a feeling the sound would carry on the nearly frozen air quite well.

But the lack of bullets didn't mean they'd made it out. Okay. All he could do now was hope that they had made the best decision. He knew that Dev, with his bruised back and possibly even cracked ribs, would not have been able to make this run.

He squeezed his sister's hand tighter and waited. Just when he thought they had sat there long enough to be in the clear, he heard the branch crack far too close.

28

She'd been a fool. Her breathing had normalized out. Her eyes had begun to adjust to not having the flashlight, and she'd not heard anything for long enough that she started to think they’d done it. But that footstep.

It was heavy and human and too close. She'd heard the crack of branches breaking. How they hit other trees on the way down. This wasn't that.

This was something on two feet, and it was close enough to let her know that she'd not heard most of its approach. If whoever this was hadn't made that noise, they might have gotten right on top of her and her brother before they even knew it.

Her heart rate kicked up again just when she'd gotten it slowed down. Trying to stay huddled behind the open jacket her brother offered, she knew he was losing some of his own body heat to cover them. Joule tried to stay in close, both to trap whatever heat he had with her own coat and to cover the blue that she wore.

Slowly, praying she didn’t bump anything or make noise, she motioned to her brother. Reaching up she pulled off her hat. Bad idea for body warmth, but maybe a good idea for not being spotted. Cage nodded and did the same.

After he tucked the hat down the sleeve of his coat, he reached back toward his pack, and she caught on.

She'd been wondering, what did they have? Not guns. The satellite phone would be wonderful if she could set it up to make a call and locate them, at least someone would know where they were last. But it wasn't a quiet process. They’d be heard before they even connected.

Her flashlight was good. Bright light directed in the face would blind someone, but it was a temporary measure at best. And the light itself was designed for long days out like this: Small, compact, and incredibly lightweight, not even good for adding heft behind a swing, or creating blunt force trauma should she need it.

Realizing what was happening, she reached up behind her brother. Slowly and carefully, she caught the snowshoes that he’d pulled the strap for.

29

Cage bolted to his feet, swinging as he rose up. Planting his back foot, he twisted his torso and leaned in as he did it.

It wasn't quite like throwing a punch, but all the old training came back. He wasn't sure he fully registered the person in front of him, but he was coming out hitting hard anyway. His best guess was based on the man he'd seen in the doorway of the cabin.

As he felt the teeth on the bottom of his snowshoe connect with the side of the person's head, he had the sudden horrifying thought that maybe it was someone from his own team. But it was too late to pull back.

Cage was tall enough, but this man was a little taller. Dressed in winter gear like the rest of them, his face was mostly covered, his hat pulled low, only his eyes showing. But Cage had let the snowshoe swing all the way through the arc. He wouldn’t make the mistake of not following through. He’d been trained to punch past his target, not at it.

The grunt was heavy and harsh, the man stumbling back a few steps, his head slinging to the side with the hit. Cage had left no room for the man to still be standing at the end, at least not where he was.

Blood poured from the side of the man’s face. The cut above his eyebrow sharp and bright red. For a moment, Cage's eyes connected with his. That was all either of them could see of the other, but the rage in the other man's eyes was keen.

Not someone from their team. Cage’s hit had been righteous.

Angry now, this man had clearly expected to be the aggressor.

He'd followed them. If he was close enough to know what the twins were doing, then he'd known they were huddled together behind a rock. If he was the same man at the door of the cabin, then he'd seen them walking by and had likely noted the uneasy conversation. He’d probably clocked them as scientists. That had been a mistake.

Cage had clocked him as hard as he could with the teeth edge of his gear.

As he moved to gather his weight and attempt to come forward again, Cage heard a primal scream. Deep and angry, it bellowed from his sister's throat as she bolted forward, her own heavy snowshoe already in motion.

Left-handed, she swung from the opposite side. Joule lacked the element of surprise. He'd seen her coming, so her blow didn’t land quite as fiercely, but her scream was worse. Though her hit only glanced off his head, and he managed to get an arm up in an attempt to shield himself, she still hurt him.

She’d hurt him enough that, this time, he turned and ran away. His feet crunched the snow as he disappeared quickly into the woods behind them. Fumbling, Cage quickly produced his flashlight and aimed the sharp light at the man's retreating backside, letting him know they were watching.

Joule’s hand reached out, covering his and pushing the light down. Dammit. She was right. He was pinpointing their position. He flicked it off, but he strained to catch changes in the shadows that told him the man was still retreating. “Now what?”

“Let's get out of here,” she said.

They were on their feet and moving even as he zipped his coat back together hoping to retain what body heat he still had. He’d be okay in the end, just uncomfortable until he got a hot shower and some time in the electric blanket. He'd be right as rain by morning.

Joule was already covering ground, and he was pushing to keep up. His snowshoe still in her hand, she gestured very mildly with it. “Do we want to hang on to these as weapons or put them back?”

He wanted to put them back, but he knew the correct answer. “I think we need to hang on to them.”

Who knew what the hell else they might encounter out here? “What was that Banshee you unleashed?”

“Oh.” The syllable came off nonchalant, almost slightly interested. “Dad taught me that when I was little.”

“He told you to scream like a bat out of hell?” He hadn't told Cage that.

“It's because I'm a girl,” Joule said. “He told me, if anyone ever attacked me, not to scream. He said don’t even yell ‘Fire!’ He said, Go crazy. Scream like a Berserker, let your eyes go wild, make the loudest, strangest sound you can. Let them know that you are completely batshit and that they do not want to tangle with you.”

Cage felt his eyebrows go up. His parents had not told him that. Had he escaped the training for being male? Sounded like it.

Sometimes, he felt that he and his sister were so close, and other times he realized little things put them miles apart. They dealt with things differently and clearly—even though they'd grown up the same age, in the same household, with the same two parents that they'd lost in the same ways at the same time—things had still been different between the two of them.

“Well,” he admitted, “It certainly worked.”

“Go, Dad,” she commented from the lead position. But halfway through the last word, his walkie talkie crackled to life and Dr. Murasawa’s voice came through.

“Can anyone read this?”

“Hello! Yes!” He was excited. Contact from the team! “It’s Cage and Joule.”

“Just the two of you?” The question was tentative, and he quickly explained how they'd split off from Sarah and Dev. That they were concerned about Dev's injury.

“They have a satellite phone,” he told her. “Since they would be slower coming back, we thought it was more important that they have the ability to connect.”

“Oh, smart,” Dr. Murasawa said, then her voice faded as if she spoke over her shoulder to someone.

When Dr. Murasawa called him smart, it always landed well. He smiled into the cold dark of the night.

Another voice came through and it was clear he wasn’t talking to them. Ezra.

Ugh. Though Cage wanted to be irritated, Ezra was here because he was one of the best. At least, at what he did well. Clearly, he wasn’t good at everything.

Joule motioned to him to keep moving and he picked up his pace. The walkie talkie wasn't horribly quiet in the night, and he had no idea how far the sound would carry. They were operating under the assumption that their attacker wasn’t coming back, but it wasn't something that he knew for sure.

He answered Dr. Murasawa’s questions one by one. He listed where they were to the best of their knowledge. Said they were in good shape, but they’d been followed and attacked.

“Are you okay?” Her voice was stunned even though he’d just said they were. After he repeated himself, she added, “Jeremy, Leon and Aliyah are out to meet you.”

As the twins arrived at the edge of the open field, Cage reached out to tap his sister on the shoulder and motioned for her to give his snowshoe back. They would be without weapons, but he needed them to walk.

The walkie talkie crackled again, and Dr. Murasawa issued a few instructions.

Having snapped his feet into the snowshoes and stood back upright, Cage had taken only a few steps. His sister stopped in front of him, turning awkwardly to look back over her shoulder, her eyes wide as they both listened to Ezra say, “No, not their walkies, not their beacons. No one's answering the sat phone. I can't find either of them.”

30

They'd moved as fast as they ever had. Maybe they were getting better on the snowshoes. Maybe Joule was just highly motivated.

Though both twins had offered to turn around and go back, Dr. Murasawa had been very clear that they were to come straight in. “I'm not losing four of you. I cannot have my team in this many different places this late at night, with the kind of weather we've been having.”

“What?” Joule had asked trying to lean back closer to her brother's walkie talkie. Even though she wanted to hear, she wanted to get out of this open space. She was afraid of being shot in the back. But maybe moreso, she was afraid of her brother being shot.

She beelined straight across the open field. Her feet lifting between each planted step, her muscles no longer straining, but having passed fully into anger.

“Huge snowstorm blowing in!” Ezra called from the back of the room, with no concern for who might be listening or what danger that might put them in.

“You keep coming in,” Dr. Murasawa directed. “You'll meet up with the team soon.”

Then they’d shut the line down. Those back in the trailer had other people to connect with. They would check the weather, re-plan a course with the new info she and her brother had provided. They hopefully resumed trying to hook up with any kind of technology that would identify Sarah and Dev’s location.

She was glad to have it off. There was no telling who else might be listening in. But without the conversation to ground her, Joule felt her dread creep in. Even though she kept her head down and kept trudging forward she could hear the words again. “Huge snowstorm.”

Now, maybe because they were in the open field, maybe because Ezra had said it, she did see that the flurries were coming harder and faster. Even though she shouldn’t, she turned and threw the wrong question over her shoulder. “Should we go back for Sarah and Dev?”

She knew better. Maybe she'd asked it simply because she wanted it on the record that she had suggested it. She was forcing her brother to be the voice of reason.

“We can't.” She knew he’d say that. “If we miss them by even a moment, we become another set of people to look for.”

She nodded, though she wasn't sure if he saw it with her hat pulled down over her ears. Her hood was no longer up. She couldn't afford to lose any sensitivity to sounds signaling what might be happening behind them. Periodically, she turned and looked over her shoulder, wondering if someone was still following them. Sometimes when she looked, she caught her brother doing the same.

The best thing they could do now was follow protocol. Their directives were clear. Assuming they were in the right place, they would meet up with the outward bound team very soon. And she did believe they were finally in the right place. Despite the fact that the night had fallen dark around them, she recognized various landmarks.

Moving slower, with the snowshoes on her feet and her muscles not willing to go at top speed, Joule was irritated. She wanted to get to the trees again. Whether she was right about it or not, they felt like shelter.

She and Cage had been through too much today. Joule knew in the logical sense that she was tense, but she only realized just how uptight she was when she cleared the edge of the field and felt her breathing suddenly come easier. Cutting back into the relative safety of the trees again, she pushed three or four steps before stopping.

Hopefully, they were obscured to anyone looking for them. She had to get the snowshoes off, so she bent down and unsnapped the straps. Standing up, Joule held one in each hand as she gestured to her brother. “We should put yours on your pack and carry mine.”

She didn't mention that she was thinking about them as weapons again. She didn’t have to.

Cage seemed to agree about part of it, but it was obvious he didn’t understand why they should carry hers now.

“Yours have blood on them. Might be evidence.”

His expression cleared. “Well, damn.”

They worked quickly. She was always grateful they'd spent so much time together that their movements were a kind of shorthand. In moments, his snowshoes were hanging on the back of his pack, teeth pointing toward each other. It still appeared there might be a little blood that hadn’t come off in the snow. Hopefully they wouldn't rub any remaining evidence away. Then the two of them moved forward, each with one of her identical snowshoes in one hand. The only difference was the yellow tape, marking them as hers.

She wasn't sure how much further she'd gone but would have guessed it was only ten or maybe fifteen minutes at the most, before they saw lights up ahead. She took a deep breath. She did not feel good calling out to random people in the woods. But this was the right place and the right time, and she had to trust that these were her own.

Sure enough, when she yelled out their names, Jeremy, Leon and Aliyah all hollered back, excited to find the twins. More tension fell from her shoulders. Reaching up to where she’d once again clipped her beacon, she tapped at it, the simple smack activating it. The intent was that someone might be able to do it even as they were losing consciousness. She was grateful that was not the case.

She also pulled out her flashlight, though Cage got his on before she did. Light aiming at the ground, he let the others know exactly where they were.

The meeting with the other team was fast and simple. Aliyah was sent back with them, even though they protested.

“We're fine,” and “We know our way in.”

“No, you've been out too long. You might be fine, but you might not be,” Jeremy insisted. “Leon and I will go onward. They’ll be found.”

“There's two of them, don't you want more people?” Cage pushed and Joule agreed. They’d be fine. Dev was already injured.

“Two of us, two of them,” Jeremy replied as if that were clear math. “And I have first aid training.”

For whatever that might be worth, Joule wondered.

Before she could protest further, Aliyah had changed directions and was tugging her back toward base camp as Jeremy and Leon disappeared into the dark.

“Wait!” Joule called out, and she and her brother spent a moment catching the others up. Though Dr. Murasawa had given them some of the info, Joule wanted them to get it firsthand before they headed into the area where the twins had been attacked.

She covered everything, explaining about the little house they believed was cooking meth, and the man who followed them. The two listened, eyes widening. It was clear they knew some of it, but not all.

Cage turned around and showed off the snowshoes on his pack as if the blood might show in the lights they held. There wasn't much, but it was there if they looked.

Jeremy’s expression flattened, but it didn’t stop them. “I'm armed.”

Maybe Dr. Murasawa had prepped the rescue team well enough. But it didn’t matter. Jeremy and Leon were determined.

Her brother wished them good luck, and they trudged back, Joule still leading the way. Aliyah brought up the rear as if she thought one of them might sway and topple somewhere along the way. Before she knew it, Joule was in the trailer, her coat peeled.

She and her brother were wrapped in warming blankets as the others jumped to their feet and hauled out the rescue packs and first aid kits. She'd known they were here in the trailer; Joule remembered getting briefed on how to use them. She just hadn’t expected to need them.

Eventually, she wanted to shrug off the blanket. After a short while, the others went back to their positions, monitoring snow sluffs, temperatures, light collection and more. She felt like she was beginning to sweat, but Dr. Murasawa pushed the wrap back into place. “Your core isn't at the right temperature yet.”

Joule understood. Honestly, she was not looking forward to getting from the base camp down to the bottom of the hill, and then riding back to the apartment. Though she wanted to get home and get to sleep very quickly, her priority was to know what was happening with Sarah and Dev.

Dr. Murasawa offered them hot soup from the small microwave in the corner. When the twins each finished their first bowl, she offered another and tried for a third.

“Well,” she sighed. “I'm not a medical doctor, but your base temperature is coming up, and you both register blood pressure okay, pulse rate is fine.”

Joule nodded. Right now, she figured her most medically concerning issue was the worry.

On the other side of the trailer, Ezra sat at a bank of monitors, headphones on. Every now and then he uttered something that made her think he was in contact with Jeremy and Leon. But only hearing half of the conversation wasn't enough. She told herself not to worry.

Sitting next to her brother, she realized he was not trying to shrug off his heated blanket. He simply pulled it tighter and slowly sipped at his soup. Was her stare as glassy-eyed as his was?

She didn't know how long she sat there, brain not functioning, before Ezra took off his headphones. Leaving them around his neck, he swiveled his chair. Two others caught the motion and swiveled their own chairs to listen. But he wasn't looking at her, he was delivering the news to Dr. Murasawa with no concern for who else might be listening.

“Jeremy says they found Dev and Sarah, but it's not good.”

31

Joule stood shoulder to shoulder with her brother. Her breath felt warm, so different from the other day. She could deal with this because she knew it was temporary. At worst she could duck out of the trailer as needed. No one would fault her.

But the trailer was once again packed.

At this point, she'd lost hope that the other trailer would be rebuilt or replaced. For whatever reason, HST seemed to believe everyone was getting along just fine without it.

Trying to keep her focus where it belonged, Joule looked to the end of the trailer. They were all crammed in long ways. Dr. Murasawa the only one with any space, as per usual, where she presented at the narrow end.

Joule and Cage stood silently near the back, though they'd been asked to come close to the front. She’d simply shaken her head and hoped the no was accepted. Aside from a few doing monitoring work, which included Ezra—and luckily got him out of the house for hours at a time—everyone else had been given three full days off before this.

At the front, Dr. Murasawa presented her information. “Cage and Joule smartly had Sarah and Dev hide.”

Was it smart, though? Joule wondered as she listened to Dr. Murasawa explain what had gone wrong.

“Sarah and Dev had turned off all their lights and quickly ducked into the dark, making themselves as small and invisible as possible.” Joule knew the story.

The bright coats had worked against them, and they'd taken them off. Though they'd hidden in a small cave they found, it wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of protective gear. Her friends had tried to conserve their body heat, but there was only so much they could do. They both suffered from hypothermia.

At this point, she was grateful no one had lost any fingers or toes.

“Sarah and Dev were cleared from the hospital last night, and are free to return to their daily life.”

Interesting phrase, because Joule knew some decisions had been made. She and her brother had spoken with Sarah's parents at the hospital. It was good to see them again, but she kept seeing them under terrible conditions. Though Sarah’s mother hadn't said the words specifically, her tone very clearly had an air of “how could this happen to our daughter again?”

On the one hand, Joule understood it differently. It wasn't the same thing. Last time, Sarah had been abducted. On the other hand, Joule also understood it was absolutely the same thing.

Sarah kept putting herself into dangerous positions with the job. Though Sarah had talked of resuming work, Joule was not surprised to get a text from her mother that said otherwise.

Dev’s family had come, too. The twins had met his mother and sister. But they’d dropped him back at his apartment after his release. He’d insisted on sleeping in his own bed. Joule had waited for Sarah to return to the unit too, but she’d only gotten a short text.

— I think I'm going to stay with my mom and dad for a while.

— if you think that's what's best, Joule had replied, not knowing what else to say. When she’d visited in the hospital, Sarah wanted to come back to the job. Clearly, things had changed once her parents were involved.

Dev somehow managed to brush off any overt machinations from his family. He’d told them he was good, he was safe, and that he needed the work to pay his rent. Then he did his best to force them to leave. They had, of course, insisted on staying for a meal and buying everybody dinner before heading to their hotel room and leaving the next morning.

Joule spent last night with the empty bed on the other side of the room—an unexpected new fixture.

She wasn't sure how much she missed of Dr. Murasawa’s presentation, but it definitely included that Sarah was on an indefinite leave of absence from the team. A loss all around, Joule thought.

The presentation went on, discussing how Joule and Cage had defended themselves from their attacker with the snowshoes.

She felt the eyes of the team as everyone turned to look at the two of them. She heard her brother explain that, no, he hadn't thought of a snowshoe as a weapon either, until he was stuck there. But the sound roared around her as, once again, doubt crept in around the corners of her mind.

When she added up the individual pieces, it seemed the only conclusion was that this person was tracking them and intended them harm. But the fact was, he hadn't attacked them first. He'd come too close, he'd come fast, but she couldn't recall seeing a gun in his hand. He hadn't said anything to them, so he couldn’t have threatened them.

But they'd stood up, and each of them had gotten a good hit. He’d turned and fled, offering only the grunt. At most, any vocal recognition she could get wouldn’t be much. She might recognize his height, but beyond that, the only thing she could recall was his coat and his gear.

What if he hadn’t been from the cabin? What if it had been somebody else? What if they had felt they were being followed and someone else in the woods was trying to ask if they needed anything?

It didn't make sense. She told herself anyone trying to help them would have called out. But the postmortem on her actions always allowed alternate interpretations. And she wondered what she'd become.

The voices around the room pushed back into her consciousness as they began to ask questions, sometimes on top of each other.

“Are we confident it was a meth house?”

“Were they armed?”

“Are we going to need to be armed now?”

“Are we scrapping the entire program?”

Joule turned her attention back to the room. She’d not considered needing to be armed on the job. It was bad enough she was carrying weapons in her own neighborhood at home. Watching as Dr. Murasawa lifted her hands up, she felt the room change as the boss motioned for all of them to be quiet.

Wild. When she was in second grade and the teacher was telling the class to settle down, she had somehow believed that was a kid thing. But here they were.

“An armed team returned the next day,” Dr. Murasawa informed them.

Joule did not know HST had armed teams. She guessed they had security people, but she thought of them more as the mall cop type rather than making armed sweeps through the woods. “The house is empty, fully abandoned.”

Joule felt her jaw drop open. It had been over forty-eight hours since the search. No one had told them that.

It seemed Dr. Murasawa was looking directly at her when she said, “We're going to have to reevaluate the project, because what we have now is a much bigger problem.”

32

Cage tried to stay quiet, but the rest of the room seemed to boil around him. Hands popped up one at a time. Voices did not wait to be called on before asking their questions. It felt as if he and his sister were a quiet little ship being tossed about on a turbulent sea—an analogy that he did not like.

Joule turned to stare at him, eyes wide.

Only moments before, he’d caught a bit of beige movement, just behind her. His gaze had been pulled, but he didn’t even get to figure it out before Dr. Murasawa pointed to the man who must have entered quietly from the back.

“This is Sheriff Tariq Katan. He’s working on cases in the territory we’re covering.”

Cage studied his face. Dark skin, short trimmed black beard, thick brows over dark brown eyes. This was not the same person who was handling the arson on the trailer.

As the man introduced himself, it began to make more sense. He motioned to Dr. Murasawa, who clicked the button and put up a map.

“As was mentioned, I’m Sheriff Katan. My territory is mostly up here,” he motioned to the counties above where they were. “But I'm part of a task force working on cutting drug trafficking systems using the Colorado Trail.”

Cage wondered if his head snapped back, or if he just felt the hit of the information that way.

“Hikers?” someone asked, surprised, and the sheriff nodded.

“The cabins and cook houses can exist out here with very little oversight and very little likelihood of being found.” He paused. “Unless, of course, hikers like yourselves—” He motioned to the group at large, though Cage knew exactly who he was talking about. “—stumble across their enterprises.”

There was a pause as his voice turned more serious. “Honestly, those of you who encountered the cabin are lucky you survived.”

Cage and Joule were the only ones here who had. Despite telling his mom that he had to get back to work, Dev had been granted a few more days off and he’d taken it. He was staying home and watching movies, at least for the first day. He said he would come back when his leave ran out, or when he got bored.

Maybe when he got tired of being home with Ezra, Cage thought.

“When we have hikers on the trail who go missing, one of our first assumptions is accident or interference with the operations running through here.” He motioned up and down where the trail was marked in red on the map.

Damn. Getting offed by drug runners was at best the number two option, according to that.

“If they run their systems well, most hikers will never run into the houses or anything like that.”

Cage understood what he was going to say next before he said it.

“But your team is going out into the wilderness and looking for usable sections of land to build relatively unbothered systems. These previously un-scouted places are prime for what these traffickers are looking for, too.”

With a quick motion, he reached out and accepted as Dr. Murasawa handed over the remote for the screen, and instantly a series of red dots appeared. He clicked it again and a blue dot appeared.

“This is you.” He pointed to the blue just as Cage was realizing that. Then he pointed to the five red dots. “These are locations we have found houses, and here,” He clicked it again and yellow dots appeared, though these stayed along the trail, “These are places where we've issued arrests for hikers whom we have found to be carrying drugs.”

It was rather ingenious, Cage thought. A system of cook houses putting out drugs and distributing them via people who regularly hiked the trail. The hikers might look at their drug running money as a way to fund a relatively expensive habit. Not drugs, but hiking.

They could step off the trail at a known point and pick up a stash and make a mint. As long as they kept it buried deep in their pack, who would even know?

“Are they operating in teams?” someone asked.

“There’s a lot of solo hikers out here, so it's more than easy enough for one person to be a lone man operation.”

Cage wondered who was still hiking solo after all the disasters they'd seen. But if they were running drugs and making their living that way maybe it made more sense. He imagined himself in that position—the big pack, full of supplies, lots of containers and smaller packs within the pack. It would be easy enough to stuff drugs into one.

It probably wouldn't pass any drug sniffing dogs, but to any other observer or an unsuspecting fellow hiker, who would notice? And where were the drug sniffing dogs on the Colorado Trail? It would take a while, but the drugs could come out the other end, through a series of places with very few checkpoints. At least that’s what Cage imagined as he listened to Sheriff Katan.

“We were on the verge of a massive sting. Two of our people were undercover in different cook houses.” He pointed to two of the red dots.

Cage raised his eyes. Had they assaulted a police officer the other night?

“I want to issue a formal apology. We knew this operation was here—both theirs and the legal sting going on. We pushed not to let your company come in before the sting was over. We were overruled and, because it's undercover, we were not allowed to tell anyone at risk of our own operatives.”

Holy fuck, Cage thought. That was way too much information, which meant . . .

“The speed with which the meth house was cleaned and moved after you encountered it indicates this operation is larger than we originally expected.” The sheriff looked out over the room which had grown almost eerily silent. “As we learned that this group had missing people in the area, our priority quickly changed to helping to find your people and bring them home safely. Once that was executed, however, we started putting into motion the final steps of our sting.”

He took a deep breath and Cage wondered just what he and the rest of the team were going to learn. “It is ongoing, even as we speak. The sheriff’s department voted against the permit you all received—both to keep you safe and to keep our operation close to the chest. But now, for proper execution, we're going to need your help.”

33

“Yes, I am invading Kansas,” Cage said as he moved his tiny army marker forward across the map. He sat cross-legged on the floor on one side of the coffee table.

His sister sat across from him, eyebrows up, clearly questioning his strategy.

At the end of the coffee table, Dev stared at the board as if he didn’t understand quite how all this had happened. Most of his armies had been wiped out. Then again, he’d not spent entire weekends of his childhood playing cutthroat board games with the Mazur family.

Cage passed the dice to Joule who, even before she rolled them, let him know, “You're a fool. I own Kansas.”

Then she rolled the dice and proved it.

He sighed. He’d gambled, and it had not paid off.

Dev frowned, “You can't own Kansas, can you?”

“Technically, no,” Cage explained. “However, via Joule's strategy, she can build up enough resources that we can't really prove otherwise.”

Holding his hand out, cupped palm up, he accepted back the pieces she'd decimated from the board. He watched as she tried not to gloat and failed.

“I’m going to be dead soon anyway,” Dev sighed.

“Do we want soup for dinner?” Joule asked the table, though she didn’t look up from the board.

“If I eat any more soup, I'm going to float away,” Dev replied.

Cage couldn't help but agree. Most soup this week had been served with grilled cheese. Chili—which they'd also done—was served with corn chips. They’d had crackers and dip. Like Dev, he was over it.

“Tacos, then?”

The twins both nodded. Though tacos had already happened this week as well, they all agreed. They had a favorite place to order from. He tried not to think about how much Sarah liked it. She was safe. Her choice was made—even if he wasn’t sure it was entirely her own decision.

Joule looked up from the board, eyes aimed at Dev. “You're going to lose Haiti now.” She informed him of this as if it were a matter of fact. But, as Cage evaluated the board, he saw it almost was. There wasn't much Dev could do, except get very, very lucky multiple times in a row. If Joule didn't take Haiti this turn, she would the next.

“If you take Haiti, all I have left is Maine and Rhode Island.”

“And what is Rhode Island really worth?” Joule asked him in a wry tone, not giving an inch.

“I guess I’ll run for tacos once I’m dead.”

“No,” Joule shook the dice in her hand but didn’t roll yet. “That will be too early for dinner.”

Damn, his sister was cold when they were playing. She would risk her life for any friend in the real world, but on a game board she was practically sociopathic.

He was almost getting bored with playing games and waiting. It had been a long, slow week.

Just then, all three of their phones lit up. Even Joule looked up from her turn.

It had to mean something from work.

Setting the dice down carefully, Joule turned over her phone to check the screen. Then she set it back down and rolled.

Cage saw his own. The HST team had gotten a handful of updates this week. The “help” they'd been asked to provide had not been what he expected. It had instead been several hours of interviews with the sheriff’s team. Every employee who'd been out monitoring the area had been asked a variety of questions. They’d even asked Ezra. After his disastrous major maiden voyage, Cage would have thought his erstwhile roommate wouldn’t count.

In the interview, Cage had found himself surprised by the questions. He'd expected to be asked if he had seen any other meth houses or run into any hikers who might be carrying drugs. Though he was eventually asked those general questions, it had only come in the sense of, “Is there anything else that we've missed that you think would be helpful?” Mostly they asked him more specific and focused things, things he wouldn't have volunteered.

They asked him how the woods smelled when he was out. If it was different on different days. He tried to remember. They asked if there were other tracks that he didn't recognize. He said yes. Then they pushed him to think about where those tracks led.

He'd been out often enough that he had taken a moment to close his eyes and visualize where he'd seen them and what it might have been. They asked if he’d seen animal tracks and all he could think was, of course he had. But nothing had been surprising enough for him to remember it.

They hadn't asked about the cabin the children had been found in. That made sense to him. Local officers had cleared the place. If it had been a recently evacuated meth house, they would have known.

He was asked about any tracks with dog prints. While he assumed it would be about drug sniffing dogs, he still asked the officer. He’d quickly been told it was more about cop sniffing dogs.

“I'm sorry?” Cage had asked incredulously. “That's a thing?”

“Meth dealers train their dogs to be insensitive to the smell of meth and the chemicals associated. But also to alert if someone has gunpowder on them, or gunshot residue. They would know if their own people fired a gun or if anyone who had fired a gun was with them.” The woman was taking notes while she said it—as if this was an explanation she’d had to give before, more than once. “In a lot of cases, the dogs are simply trained to patrol the perimeter and alert if anyone new has been near the property.”

Damn. Cage hadn't seen a dog that night and he hadn't heard one barking inside. But a well-trained one might have quietly alerted, letting the owners know that new people were walking too close to the cabin.

The interview went longer than he'd expected. Then again, he'd simply expected to say, “No, I've run into no other meth houses.” Luckily—or kindly—he and Joule were among some of the first interviewed. Even so, seven or eight other Helio Systems Tech employees were interviewed and let go in the time he'd been in the room.

After that, the help they’d been asked to provide was to return to their houses and sit tight. To wait further notice. They’d received alerts each day, though it had been almost a week since then. The first alert let them know that the sheriff’s team had found no one had returned to the meth cabin they'd encountered.

They'd next received updates from Dr. Murasawa informing them that they were still on an indefinite leave but to please not leave the area. They could be called back at any moment.

This afternoon's text made it clear that was happening. They'd been called back to work. Finally. He was growing bored with games and tv and exploring the small town he’d already mostly explored. They weren’t really in the mood for local skiing or trail hiking given what they kept seeing on the job.

“Interesting,” Joule said, holding up the phone.

Cage realized he only had to stay alive in the game long enough for his sister not to destroy him. At least then it might be called a draw.

“We're going in late, though,” Joule said.

“And getting some new kind of training,” Dev added as he made his next move—after having completely lost Haiti exactly as Joule predicted.

“What do you think the training is?” Dev asked when he was done trying to shore up his forces in Rhode Island rather than attempt to attack anyone and lose.

“It has to be firearms, don't you think?” Joule asked.

“I don’t think it has to be, but that’s my best guess, too.” Cage nodded.

While he was more than proficient with a handgun, and so was his sister, it bothered him that this was becoming part of the job.

And he didn't like what it implied.

34

“Step back,” the officer commanded.

Joule lowered her weapon and took three steps behind her before looking at the ground and then taking another, making sure that she crossed the powdered white line they'd set. It was already more than scuffed.

The officer looked at her, eyebrows up. “Are you going to want your prize?”

“Yes, please,” she replied with a sugary smile and slick tone.

The guy was a complete fucking douchecanoe. He'd spoken to her in the most condescending way as she'd stepped up to the line. She’d held the gun a little casually, and he’d been rude about it. At which point, she changed her grip, holding it like a newbie, wondering if he would be nice or not.

Well, he'd failed, and she'd placed an entire magazine through a singular one-inch hole center mass of her target. Fuck him.

HST and the local officers had set up a makeshift range in a clearing beyond the base camp. Joule didn’t question how they’d gotten the haybales up here for the backstop. They even had four shooting lanes with cables to fly the targets out to the distance and back up. She had to trust they’d gotten everyone out of the way.

Though she knew the wire made a whirring sound as it moved, she couldn't hear it. Her heavy-duty headphones were still on.

She was pulling them off, letting the sounds of nearby shots settle into her system. Each sharp retort triggered a momentary fight-or-flight tension. She wondered if her ability to let it go so quickly was a bad thing.

He handed the target to her but looked irritated and sounded like a complete dick. “It's different with a moving target.”

Tired of him talking down to her—which he had not done to any of the men here, she'd noticed—she stared him in the eyes. Trying to make her expression as dead-behind-the-eyes as possible, she said, “I know.”

Accepting the paper from him, she looped it in half, not putting a crease down it. She wanted to ask him if his target looked as good, but she didn't want to interact with him anymore.

“Am I cleared?” she asked almost a little too pointedly.

This time, he only nodded and motioned to her to hand her headphones off to another of the HST employees.

“Shit,” Aliyah whispered, stepping toward the spot. She commented softly to Joule, “I saw that.”

“He's a fucking asshole,” Joule whispered back. “Tell me you're a marksman.”

“What letter do you want me to write?” Aliyah asked. Then added, “Cursive?”

Five minutes later, Joule was watching the officer eat his words. Aliyah had set him up. While Joule had tested him, Aliyah had gone for the jugular.

She'd fumbled the gun almost to the point of dropping it, then started to shoot without chambering a bullet.

First, Joule had frowned. She hadn't known her friend was a marksman, and at that moment, even she had been fooled into thinking that Aliyah had just been sarcastic.

The officer offered a snide comment, letting her know what she missed.

Aliyah, in a little sing-song voice had asked, “Oh, like this?” Then she wracked the slide, and in a singular smooth moment, had the gun between her hands and most of the bullets in the air.

Though Joule hadn't answered Aliyah’s last question, her friend grinned back over her shoulder, the large headphones making her look almost comical.

This time, Joule did hear the whir of the wire. She also heard the bullets going off from the other lanes. Each one made her jolt, but she had to get used to it. All their ears were going to ring, but the officers and Dr. Murasawa had talked about the necessity to do this here in the open wilderness.

Over the last week, the air had cleared. Snow had stopped falling almost constantly, even if some of it had been very light. Though the ground was still covered, it was beginning to melt. Base camp was beginning to look like it should have weeks ago when they’d first arrived.

But given that there was still snow, and that they were up in the mountains in the open wilderness, they had to practice here. The sound traveled differently.

There had been demonstrations of several different kinds of guns that the officers had shot on the other side of the woods and not in proximity. The employees had not quite been quizzed, but the team was definitely trying to be sure that if they had to do that round of interviews again, they would have more useful answers. She was almost surprised she hadn’t been given a meth lab scratch and sniff test.

Mostly, it bothered her that they thought the whole team needed to know what that gunfire sounded like. And how to recognize how close or distant it might be.

“Your shots are all over the place,” the officer informed Aliyah as the target got closer.

She reached her hand out as he unclipped it. “Are they all over the place?” She held it up in front of her own chest. “Or does my name start with an A?”

She turned, walking back to the white line with her back to the gun range and to the officer rolling his eyes. It was bad form, but it was a statement. Even from here, Joule could see the clear letter A—fancy with a curl—on the target.

Next to them, Cage, having already been cleared as well, commented, “Sweet. But he was not a dick to me at all.”

“That’s always how it goes,” Aliyah added, as she stepped back, arms folded. Joule let her friend do the explaining. “Some people are just dicks. They're dicks to everyone. And some people are just nice to everyone. Some people are sexist assholes. And you, as a man, are never going to know it until you see this shit in action. Because they’ll always be just fine to you.”

Aliyah turned and abruptly walked away, surprising Joule for a moment. Until she realized that Dr. Murasawa had called their friend over. She watched as the boss laughed with her friend over the target.

She and Cage hung back, waiting a while longer until each of the employees cleared out. She watched as some of them were asked to please not ever handle a firearm again. Most of them graciously accepted their failing grade, often agreeing that they hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place. Only Ezra had a fit about it.

Dr. Murasawa informed him that he was welcome to go down to the training station and work again until he passed. He was not pleased with that either.

It had taken a handful of hours before they were all finally dismissed. Joule had eaten an energy bar while waiting and stomped her feet to stay somewhat in motion. They’d been outdoors the entire time, only rotating into the warmth of the trailer for short bursts. Their presence seemed to bother the techs who still had to monitor temperatures, snow fall, nearby avalanches and more.

It was unusual for all the Helio Systems Tech employees to be up here for the day. They didn't all fit in the lone trailer. Joule wondered what was happening with the fire investigation, but Dr. Murasawa had too many things to do to explain that to Joule.

Luckily, it was warmer today, though it still wasn’t what she would call warm. While some of them stood around in their big puffy coats, some of the warm-blooded folks, like Joule, had managed to trade down for a good fleece jacket. Finally, the snow was on its way out.

Dr. Murasawa had pushed the night shift people to be some of the first shooters, and she'd sent them home as soon as they cleared. But maybe what bothered Joule more was that even the people who worked in the trailer were being trained on firearms and defense.

Though she and the others had been dismissed from the firearms training, it was clear they weren’t allowed to go home yet. Dr. Murasawa made her announcement to the remaining group. They all stood in the space in front of the good trailer and the burned out one, waiting for something to make it all come together.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming out for this training today.”

Joule wondered why they were being thanked. It was part of the job. They were being paid.

But as she listened to the rest of what was announced, she grew even more uneasy about what might be asked of them in the future.

35

Cage moved across the open field, no longer in his snowshoes, for which he should have been happy. The snow had melted enough that they didn't need the excess gear anymore.

However, now his feet were encased in his cold-rated hiking boots crunching through the surface of the snow. The melting temperatures had made tiny ice webs within it, so it was less like fluffy powder, and more like crunchy candy.

Of course, it took an entirely different set of muscles than the ones he'd just spent weeks building up.

Joule was in front of him with Aliyah and Dev in line behind the twins. Cage liked Aliyah a lot, but he disliked that her presence meant Sarah was still missing from the group. He'd exchanged a few texts with their absent biologist. When he talked to his sister, who also had talked to Sarah intermittently, they both walked away with the same impression that Sarah wanted to return to work, but also didn’t want to worry her parents anymore.

On the one hand, Cage thought he understood. On the other, he didn't have parents to worry. He had Kayla and Ivy, but they didn't have quite that same hovering, deep-seated fear that most parentals could express. Maybe it was because Kayla and Ivy were younger than Sarah's parents. They'd spent more of their adult life with these issues—more understanding and accepting of the loss. Or maybe it was as Kayla and Ivy had told the twins once, they were somewhere in between.

Ivy had shrugged. “Finally feeling that I found home, that I was doing the work I was meant to be doing, felt great. Then we found tracking devices, hidden cameras, and footprints. Having people track you in your house and attempt to hunt you down really opens your eyes.”

That was when he and Joule had found out that Ivy began her professional career as a stripper while getting a PhD in art history and restoration. He would not have guessed the first part. But the rest made sense as to why Kayla and Ivy were more encouraging of taking risks.

He looked up, constantly scanning the environment. A sense of mild unease dogged him each time they went out. At the head of their little line this time, though, was a security guard—extra forces hired by Helio Systems Tech. He’d found out the security team was partly private but with some staff provided by the sheriff's office as well, which told him things he didn't want to think about.

HST hiring armed guards provided an extra layer of protection, maybe even something necessary by insurance and less indicative of any real danger. But the sheriff's office sending some of their deputies, on government dollars, indicated they thought there was still trouble. As they had been running a sting operation for months with undercover agents, Cage was inclined to believe their assessment.

He marched forward, pleased that his hiking boots were keeping his toes from getting cold. They weren’t warm, but they were good enough. Still, he sighed into the cold air.

The job had changed.

He was used to jobs changing along the way. Nothing ever quite went according to plan. Though his teams always came in with a previous crew having done preliminary soil checks, initial wildlife counting and tagging, and more, he and Joule were always part of round two. Each time, new information popped up.

They changed systems, materials, and locations. Hell, here they didn't even know where the locations would be. They simply had a map of possible spots. They didn't know if they would build one array, or many smaller ones, or what not.

But this? This had not been on his bingo card.

He hadn't expected a drug issue. Now however, after listening to the sheriff's lectures for a few days, he wasn't sure why he hadn't. HST routinely went out and built in undeveloped areas. That was the point. They would be out of the way, not bothering other businesses and being unbothered by any semblance of the population. Exactly the same kind of places the nefarious types would hide whatever dealings they were doing under the radar.

As if sensing his unease. Joule said, “I don't smell anything.”

It wouldn't have made sense to anyone else to say that out of the blue. But she was known for having the best nose in the family, even since she was little. She meant she didn’t smell another meth lab.

The small team moved quickly, passing along the open field where they watched the avalanche almost a week ago. Or it was better to say they had jolted and tripped.

The Bureau of Land Management had been busy. They'd set off charges, running the rest of the snow down the mountain. Now, with the temperature climbing, the whole mountain sounded like it was dripping.

“Back to the right, and then the trail across,” the guard at the front of the team said.

It was odd, Cage felt, not to be making those decisions themselves.

The guard was trained in all kinds of protection though. His presence should have made everyone on the team feel better. He was trained in mountain safety. While they carried all their usual systems, this man now carried all the first aid, additional arms, tents, and more.

Cage tried not to think about how his foil space blanket—that they all carried as part of their packs—had been replaced by a light absorbing one. Whatever the sheriff's office sting had accomplished, it hadn't accomplished everything. They were still concerned about wrapping the employees in shiny blankets that could be spotted.

Following almost blindly and lost in his thoughts, Cage found himself hiking across the open face of the mountain. With his head down, he watched his feet, following the steps of the guard and his sister, until a tap at his arm had him looking back at Aliyah.

She didn't say anything, just pointed out across the way.

Cage stopped as Dev almost bumped into them. He whispered his sister's name, “Joule look.”

The valley scooped out before them. The sound of the dripping mountains made sense with the cold, clear waters rushing and peeking in and out of trees somewhere at the very bottom. On the other side, the land sloped upward again. He felt he could see for miles. Mountain peaks, snow caps, and now, at least the green of some of the trees.

“It's gorgeous,” Aliyah whispered next to him.

He could only nod in agreement.

This was what he'd expected to see on a daily basis coming out here. Instead, they’d encountered avalanches, storms, and more. The sound of the snow melting was somehow both rhythmic and anti-cadent at the same time. It reminded him of how he'd felt as a kid standing at the edge of the ocean, listening to the sound of the waves coming in. There was something in that rhythm that simply resettled things in his soul.

After a moment, breathing deeply of the chilly air, he looked to his left and then to his right, taking in the sweeping view. But on his right, his sister stood ramrod straight. Her expression wasn't calm or serene.

Without looking at him, she muttered, “Something's not right.”

“What?” he asked. But if she’d known she would have said.

Joule shook her head as the guard, now to Cage’s far right, motioned for them to keep moving.

“We have to go out and get your measurements and clear out in time to get back before dark.”

Fifteen minutes later, as they approached the other side of the open slope, Joule pointed into the distance. “That's what's not right.”

36

Had she smelled it in the air? She wasn't sure, and she probably never would be.

Joule wasn't even sure if it would be an issue: the cloud of dark gray sneaking along the other side of the mountain. It looked almost as if it were a mischievous animal peeking around a corner.

But it wasn't cute. It was concerning. If she’d smelled it, it might be snow. She sniffed again and didn’t note the distinct scent.

Pointing to the guard in front of her, an HST employee, she tried to get his attention. He was a trained paramedic and mountain rescue guide. Also, at his hip, he wore a hip holster with a nine millimeter, and on his other side he carried extra magazines. Not comforting.

“Is that okay?” she asked him. Might as well make use of his expertise, even if she didn’t remember his name.

“What?”

“That.” She pointed again and paused. They needed to stop before they moved back into the tree line, where they wouldn’t be able to still see it.

This time, as he turned and swept the last of the open view, he caught the angry gray cloud. “Well, if it doesn't come any closer it will be okay.”

“I think it is getting closer,” Aliyah replied, just as Joule was thinking the same thing.

It was hard to tell. She hadn't been looking right at it, she told herself. Was it as menacing as it looked the first time she spotted it? She was hesitant to voice her concerns.

From the back of the line, Dev added. “It's definitely getting bigger.”

“Shit,” the guard replied offhandedly. It wasn’t full of force, but Joule didn’t like it anyway.

“Are we still going to try to get our readings?” Aliyah asked.

“It’s probably best if we don't.” The guard stopped, and he watched the sky intently. He didn’t interact with them much other than to give directions and warn them of possible pitfalls or dangers.

“What does that mean?” The soft voice of Joule’s friend disguised a keen intelligence.

“It means we go back. We always err on the side of safety.” He declared it as if we was a thing he’d always been a part of, in charge of, even.

The job was already multiple weeks behind. Joule had been hopeful the pace would pick up with the melting snow. But she didn’t even know what the cloud was. More snow? Rain? She was with the guard. Despite the extra work of coming back out and the probability that it wouldn’t even come their way, she was willing to bet against it and just turn around.

The guard stared out over the landscape a little bit longer. Then he declared, “No, not worth it.”

The whole line paused with him. They no longer had snowshoes. They each carried a tactical trail stick—basically a high-end hiking stick, she'd been told. Lightweight and aluminum, it unscrewed to reveal the different parts or to fold up and easily kept in their packs.

At this point, they all had theirs out and being used. The pointed ends could dig into the snow to check for depth, also to stabilize themselves on slopes and more. But as they stood waiting for the guard to make his assessment, she felt the wind whip around her, stealing her body heat. Joule had to keep moving to stay warm, and stopping for any length of time seemed like an immensely bad idea.

It wasn't as cold as it had been and, for that, she was grateful. But she wondered how her brother was faring. He didn't generate heat the same way she did. She didn't know about Aliyah or Dev, but she had to wonder how Dev felt after spending several days in the hospital getting his core temperature up. For a while they hadn’t known how his fingers and toes would fare.

He and Sarah had been smart enough to not be visible. But it had meant no bright clothing, which meant no thick jackets or foil blankets. Not giving away their position meant no beacon lights, which made it take longer for their rescuers to find them.

Joule poked the tip of her stick into the ground again and shuffled her feet back and forth trying to do some level of movement even if it was just in place. The snow beneath her boots made a slight crunching sound, something she had grown used to today.

The silence without it was almost irritating, so she was grateful when the guard said, “No. That is definitely moving this way.”

“Are we sure it will come to us?” Dev asked him, but no one made any motion to go further forward.

“No,” the guard said it with a shrug in his voice. “It's entirely possible it will turn around and never reach us here. Or it could shift direction or even just completely dissipate. But if it keeps coming at us at that clip, we could wind up in real trouble.”

He motioned to the other end of the line, for Dev to start back the way they’d come. Though he almost instantly stopped them again, and made sure they let him get to the front of the line. Joule appreciated that they had a guard who stayed at the front, which was honestly probably the best place if there was only one. But what if someone was sneaking up behind them?

They had to simply hope that didn't happen. Or that the guard could turn around and make use of whatever prowess or training he had if it did.

Quieter on the way back, they trekked solemnly, the mission aborted for the day. Joule kept her head down this time, and they all worked on moving quickly. Somehow, they did manage to be faster than they had been on the way out. They had to be—the trip was long today and they were already far from base.

At the front of the line while heading out, Joule was now bringing up the rear. Keeping her eyes on those in front of her, she found she liked this position better. She could see everyone else.

It also meant she could see as their feet slipped on the wet snow along the slope. She watched each time they caught their balance, poked the tactical pole and righted themselves.

What would happen if they didn't get upright quickly? In so many places out here, the world simply fell away at one side of the trail. What if the storm came back for them?

Turning her head and checking over her shoulder, she felt her foot slip.

37

Cage knew his sister could smell snow. When he was a kid, he'd always found it fascinating—like a psychic skill. As an adult with a biology degree, he understood it was a molecule in the air that some people could simply detect, just like others could sense changes in barometric pressure with their joints.

Still when Joule said, “I smell snow on the air,” Aliyah was the only one who seemed to take the idea seriously. The guard brushed it off completely, as if it were a fable that anyone could do that. And Dev had simply looked at her.

“Of course, you smell snow. It's all around us.”

Joule had rolled her eyes at him, though Cage wasn't sure Dev saw it. He'd only caught it himself because he expected her reaction to the offhand comment.

“When you smell snow, you're not smelling this,” she motioned to the layer at their feet. “Not this half-melted stuff already on the ground. People who smell it, smell a scent in the air before it falls.”

There was a pause, and she added, “It's a thing.”

Cage wanted to back her up.

They made it safely to the other side of the mountain they had just traversed and headed right back into the woods. He kept expecting to see or feel tiny, misty flakes falling from the sky, filtering down between the needles of the fir trees. Trees that Sarah had been able to distinguish and name. Not a botanist, he was stuck at deciduous and conifer.

When the team emerged from the other side of the thick trees, he heard Dev at the front of the line, sigh heavily, though the guard had given no indication of the change. A few steps later, when Cage made it into the open light, he wanted to do the same.

The snow was definitely falling heavier.

Behind him his sister said only, “It caught up.”

They hadn't brought the snowshoes. They weren’t supposed to need them today. They weren't supposed to be out long enough for enough snow to accumulate. And he fervently hoped that math still held.

An hour later, it hadn't.

38

“We have to stop and camp.”

Dev was clear about his vote, even if Joule didn't like it. She did understand his concerns, though. He'd been caught out in the cold before. But she would have expected that would make him vote that he wouldn't want to stop.

“No,” she argued, though she tried not to bulldoze everyone. “If we keep going, we might make it in tonight.”

They’d already stopped to pull their extra layers out of their packs. Gloves, thermals, jackets—but it wasn’t enough for a full storm. The day had started out fine.

“Are we concerned about running into more dealers?” Aliyah asked. From the way the gears were turning in her friend’s head, Joule suspected the answer to that question would change her vote.

When no one had any reasonable conclusion, Aliyah offered her own tentative one. “I'm assuming they wouldn't have sent us out today if they truly believed there was a possibility we would run into anyone nefarious.” She paused then added more. “Well, maybe hikers still packing drugs back and forth, but if word has gotten up and down the trail about the busts, then likely there wouldn't even be that.”

Joule wasn’t sure the word would have traveled along the trail that quickly, but she didn't say that part out loud.

“The other option,” Dev added, “is that they do still think there's a threat on the trail, but that our guard—” He motioned to the man whose name Joule still could not remember, “—is going to be enough to deter anyone from messing with us.”

Would it be, though? she wondered.

Joule bit her tongue and told herself it was because every time she opened her mouth, she got a gulp of cold, not because she disagreed. The team had to act as a unit. Whatever the final vote was, even if she didn't like it, she would have to go with it. She was still going to argue her side until the die was cast though.

“The longer we stand here and argue about it,” she told the small group, “the more likely we are to have to camp along the way, rather than making it back. This is time we could be walking.”

She was also getting cold. It was surprising how fast the chill could creep in when they stopped.

Aliyah was opening her mouth, but Joule tried again. “The faster we move, the closer we get to camp. So even if we do have to stop and camp, the more likely we are to be found and the more likely we are to be found fast.”

The guard started speaking—once again without graciously stating his own name. It was embroidered on his shirt, she knew, but his shirt was under his jacket.

“We keep going.” He said it as if he had the authority to decide it. He was just here for his bullets as far as Joule knew, but since he was agreeing with her, she let him take the win. “But I'm setting an alarm, and in one hour, we stop and reevaluate.”

Everyone readily agreed. So Joule did, too.

“Change positions in the line,” he instructed. Though they changed positions he did not, maintaining his spot at the front.

They crossed one of the open fields and Joule hoped they might even get close enough that they wouldn't need to take another evaluation.

The alarm went off far too early. It couldn’t have been an hour already, could it? They hadn’t moved far enough. The daylight was fading but it wasn’t that the sun had gone down, it was the cloud cover. They were definitely moving faster without the added gear of snowshoes and the concerning depth they’d had before. They were faster without their beginner level skills getting in their own way.

But it wasn’t fast enough. She didn’t like it.

The snow had obviously kicked up. For a little while, she tried to convince herself it was wind blowing little flurries up off the ground. Once she thought it through, however, she realized there was no loose snow on the ground. The temperature had gotten warm enough that it had all melted together. It would be either wonderful for snowballs or icy enough to break someone's nose if you tried throwing it. There was only snow coming down.

As they entered the trees again, the cover made the snow automatically better. No one spoke. She found herself grateful for the silence of the woods, the crunching of their feet through the icy coated underbrush and the occasional sounds of heavy breathing, that she heard from the line—now behind her.

They had spiky gear for their hiking boots. It was tempting to stop and put it on, but she didn't want to take the time. Given that the conversation had flowed freely all the way out and most of the way back—until they realized the storm was rolling in—the dead silence between them now made her wonder if the others were thinking the same.

Each step she took brought her closer to the original pair of trailers, where the remaining one would offer heat, food, and friends to welcome them in. Each step made it less likely she spent the night in a pop-up tent as the snow accumulated on top of them.

Keeping her head down, she marched forward, thinking only of her feet and the steps she took. They came out the other side of the trees almost before she expected it. Good. Faster was better.

But as they emerged, she saw that the snow had kicked up even more. The storm must have gotten ahead of them. Despite the heavier snow, they kept going. The alarm had gone off, but the guard hadn’t stopped to take a vote. Maybe he’d decided for them.

As she moved out into the field, she saw there was a fresh layer they were now stepping into.

From the front of the line, their guard finally spoke. “It's fluffy on top, but don’t let that fool you. Though the powder should help make us stable with less ice, be aware the ice is still lurking underneath.”

He sounded like it was a horror movie. Lurking. She almost chortled. The cold must be getting to her.

“Don't move your back foot until you're sure your front foot is planted.”

Damn. That would slow them down. They couldn’t afford slow.

Even just the few inches of snow, with the ice underneath added to the crunch as they usually broke through was more than she was ready for. Still, Joule plowed ahead, watching where she planted her feet, feeling the occasional stomach-lurching drop as she shifted her weight, and the ice underneath cracked and gave way. It was just a few inches, but it was enough to be unsettling.

It kept her attention, until she felt the tap on her shoulder. “Joule? Joule, stop.”

Behind her, Aliyah’s voice sailed through the still air. With voices being as rare as they were right now, Joule did as she was told. Turning to look at her friend, she asked, “What?”

The sound was harsh though she hadn't intended it to be. It was just the conditions and the desire for all of this to be over and to be back that made it come out that way.

But Aliyah turned, waving her tactical pole behind her. “I can't see Dev.”

39

The hand came out of nowhere swiping through the snowy air at him. Red-gloved it cut through the snow, groping toward him.

Cage reached out and clasped at it. It grabbed on, holding tight. For a moment, the fear of sliding the glove off the hand and being left with nothing swept through him. He tightened his grip and pulled. “Holy crap, Dev!”

“I got a little far behind,” his friend said as he emerged through the white fluff in the air as if appearing from nowhere.

As Cage continued to pull their missing coworker and friend in close, the four of them naturally moved in tight without realizing there was a fifth today.

Then the guard stepped in close as well and made a pronouncement to the group. “We waited too long.”

No shit, Cage wanted to reply, and he was honestly surprised that his sister didn't. Or maybe she had, and the snow flurries snatched the sound away. The snow already seemed lighter, maybe it had just been some odd wind that kicked everything up, cutting them off from Dev.

“We stop and camp,” the guard announced again, as if it were his group. Cage disagreed.

“Not out in the open, though.” Aliyah pointed. “We're almost to the trees. We at least need to get into the woods for better shelter.”

As Aliyah talked, Joule slid her pack off, one hand reaching down in, quickly searching. The flurries found their way inside her pack, but she pulled up a roll of webbing. She didn’t say anything, only motioned to them until they caught on.

Upon seeing what she was doing, the others all quickly slung their packs around front and grabbed their own rolls. The webbing was brightly colored and—though there weren't enough shades for everyone at Helio Systems Tech to have their own color—all four of them had different ones. It would be a quick way of identifying who they were if their bodies were found later. Cage tried not to think about the forensic qualities that were built into their kits.

Next, they all grabbed their large carabiners, hooked them through the loops at the end of the webbing, and then looped that around their waists. Working in tandem they didn’t need to be told what to do. The guard clearly wasn’t part of the group, and he watched for a moment before he figured it out. But he was quick about it.

Aliyah held up her beacon lights, pointedly snapping them into place. Cage and the others followed suit, though he fought a flashback of being chased. Beacon lights were for when they wanted to be found. He had to hope the Sheriff’s office had done their job. If they hadn’t caught every last meth dealer and drug runner in the area, maybe they’d at least made it clear that this wasn’t the place to do it anymore.

The guard didn’t have their red-flashing, pin-on signal lights, but he pulled out a headlamp and started off again. Jared? Barrett? Wyatt? Cage could not remember the man’s name. But he watched as each of the team snapped their carabiner and linked to the next person in line.

Finding himself at the end, he noticed Joule had put herself directly in front of him. Though he didn't like the two of them being last, someone had to be. Dev had already spent a night out in the cold, left behind, waiting to be found. He deserved to be in the middle.

With a breath, Cage realized he was glad that Sarah had stayed home.

“To the tree line,” the guard said, and set up a pace that was punishing. Only because of the snow, they weren’t making any real speed.

Their decision to press on was made in part because they could see the trees—they knew they were close. And as they reached the edge of the copse, either the snow stopped coming down as harshly, or the trees provided better protection than they expected.

“Are we camping here?” Dev asked.

“We should keep going. We should at least get closer,” Joule pushed.

“I don’t want to Donner party this.” Aliyah looked back and forth between the others.

Cage could only shake his head. “I don't think we've gotten quite far enough into this to go for cannibalism yet.”

“No, that we're going to stop twenty feet from where we needed to be and freeze to death.”

Oh, yes, hadn't he learned that too? That for all that the Donner party had gone through, they suffered all of it a relatively walkable distance from their destination.

“I'm calling ahead,” Joule announced. “Who's got the sat phone?”

“Once we get through these woods, we should be in the field where the trailers are.” Cage agreed with Aliyah now. They were too close to quit. There was no need to spend the night out. If they could just push through and make it to the trailers, he wouldn't complain about them being crowded or over-warm.

His toes were definitely cold now. His feet were cold. His legs were cold. But there wasn’t time to be upset about it. Aliyah pulled the phone out of her pack, which she'd turned around and was now wearing on her front for easier access. The device passed down the line until it reached Joule.

His sister, not being the end of the line was at least a little stabilized in both directions. If she missed footing or such because she was making the call, the others could help hold her up. They weren't stopping. Aliyah's comments about the Donner party seemed to have given them all some more ambition.

His sister kept the phone pressed to her head. However the connection was, he only heard her side of the conversation. She had gotten through to someone, because she said where she thought they were and where they were coming from. That their GPS devices weren’t tracking with all the clouds and snow interference.

It was a faint signal at best, he knew. Still, they all had their tags on, and hopefully they might get detected soon.

Joule said into the phone that they were all still there, and safe. That they’d linked themselves together and decided to come in.

When at last she put the phone away, she told him and then Dev, “They’re coming out to meet us. We're going to make it all the way in.”

With that, it was decided.

He watched as the message was repeated up the line until the guard lifted his hand in a thumbs up, which was as good as it could get.

When they'd been in the open field, Cage wasn't able to see the front of the line. Definitely a bad sign, and they probably weren't making their best decisions. They should have stopped long before now, but they were too close for anyone to admit defeat.

The ground beneath his feet became covered in snow, despite the trees blocking everything. That should have been his clue. But he was still surprised as they stepped out the other side into the last open field.

His hopes dashed.

The field was large, big enough for the two trailers and more. The one had burned out, and they'd simply discussed placing another one nearby.

They were at the final portion of the trek. On the far side—if they could just see it or get there—they would be at the trailer. But there was no light to be seen, no beacon shining through the snowfall.

Was it that the snow was so dense they simply couldn't see to the other side, despite the fact that the trailers were lit up like holidays? Or . . .

He tried to fight the sinking sensation in the pit of his chest.

Were they even in the right place?

40

“It's right there,” Joule pointed, though she couldn’t see anything. But it had to be.

It wasn't about what was there or not, it was about her powers of persuasion. It was about her ability to be right.

But what if she was wrong? Was she arguing to convince them or herself?

“What if we aren't in the right place?” Aliyah asked.

Joule saw something subtle flick behind her brother's eyes—almost all that she could see of him—but she knew him well enough to know that he had the same thought. She shook her head, not wanting to give credence to the doubt.

“We have to be in the right place. We knew we were in the right place when we entered the woods. We followed the trail. We recognized the trail. We have to be in the right place,” she repeated and pointed again. “The trailer is right there.”

Even the guard was looking at her as if he was unsure.

“You've been checking your compass this whole time,” she told him, as if that were more evidence.

But he shrugged, as if to say it only tells us the direction we're moving in, not that we're actually in the right place.

“If we camp here,” Dev pointed to the ground, standing close because they were all still tied together, “then it’s definitely some Donner Party shit.”

Joule almost breathed out a visible sigh of relief. Someone agreed with her, and it wasn't necessarily that she would win, it was that she was less likely to be wrong. Dev was smart. Dev was a logical thinker. She liked him as a person, and she trusted his judgment. If he also thought that this had to be it, then . . . didn't it have to be?

The team carried two small pop-up tents in the packs. While they were made of the highest tech fibers, Joule couldn't help but think that it would never keep the heat inside, not well enough. And what heat? They were all already cold. They weren’t carrying heaters with them.

She felt chilled down into her bones and couldn't imagine the kinds of flashbacks Dev must be having. Even in a tent, how would he fare out in the snow overnight?

“I'm going to use the sat phone again,” she announced. It was something to do. They had tools at their disposal. It wouldn't tell them how far they were from the rescue team, but maybe they could figure something else out. It could give them the contact she was desperately craving.

It took a few moments before she was linked up. She shouldn't have been surprised to find Jeremy on the other end of the line. He was supposed to be just the snowshoe instructor, but Helio Systems had a way of finding the best people and pulling them in. They likely had hired him for one thing, and then added another and another. The next thing he knew he would actually be part of the team. Or was he already? He was answering the sat phone.

“We think we're at the edge of the field, not that far from you. But with the snow, we can't see.”

“There's a team of three on their way out to you,” Jeremy told her. “Dr. Murasawa, Leon, and Barry.” He said the last name as though she should know who it was. It took her a moment to place that he was one of the deputies. But why Dr. Murasawa had come out, Joule didn't know.

She couldn't complain, though. Even before this, Dr. Chithra Murasawa had been one to always do the dirty work with her employees.

“Follow the edge of the trees,” Jeremy informed her. “Don't try to cut straight across the field, you'll likely miss each other.”

Joule agreed, informing the others in her group and hoping to get them to start moving while she was still on the phone, every second wasted was a second lost. Turning slightly to the left and sticking close to the trees, she moved as fast as she could—which was barely even slow.

She had hoped that the snow flurries would be lighter with the trees near, but unless they were well into the woods, it didn't seem to have any effect.

“They're tied on a yellow slack line and we're letting it out from here at the trailer,” Jeremy’s voice came as her feet moved by sheer force of will. “So they can find their way back. Once you connect with them, you can all simply follow the line back in.”

Smart, Joule thought. Then again, the team was just smart in general.

Still, she wanted to know, “Is there anything that you can do to let us know where you are, that we're in the right field? Because if we're not, the team coming out for us needs to turn around.”

She hated saying that, but it was true. God forbid, the three of them were out there making their way around the field, if Joule’s team wasn't even in the right place. “We can't see the lights, not even the slightest.”

“Maybe an air horn?” Jeremy seemed to have the thought on the fly. “Hold on. We need to contact the other team so the air horn doesn't concern them. But if we can do it, I'll set off two short blasts.”

He gave a few more simple instructions, then ended the call. Step by step, the five of them made their way along the tree line. Though she believed they made progress, the world around them never changed. Trees on their left, whiteness on their right. It wasn't quite as bad as whatever had kicked up when Aliyah said she couldn't see Dev, but everything beyond the five of them had disappeared. Even the guard at the front of the line was difficult to make out.

But she put one foot in front of the other and waited for the sound of the air horn.

41

The going was so slow and arduous, Cage was certain they had to be in the wrong place.

They could normally trek the long way across the field in five or so minutes. Cage had no idea how long they'd been out here, but it was far more than five minutes, and they were not across.

The snow seemed to eat their footprints as soon as they left them, wiping out all evidence of their passing, maybe even of their existence.

The two sharp retorts from the air horn cut through the blank white of the world, startling all of them. They jolted, then, one by one returned to their normal level of tension. But in that moment, Cage's relief was a physical sensation. He felt it move down the line, almost like an electrical current.

They were in the right place. The other team was on their way out to meet them, and once they connected, they would have a line all the way back to the trailer.

Unless they didn't meet up with the other team. Unless the line broke. Unless the snow got so much worse that despite everything they had, they still wouldn't make it in. Unless someone stumbled and broke an ankle or a leg.

He shut down the litany of unless. They would do it, they would make it, Cage told himself.

He often found himself facing down the statistics. He and his sister had survived everything so far, but then again, so had every person still alive on the face of the earth. He also wasn't a firm believer that their mere previous survival made them somehow immune to current and future threats. The statistics of surviving today were the same, no matter what their histories looked like.

When he went through phases of feeling like he must be invincible to have made it this far, he remembered that neither of his parents had. In fact, they'd both fallen with the first real threat. He would have thought his parents were truly immortal. His mother's death hadn't been a failure, but a sacrifice. And he reminded himself that, when it came down to it, sacrifice could always become a necessary option.

Stepping into the snow, he found it deeper than even when they had entered the field. The webbing line that wrapped around his waist pulled tight against the carabiner, tugging against his coat. There was something comforting about the hug and something equally discomforting about the fact that he was connected to his sister in front of him, and she was connected to Dev—but Cage was connected to no one behind him.

If he pulled out his knife and severed the webbing, he could get left behind, all by himself.

The morbid thoughts creeping in were surely a sign, but he couldn't quite decipher what they might represent.

“Oh! Yellow!” Aliyah called out ahead of him.

He felt his face frown beneath all the coverings. There was the balaclava, the safety glasses they had all put on, the hat and more. Though they had certainly not needed it at the beginning of the day, they didn’t have enough protection now. Hell, for the first part of the day, he hadn't even had his face covered. He’d worn his lighter jacket. They all regretted that now.

They were not prepared for this.

Cage was glad they had the resources they did. He was still processing the fact that Aliyah had called out a color, when he realized what she must have meant. Her next words carried joy with them.

“I see them!”

In that moment, finally, he did, too. Just a tiny spot of brightness in the snow. Probably a headlamp. A flash of red. The others were wearing their full gear, unlike his team in their lightweight fleece that was not bright enough to be spotted in the snow. Only Sarah had made sure she was always easy to find, and she wasn’t here now.

Before he knew it, hands reached out to grab his wrists and pull him along. The rescue team passed the five of them down the line, and he was instructed to hold onto the webbing they had unfurled all the way back to the trailer. Cage wondered if he should simply clip in the way one did on a rope safety course. But he felt more comfortable remaining tied to his sister, who was tied to Dev and to Aliyah and to the guard at the front of the line.

Garrett. He was Garrett, right? Cage wasn't quite sure. He should learn it and be certain who he was thanking after this.

The five moved with renewed energy, knowing that they were close. But it wasn’t as close as he had hoped. It took longer than he wanted to get to the trailer doors, but he wasn't ungrateful for the rescue.

The door was flung open, the light inside pouring out around the silhouette of a large man who reached down the steps and hauled each of them up. There were eight of them now, the five on his team and the three who'd come out. Voices swarmed around him, people he couldn’t see because the light was almost blinding despite the fact that he'd been in nearly white out conditions for some time now.

His jacket was stripped from him. He was instructed to sit down, that his boots would be taken off. Thinking about insisting that he could do it himself, Cage flexed his fingers and realized he wasn't really up for the task of untying and unlacing. When the shoes were off, at first his feet felt cold, but quickly they were wrapped in something warm, and he didn't bother to ask or look.

He was handed soup in a cup, which he gulped greedily, chewing soft noodles, carrots, and pieces of chicken. Though the crew who had remained in the trailer tried to care for all eight of them, Dr. Murasawa brushed her own care aside to check on the five who'd been out all day. Whatever energy had held him tense enough to make it back here had fled the moment he passed through the doorway and into helping hands.

He was tired and nearly falling asleep though he sat on a hard box that wasn't intended to be a bench but held safety gear. Leaning back against the wall, Cage saw his sister had slumped into the corner. Her eyes were drowsy, and he would have mocked her, if not for the fact that he only saw her through his own half-lidded haze. He could fall asleep right here on the hard surface against the wall and he almost did.

The low conversation in the room hummed around him close enough for some of it to make its way into his brain.

Another team had gone out earlier that day.

They'd headed the other direction, checking the devices, because some of the signaling was down.

Cage took a deep breath. Shit. He knew what was coming before it was spoken. The second team hadn’t returned and there had been no contact.

42

Cage awoke with a crick in his neck. As he moved, he discovered another in his hip. He was not old enough to be this creaky, but he'd spent most of yesterday—far too much of it, in fact—outside in the cold weather.

He and his sister, along with Aliyah, Jeremy, Dr. Murasawa, and more people than he could count, had spent the night in the trailer. They slept wherever they could: Along the walls, tucked into corners, several had curled up under the desks. Others had continued working through the night; the overhead fluorescents never dimmed.

The snow had kept coming, so they’d been stuck. Getting in a car and driving down the side of the steep mountain had not been a safe option. While he'd hiked the long way back, longing for his bed, it would be notably longer before they realized that dream. Maybe, he thought, they could go home today.

There were few windows in the trailer, and they were placed up high enough to let the light in, but not enough to backlight any of the monitors. There were no coverings, not even blackout shades. He wondered if it was simply something they'd never needed.

Though it didn’t bustle as much as most days, others were working at various stations, the bathroom door opened and closed with reasonable regularity, the refrigerator opened and closed even more.

Slowly moving his hand, he discovered his right shoulder didn't feel great either. But he pushed on it until he was sitting upright, and then pulled his hand up as he had originally intended. Looking at his watch he saw the time. 4:30. Too early.

Next to him, Joule continued to sleep. It was a gift she had, being able to pass out like the dead. After a full day out on the job, she could easily clock eight or ten, and sometimes even fourteen straight hours of sleep. His body had never quite worked that way, and his recouping had taken several days in the past.

He crinkled as he moved, and he realized he was still wrapped in the shiny foil blanket he'd been given. Once the packs had been traded out for the non-reflective versions, the old ones must have been stored as backups here. He was wrapped like a leftover foil swan from a swanky restaurant, though he was sure he did not look swanky himself.

On the other side of the room, conversation continued to move on. The voices were at least slightly quieter than usual, out of respect for those sleeping, but people still sat at the monitors. Had the day shift simply kept working straight through? They must have. No one was getting off the mountain and that probably meant no one coming up the mountain either.

He knew these people. They might be on shift or they might not, but if they didn't sit and watch the information coming in, who was going to? Though it could be analyzed later, that would be less useful than doing the job now.

The team in the trailer was trying to determine in real time what the arrays would look like. So much had already been figured out. The snow would be a problem, even if it wasn’t the excess they’d seen this year. They could only hope that this bad year would mean next year would be lighter, but the weather wasn’t listening to the old patterns these days. He wondered if people would revert to the days of weather Gods.

No one in here would be going that route. They’d solved some of the snow issues from earlier non-snowy scenarios. On a solar panel, any accumulation could block the light absorption. At night, the snowfall would just accumulate, but they weren't creating power anyway. In the past, there had been people hired to clean the solar panels each morning. While he wasn’t against humans doing the job, any panel that had the ability to track the light, had the ability to move.

The array posts had quickly been reprogramed to turn themselves vertical at night so nothing could rest on the face. There was also a scenario whereby a single person monitoring them could hit a button causing them to slowly rotate upright—almost like activating a self-clean. If the panel sensor recorded too much weight—whether it was snow, falling leaves, or other debris—the human monitor would be alerted. Outside of nighttime hours, he or she could simply let the panels run through a cycle of self-cleaning. It wouldn't take care of everything, but it'd be much faster than sending people hiking out into these woods.

It would also mean they could still collect power at times like this: when the whole array might need to tip upright every hour on the hour, just to collect what light they could before the snow built up again. Or when humans couldn’t safely make it out to the array to clean it.

Cage sat quiet for a moment before the urge to use the restroom got the better of him. At least the trailers were well equipped. Not only were the tech workers allowed to bring their own food and leave it in the cabinets and the refrigerator, but HST had packed the place with extras knowing full well something like this could happen.

So at least he was warm and dry and fed. As he emerged back into wakefulness, he heard the conversation on the other side of the room.

Dr. Murasawa was still on her feet after four a.m. Had she slept at all? Given what he knew of her from the past, probably not, not with her people out and missing. She'd come out herself to meet his group, too, rather than directing from behind the scenes.

“GPS tags?” she asked softly.

“Still no. Not in this weather,” the redhead at a bank of computers told her, shaking her head.

“You would think we'd have those better engineered by now.” Dr. Murasawa was clearly upset by technology not keeping up with her needs.

“Generally, they are,” the woman answered. Cage remembered her. She did a similar job to Ezra, only she wasn’t an asshole. “The problem is the places that we tend to lose people are the places with low coverage anyway.”

“We should have satellite coverage!”

“We do.” Carrie had swiveled her chair around to face Dr. Murasawa but, like most of the monitors, she wasn't much for standing up unless she had to.

“Then, why isn't it better?”

Carrie motioned with one hand. “As the satellites pass overhead, there’s a limited amount of exposure for enclosed and obscured places. Less time that they can collect data from all the nooks and crannies. It's like getting a GPS signal in the middle of New York City with all the tall buildings around you. You can, it’s simply much harder to do. We have mountains, trees, cloud cover, snow in the air, and interfering signals, so we have this mess.”

Dr. Murasawa sighed, but as she turned away, she spotted Cage. Their eyes making contact, as Carrie added, “We need to get Helio Systems Tech hired to terraform Mars.”

Though his voice sounded like a croak even to himself, Cage shook his head and added, “No. First we need to terraform Earth. We're already doing it but were doing a shit job.”

Carrie offered only a nod of acquiescence, before she spun the chair back to face the monitor. Her fingers clicked on a touch pad that she had designed to take single and double taps. For a moment, in his own head, he thought, “nerd,” but who here wasn't? He had no right to cast those stones.

Dr. Murasawa walked up to him, her voice still a low, soothing murmur. “Did you get any decent sleep?”

“Some.” He managed though she turned to the crinkling sound behind him.

“And you?”

“I slept well,” Joule said, “Just not sure how I'm waking up.”

Cage couldn't help the smile. His sister even woke up like that. The snark was built in, it never went away.

“No sign of them?” Joule turned serious and Dr. Murasawa shook her head no.

“Is there a plan?” Cage's voice sounded smoother now—smooth enough that the worry crept through. He couldn't hide it.

“Right now, the plan is to hope that we hear something from them soon. The snow is supposed to let up in a few hours.”

“But they've already been out all night,” Cage pointed out, not that anyone else had missed that fact.

She nodded, and though there were no words, there was something in the way that she looked away that let him know her concern was not only if they were heard from by this morning, but if they had survived the night at all.

43

Joule ate. She had a bowl of Cheerios from a box someone had left behind. Nobody cared. Cheerios could be replaced.

She ate energy bars. She drank sports drinks. She powered down glasses of milk. The gallon in the fridge was close to gone. With this many science nerds in one small building—and some of them had been here for close to twenty-four hours now—she and her brother weren't the only ones who still drank milk into their adulthood.

The milk would disappear first. Then the food would start to dwindle. It looked like plenty but there were almost twenty people crammed into the unit.

Everyone had eyes on the clock, everyone who was awake, that was. They were all waiting for the time to hit eight.

She and her brother had been awake for over three hours now, stuck in the space, no assignment to work, no seat at a monitor to at least be useful, no good place to curl up and at least get more sleep. She'd eaten like it was a competition, charged her cell phone and played games and listened surreptitiously to the conversations around her.

Eight o'clock was the magic number.

Dr. Murasawa seemed to think enough people were awake now that she addressed the whole team at once. “The sheriff's office should have someone up here by eleven. The snow is starting to lighten.”

Lighten? Joule thought. It wasn't supposed to be here at all.

She thought about what Cage had said in the middle of the night. If they were going to terraform anywhere, it should be right here on Earth. Everything they were doing was basically just bad engineering on the part of humans. It went all the way back to the early settler days, when they had chopped down forests to build their houses and burn their fires and thought nothing—and knew nothing—of what they were doing to the environment around them.

Now they knew better, yet most of them were still doing this to the planet.

It didn't matter, though, Joule thought. Whoever was responsible, if someone was stuck out in the bad weather, they didn't deserve it. She believed that even though she'd already put two and two together before the names had been spoken aloud. Ezra was one of the missing people. Why the hell he had thought it would be a good idea to go out again was beyond her.

“The sheriff's station will hopefully bring a snow vehicle up the side of the mountain.” Dr. Murasawa looked around the room, her coffee still cradled in her hands. “If you've been listening, you've already figured it out. We have a handful of hours to figure out who stays put and who gets to go. They'll come back with a second shift, provided they can make it. That the first run goes well. That the weather doesn’t shift again. But they can only put four other workers in the vehicle.”

Joule had been close enough to overhear that conversation. The Sheriff's Department was more than willing to bring people down the mountain, less so to take them up. Eventually they’d caved and agreed the seats would be open. If the HST people showed up and seemed to be voluntarily willing to go, they would ferry up the relief workers and bring the employees down.

But it wasn’t happening yet. Right now, even the snow vehicles still couldn’t get up the mountain. Though eleven was the plan, no one knew if it would happen.

“As of right now, they're not willing to come up the mountainside. The timing is just their best guess. For anyone not on the rescue mission, you get to decide who the four are that go down the mountain first.” She paused then added, “There will be no Lord of the Flies, no Hunger Games bullshit here.”

Joule wanted to chuckle. She didn’t see it happening, but the glare from the boss lady made sure of it.

One of the monitors raised his hand. He pointed toward her and her brother, then Dev and Aliyah. “Those four should go down first. They were outside while we were in the trailer.”

Joule appreciated the nod. No one argued his point though she was about to.

But Dr. Murasawa jumped right in and filled in the gap in the air. “I want to send a fresh rescue team, but we can’t wait until eleven. If we can, at eleven, add new searchers, we will, but we have to get a team and head out before that.”

At eight. Joule knew. They all did.

“Someone needs to get going with the daylight. I’ll be on the team. Do I have any volunteers? I know you've all been sleeping off and on shifts. No one is at their best.”

Joule was a bit surprised when Carrie, the redheaded monitor, raised her hand. “I'm in.”

Dr. Murasawa only nodded, but others around the room look skeptical.

“What?” Carrie asked, her hands up it the air in protest. “I'm trained in weapons defense. I've got two nine millimeters at my desk—one of them on me right now—since that shit went down with the drug dealers. I’m a crack shot, just ask the sheriff’s people. And I don't know how to snowshoe for shit, but I picked it up okay, and I’m a trained rescue skier.”

All of that was news to Joule, clearly to her brother, too. Only Dr. Murasawa didn't seem surprised as she looked around at the rest of the group to see if anyone was going to further protest Carrie volunteering. No one did.

Another hand went up. Barry, the guy who'd come out to rescue them, who’d been putting out the slack line. “I'm in.”

Whether it was because Carrie had produced such a surprising litany of qualifications, or maybe others knew more about Barry already, no one protested.

“Ongoing,” Dr. Murasawa said, “Can I get at least one more?”

Aliyah raised her hand, quickly followed by Dev.

“No, Dev,” Joule protested, even as Aliyah turned around and shook her head at him, too.

“Why not? You were out yesterday. I was out yesterday.” He wasn’t keen on being shut down. But Joule understood.

Dr. Murasawa jumped in so she didn’t have to. “You've both already had to be rescued⁠—”

“Through no fault of our own,” Aliyah pointed out.

“Exactly.” Dev stepped up next to her, suddenly united. “We've been out, and we've been lost. We've seen what this terrain looks like.”

“Your team has mostly been out on the west face. These guys went east.”

“Is it that different?” Joule asked. She thought of what a firefighter friend had once told her about running into burning buildings when people were trapped. How did you make that call? She had said, we don't trade lives for lives.

Trapped people were inevitable and they would happen, but the chief would never send one of the firefighters in unless he thought it was safe enough for that person to at least get out, and a very high probability that the firefighter would get out with the rescued person. Anything less, and they didn’t go in.

Joule wondered what their odds were here. If they were trying to trade lives for lives.

Lowering his voice, her brother stepped in close to Dev. “Friend, you’ve been stuck out overnight. You got hypothermia once already. If it happens again, I don't know if it would be worse on your system.”

Cage was smart enough not to mention the Dev had already been traumatized by it. That whatever he and Sarah had gone through it had been enough that Sarah had not yet returned.

As Dev reluctantly agreed, Joule thought about the arguments he’d made. They were solid.

Turning, Joule looked at her brother.

They understood each other.

She raised her hand.

44

“There has to be a better option,” Dr. Murasawa said to the room at large.

Joule looked around the room, and she agreed, except for the fact that there wasn't anyone better. She didn’t consider herself to be arguing, only stating her case. “Barry and Jeremy are your top people for this. But only one of them should go.”

“Agreed,” Carrie added. “If another party needs to come out, somebody has to be left behind to lead it. Somebody has to deal with whatever has to happen here.” The redhead was on her feet, nodding along, and Joule found herself with a surprising ally.

But Carrie kept going. “Dev should stay back.”

Joule liked her even better for that, grateful that she wasn't the one who had to say it.

Carrie turned to her friend with a soft expression. “Everybody's right, you spent the night out. You got hypothermia, you were in the hospital. And it's not that you're damaged, it's that you've got your purple heart. You get to sit the next ones out.”

What an excellent way of putting it, Joule thought, grateful for Carrie's interpretation as much as for her agreement.

“Dr. Murasawa, for you, it's hit or miss.” Carrie wasn’t stopping. Joule realized she understood exactly what Carrie meant. “You're the boss, you’re an asset to any team. Having you here running this place is just as valuable as having you out there.”

Her boss folded her arms and shook her head at both of the younger women. “I'm going.”

Honestly, Joule had expected no less.

“Most of us here are monitors,” Carrie added, looking around the room where she was now holding court. She stated it as if this were an automatic dismissal from the team despite her own status.

One of the guys that Joule didn’t know looked Carrie dead in the eyes. Joule noted that he was more rotund of disposition, and he didn’t even stand up. “You’re a monitor, too. I could do it.”

“Absolutely,” Carrie said it the way Joule always felt when she was responding to an idiot on social media. “But I'm weapons trained and rescue trained. If your qualifications beat mine, you can have my spot.”

The man didn't say anything, just looked as though he was trying to slowly sink back into his office chair unnoticed. Carrie offered him the grace of not commenting.

She looked back to the room at large. “We need at least some of the monitors here. If we don't have enough people monitoring, we don't get enough information. Aside from that loss throwing the job backwards several weeks, those of us who are out will need any information we can get. Which leaves Aliyah, Joule, and Cage for the outing.”

No one spoke for a moment, and when Dr. Murasawa did, it wasn’t to negate anything Carrie had proposed. “It's a team of six—more of us than of them. We would have the ability to split up into two groups or even three, if we have to.”

Though she spoke as if it were a done deal, Dr. Murasawa seemed to still be absorbing Carrie's arguments. Joule waited for some real pushback. But when it didn’t come, Carrie took the reins again. Turning, she addressed the two guides. “Barry, Jeremy, who's going?”

Barry literally took a step forward. “Me. Jeremy was out all day yesterday. I’m fresher and he may be needed for rescue later.”

They'd be fifty/fifty, Joule thought.

“Plus, I also led the rescue to pull you guys in.” Barry turned and looked at her first, then her brother, then Aliyah.

Joule nodded her agreement. Barry came across as stable, intelligent, and cool headed.

As if it were decided, he turned to Dr. Murasawa. “What's our time frame?”

“Day trip only.” She declared it as if she held that power. Hadn’t the twins just learned that nature didn’t give a crap about their plans?

“If we don't have them by early afternoon, we’re aimed straight back here.”

Joule wondered if they would be able to get back and hopefully even get down off the mountain by the end of the day. She dreamed of sleeping in her own warm bed. For a moment she imagined plugging in her electric blanket and cranking it to a setting that she had previously referred to as the ninth circle of hell. What she wouldn't give for that right now. But people were missing. She didn’t have it in her to do nothing.

“If we expect a day trip we pack for three days.” Barry began listing what they would need. Jeremy nodded along, already starting to gather the supplies. The two worked as if it were almost inconceivable that anyone would protest.

The twins and Aliyah were first outfitted with other people's heavy coats. Their own were in the car, at the lower point on the mountain. They’d not thought to need them when they came up the day before. These weren’t the bright colors Sarah had insisted on, but Joule knew she’d be better off than she was on the last trip.

Right now, there wasn’t snow predicted but hadn’t they just learned how quickly that could change?

Between the six of them, each pair carried a portable tent and a satellite phone. They all wore multiple GPS tags in different locations. Joule had one tied to the laces of her boots now, one clipped to the back of her pants, and another dangling from the tie for her hood.

Helio Systems Tech had invested in lightweight materials for their people to carry, knowing that they would be out and on foot a lot. Joule was certain this wasn't the first job her thermos had gone on. It might even be a longer-term employee than she was. The tech meant the majority of the weight she carried was soup and not container.

It took an hour from when they debated who would go to when Dr. Murasawa opened the door and set her booted foot outside in the snow, leading the way. Joule followed, once again finding herself at the back of the pack.

They all knew the names and faces of the four they were looking for.

The monitors left in the trailer were able to put together a good list of what each of the missing was wearing when they left, though a lot of it was Helio Systems Tech gear which would be easy to identify. Joule thought of that: What would it mean to identify them?

As she stepped foot into the snow and heard the crunch beneath her boots, she twisted to look back at the trailer one last time, and felt the weight of the gun at her hip.

She didn't want to think about what she might need it for.

45

Cage looked over Dr. Murasawa’s shoulder as she held out the tablet. They’d cleared the field. The trailer was behind them and out of sight, but not by far.

“This is what we have,” she announced.

They'd studied it before, but now they reached the end of the line where the monitors had been tracked to. Any digital evidence of Leon, Ezra, Wilson and Gladys had vanished beyond this point.

It wasn't that Dr. Murasawa’s team had come out here unprepared, it was that they figured they would decide the next step after they arrived. Hoping that they would see something that would give them a clue as to why or how the tracking had disappeared, which way the others might have gone.

Now, as the six of them stood at the fork in the path, they looked at the map.

“These three places are our main options.” Dr. Murasawa pointed to different spots where monitoring devices had been sunk into the ground, hung from the trees, strung across fields and more. “This is where the group was heading out to check equipment or repair it.”

Two of the positions lay slightly to their north, another to the south. Cage didn’t see anything helpful. If the other team had left tracks, they’d left them a day ago, before the snow had kicked up. Everything they might have seen was now completely covered.

“The question is: which path looks like it might be faster to scout out?” Dr. Murasawa asked the team, as they all stood looking.

He had no opinion. Cage looked one way then another. They were in an open space, so he could see mountains through the trees to his right. The more southerly spot was down slope. He pointed, “Is the south more likely to have an avalanche?”

“Can we check two sites if we go north?” Joule pointed out. “Also, we should be able to do it faster, it looks clearer.”

“Isn’t it less likely that they would have gotten caught there?” Carrie asked the group at large. “If it was clear the team would have simply come back.”

“It's a crap shoot,” Dr. Murasawa sighed heavily. They really had no idea. “We can reason it until the cows come home and we don't have time for any damn cows today. So, north or south?”

“North,” Cage voted, but it was solely on a whim.

“North,” Barry said. “I vote we check two sites faster. Two thirds likelihood that's where we find them or close by.”

“North,” Joule agreed. “Less likely we get caught in a snow slide and we don't trade lives for lives.”

He watched as the others absorbed his sister's last line.

“North is fine with me,” Aliyah added.

Barry motioned with one gloved hand, seeming not to feel the cold at all. There was a job for everyone, Cage thought. Barry was in his. “Then lead on Dr. Murasawa.”

This time, Cage hung back, watching as Barry’s jacket moved through the pale landscape around him. It was black, but the gear was punctuated with bright yellow reflective stripes. Definitely rescue team, Cage thought. It had been Jeremy’s idea as he watched Barry climb into his coat and then into theirs to do their best to match it. Though their stripes weren’t reflective, he saw Dr. Murasawa and Aliyah up ahead, both hit with bright yellow duct tape. They all had it along with more tape striping along the front.

“The split in the trail back there is the last place we got any GPS information from the first group,” Dr. Murasawa reiterated. “So why did they quit transmitting there?”

Her voice and the question carried down the line, though no answers came back.

The morning air was still, the snow had quit falling, at least for now.

Aliyah offered, “Maybe this is where the snow caught up to them and the white out blocked signals.”

“Possible.”

“Or something happened that made them ditch the tags.” His sister’s response came from near the back of the line with him and Carrie. Then she contradicted herself. “But then we would see the tags transmitting. We should be able to go to the tags and find them even if we don’t find the people. And we aren’t getting any signal at all.”

“It’s possible then,” Barry added almost thoughtfully, “That it’s just a dead zone here.”

Dr. Murasawa moved forcefully forward but added quietly, thoughtfully, “So it's possible the team back at the trailer has already lost track of us, too.”

But they had sat phones, he thought. They could have called in. So something must have happened that they couldn’t.

With no good conclusions, the conversation died down. The team hiked the slight incline, and he listened to the near stillness around him. It was punctuated by the occasional cracking branch, or call of a bird of prey, or even a too-close rustle in the underbrush. It was too small to be anything like a night hunter.

He enjoyed the sounds. Probably rabbits, raccoons, squirrels—he didn’t know what else might be out here. Birds jumped back and forth in the tree branches, though they only occasionally offered any kind of song to one another. Maybe they were too busy trying to keep their beaks full.

He wondered if they were starving with the winter dragging on the way that it was. It was supposed to be spring. The season was supposed to have changed before his team even arrived, and yet they'd done nothing but fight snow.

Ahead of him, Dr. Murasawa began beeping a low tone that progressively got louder until she managed to get her hands into whatever pocket she'd put the phone in. It took her three tries to operate the screen with her gloves on and get the beeping shut off.

“Check in time,” she announced.

The whole line stopped. Next to him, his sister stamped her feet softly, and Cage began to do the same. As much as it might feel good to stand still, it would very quickly cost him more than it helped. He watched as Carrie also caught on and did the same.

It took precious minutes for the phone to connect up and he held his breath until he heard voices back at the trailer across the line. They checked in as planned. Every hour on the hour. If they didn’t call in, the trailer team would call them. If they split up, they were to notify the base team immediately and even report in who was on what team going what way.

They did their check in, learning that their GPS tags were all still functioning—except for one of Aliyah’s. But, like the rest, she wore three. She shrugged it off. Dr. Murasawa assured home base that all six of the team were still with her and that they had not yet found any need to split up.

For a moment it occurred to Cage that if anyone had any nefarious purposes, they could lie about who was with them. Because at no point had they established having each person declare themselves present. He didn't expect anything like that from this group, but if he had learned anything it was to expect the unexpected.

With the check-in done, the phone was quietly put back in the pack and the team made their way along the trail without further discussion. The going was slow, and the question was only whether they were faster than the team who'd come out yesterday, or slower. How far could the others have gotten in the same time?

His sister pushed on ahead, asking the occasional question at the front of the group, and Cage found himself lingering at the back of the line, with Carrie hanging nearby.

Ignoring the conversation from the front of the line, he found himself asking her, “What made you decide to volunteer?”

“I have the skills.” She said it casually.

“You certainly do,” he agreed. “But is it just because you figured you were an asset?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. There was more to the story than just that she was a Samaritan. “I sit next to Wilson. He volunteered to go out on this check, but he didn’t really want to. He knows the equipment, but he's not very good out in the cold.”

“He's a friend?” Cage asked.

“Not really. Just somebody I sit next to at work a lot. Honestly, I couldn't tell you if he was Jesus or Jeffrey Dahmer, but if it was me who was lost, I would want my teammates to step up.”

An excellent point, and one Cage had thought of more than once. He didn't think he could count the number of times in his life now that he had gone out after someone who was missing, lost, in trouble. He also didn't think he could count the number of times someone had come after him.

In the new world order, as best he could see, no one survived alone.

He was getting ready to comment that Leon was his roommate and a good friend when, at the front of the line, Dr. Murasawa called out, “Stop!”

46

They all froze as Dr. Murasawa commanded them to stop.

Joule kept her ears open but shook her head at her boss. What had the woman even heard?

She remembered from previous jobs that Dr. Murasawa had good hearing. Was it exceptional enough to hear something none of the rest of them did, though?

Eventually, the small, dark-haired woman shook her head in frustration. “Come on. I guess it was nothing.”

She let Barry lead the line, but she was definitely the one giving directions, aiming them toward the northern most equipment checkpoint.

A little while later, she stopped and Joule, once again, almost ran into the back of her. “Are you hearing something?”

Her boss's expression sure made it look like she was listening to something. But she was obviously frustrated that no one else was noticing whatever it might be. Shaking her head, she started the team moving again.

Barry had kept going, but in these conditions, simply jogging a few extra steps to catch up wasn't going to happen. Stopping near the front of the line stopped all of them. It ate time that Joule was discovering couldn't be made up.

“We're very close,” Barry called back, only then realizing he’d left the others behind. It was only for a few moments, but it made Joule wonder if the team could be separated that way. If half the line got stopped, they needed to call out immediately. Though they were prepared to break into teams, they couldn’t afford to do it accidentally.

She watched as, in front of her, Dr. Murasawa shook her head one more time. “I’m hearing things.”

Just then, the crack of a bullet cut the air.

Joule didn't have time to react, only to register the look of shock on the faces around her as she spun, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. In her peripheral vision, she caught sight of Barry.

By the time she saw him, he was already midair, diving at her. Her adrenaline must have spiked, because she had time, very briefly, to wonder why he was aiming for her before she took the hit. He knocked the wind out of her, her ribs feeling almost like they cracked as his hands moved around her holding tight as his shoulder rammed into her sternum.

She heard rather than felt her own grunt as the ground smacked her from the other side. It blurred her vision, so she barely registered the people around her jumping back.

Had she been hit? Was there another shot coming? Was it all just happening too fast? Could someone be out there trying to pick them off, one by one? She processed all of this before the second bullet came.

Then slowly, the others all moved in close around her, looking down, concerned as Barry slowly began to pick himself up. It couldn't even be fear that made her eyes go wide as she looked up at them, she didn’t have time to be afraid. Trying to focus on anyone’s face after taking a hit like that was too much. Through the blur she made out her brother and the worried expressions on all their faces.

Had she been shot?

47

Cage reached down for his sister’s hand, unable to stop his concerned expression. That was partly because he was genuinely worried. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t move, but she did give him a dirty look. One that said she wasn’t sure yet. He continued to hold his hand out, hoping to help get her back to her feet.

He watched as she reached out, patting at her coat. She checked her head, feeling around with her gloves still on, then checking down each leg, almost before she seemed to realize she'd already come to a sitting position.

Cage motioned with his hand again. “Barry really tagged you.”

“Why? I'm not hit? Am I?”

“No,” Cage responded quickly. “Barry saved you from being hit.”

She looked at him oddly. “No one's faster than a bullet.”

“It wasn’t a bullet,” Aliyah told her with a grin. “Look.”

She stepped to the side, but Joule’s continued frown let Cage know he was in the way too. Moving slightly off the trail, he allowed Joule to see the large branch that now crossed the path. Wet snow lay around it in a pattern that more closely resembled blood spatter than he would like.

“Oh,” she said. “That was the crack?”

He nodded.

“I couldn't place where it came from.”

“None of us could. Except Barry.” This time when he held out his hand, she let him pull her smoothly to her hiking-booted feet. The shoes were thick enough and the soles sturdy enough to be useful, but he found he didn't have his usual range of motion in his ankles, which altered his steps, which altered his muscle use. At least now his body was growing used to it. It hindered his sister now as she pulled upright.

“We've been listening for noises from all around, not above,” Dr. Murasawa commented oddly.

“It's definitely something we need to be on the lookout for,” Barry told the group. “As the snow melts, the changing weight on the branches can still make them crack and fall. With these extra weeks of winter, they've been dealing with a lot more stresses than normal. Older trees and weaker branches are likely to come down.”

The group looked at him solemnly.

Great, Cage thought, another danger he hadn't added to his list, another direction to check for every step that he took.

“If we're lucky,” Barry continued as if they all hadn’t stared at him like it was his fault, “The branches that break will be high up. They’ll hit other branches on the way down, and it slows them, and we have some time to get out of the way. But if they come straight down like this,” he looked to Joule, “it is like a gunshot, and there's no warning.”

Cage thought back to the branch they had seen embedded in the roof on the cabin where they'd found the kids. It had fallen well after the children were gone, but it was big enough and heavy enough to have punched a good hole. It was a good thing the kids hadn't been in there when that happened, though he still wouldn't have referred to them as lucky.

“Sorry, I tackled you, Joule,” Barry said it without any real heat behind it.

She shook her head at him and pointed to the ground. “That's where I was standing. I’d be a lot worse off if I was still there. No apology needed.”

Cage felt the cold chill weave through his system that he always did after a near miss. There were too many near misses in their lives, too many moments they’d barely pulled back from the brink of danger, too many people who'd been lost because whatever it was didn't miss.

“Are we safe here?” Aliyah asked, looking around. “Are more branches going to fall?”

“We're no more or less safe here than anywhere else.” Barry commented, his tone too light for the heavy pronouncement. “Branches are going to fall. The day is warming up a little bit and that will bring more of them down.”

Cage almost snorted at the comment. Warming up did not by any stretch, mean warm, and he couldn't feel the difference from when they left earlier. He'd only noticed that no more snow was falling, which he was counting as a good thing.

Whatever the looks on their faces were, it must not have been what Barry expected. He began to explain, awkwardly. “The snow at the surface—” He pointed through to a small patch they could make out through the woods. “—is starting to melt. We're just slightly above freezing.”

Warming up, my ass, Cage thought.

“That means it forms ice, and while ice is less dense than water, it’s more dense than fluffy snow.”

They all knew that. No one got into this job without several years of physics. But extrapolating that classroom knowledge into the real world didn’t always go smoothly until they experienced it. It was why Barry was here. They could all explain the unit energy required to raise a milliliter of water one degree. But he knew to look up and that the cracking sound wasn’t a bullet.

“Everybody's ready?” Barry looked around the group again, and this time they didn’t look so confused. After getting visual confirmation from each of them, he added, “Then we should probably keep going.”

Their path was crossed by the fallen branch now. It appeared even bigger as Barry approached it and managed to throw one leg over and reasonably gracefully traverse it. Dr. Murasawa didn’t fare as well, and she managed to sit on it for a moment. Carrie—not much taller than Dr. Murasawa—made Cage hold her hand, and she climbed right on top and jumped off the other side.

This time Joule hung back. She had to know that being at the front or the back of the group didn't make her any more or less safe, but maybe she felt better back here, closer to the only original family member she had left.

Cage knew he often kept tabs on her for purely selfish reasons. He loved Kayla and Ivy, they were family. But Joule was the last Mazur besides him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

Though she’d told Barry she was fine, for her brother, at least she answered a bit more honestly. “A little bit bruised.”

“That makes perfect sense. Is it going to pass or get worse?”

She might not be feeling the effects of it yet. “No idea.”

That was better than knowing it was going to get worse, not as good as knowing that it wouldn't. He fell into line behind her, watching as she moved, hoping she wasn't favoring a foot or a side, but she didn't seem to be.

Just in logical terms, the team could not afford to be taking hits like this as they moved along. They needed to stay in their best possible shape. But Cage didn’t know how to stop disasters and surprises.

“There it is.” Barry pointed to the right. He turned to check with Dr. Murasawa as they cleared the woods and entered an open field.

The equipment stood waiting. Three poles were embedded around the middle of the space. Each held a small device mounted at the top. Heavy duty twine was strung across the field, with several small spinning wind catchers hanging from it at different points. None of them spun and it was obvious none of them had spun for a while. Though they were designed not to let snow build up, they each had almost an inch of wet, clingy white on top.

This team wasn’t here to check the equipment for readings. Still, they had to check the equipment, to see if someone else had checked it recently. They were hoping for signs the other team had been here.

“Snowshoes!” Barry commented as they seemed to each drift right past him and sink into the fluff that was much thicker here in the open. Three steps out and it was past the top of his boots. Cage wasn’t sure if that was enough to warrant the devices, but Barry thought it was.

Reaching around to the back of his pack, Cage pulled at the Velcro strap and once again freed the shoes. He pushed his feet into the clips and tightened down the straps. He knew exactly which bump to put them to, to keep them the most comfortable and sturdy. Not a skill he'd expected to ever have, even on this trip.

“Fan out,” Dr. Murasawa told them. “As per usual, don't get too close to any edges.”

Though Cage didn't really see one, he took the advice to heart. He hated edges now.

They had been right about this trip. The terrain to the east was a bit different. This field was open on a downward sloping hill without the sharp drop off on one side, like they’d so often seen when heading west.

“Holler if you find anything that looks like they might have been here.”

Cage and Joule moved together but tried to stay out of the way. It was Dr. Murasawa and Carrie who would know most what they were looking for. Each time one or the other of the twins found a dent in the snow, they could only shrug. They had no way of telling if it was a footprint or just the outline of a rock under multiple inches of white powder that was already starting to freeze and fuse.

If they could find a pattern of divots that looked like footsteps, that would be better. But they weren't finding anything useful. Neither did anyone else.

Now that they weren’t worrying about destroying evidence, they headed over to the equipment to check if there was anything there that might tell them something.

Cage and Joule let others read the indicators and read systems. They headed to the edge of the field to check the ends of the strings. It was something the first team would have done if they’d made it to this checkpoint.

Cage was looking back at the others when Joule smacked at his arm. “Look at this, Cage.”

He was bending down to check out the knot, when from the middle of the field Dr. Murasawa yelled, “Quiet!”

48

“We all heard it that time, right?” Dr. Murasawa asked the group.

Joule nodded, as did everyone else around her. It was faint, but to her, it was clearly the word help.

They paused, waiting to hear more, but when another sound didn't come, the team paused, not knowing what to do next. Dr. Murasawa yelled out into the open air. “We're here!”

Almost immediately, the voice came back, still faint. “Help!”

Though she could make out the word, Joule couldn’t help feeling there was something a little off about the voice. It must have been warped traveling through the woods and the snow. She was starting to hear the faint drips of the snow changing to water and no longer holding on to the tree branches.

“It’s that way.” Joule found herself saying even as next to her, Aliyah pointed the same direction and agreed.

Joule watched as Dr. Murasawa tried to take off running, but the snowshoes prevented her, as did Barry. “You can't run in these! And we don't want to run in these conditions!”

“We're coming!” he hollered back to the voice.

Joule must have turned to look at him oddly. Her expression, as usual, said everything she needed and probably several things she didn't want. Why did he sound weird?

“A deep voice will carry further, but if I yell out too deeply, there's a possibility we disturb the snow.” He pointed across the open space and her heart sank.

She hadn't been paying attention. Hell, there were now too many things to pay attention to—listening for lost team members, trying to move faster than a branch could fall if a bullet crack over her head was the only warning. Then there was snowshoes versus hiking shoes, watching out for rocks, branches, twigs and anything else that might be covered by the snow but would still twist their ankles, even in the sturdy hiking boots.

Now, of course, the one that was somehow far enough back in her mind that it might already have been forgotten: snow slides. Sluffs. Here the angle was just enough, and the snow was just deep enough, that it could just move.

She wondered how the melted and fused surface would change that? Would it move like a sheet, knocking their feet out from under them? Would they ride it like a sled all the way down the side of the mountain? There were no answers to her questions, because while Barry had told them not to run, he hadn't told them not to move, and the whole team was turning, aiming toward the voice.

“That's where I heard it from.” Dr. Murasawa pointed through the trees.

“Stop,” Barry told her, even though they were already moving. “We don't know where the trails are here. We should check the map first.”

Clearly frustrated by the wait, but also understanding it was the right thing to do, their boss stopped and took off her pack. Pulling out the tablet, she quickly called up their map.

“You first thought you heard it here?” Barry pointed to the trail they’d come from. “Where did you think the sound came from then?”

“From my right.”

“And then probably about here, you heard it again.”

“I also heard it coming from my right. In taking the trail up here, we've almost circled around them.”

“All right.” Barry remained calm, while the remaining five were anxious to move. Carrie had grabbed her pack straps like she needed something for her hands to hold and she was managing to shuffle in place in snowshoes. That was impressive, Joule thought.

“Let's see if there's a trail headed back to them.”

It appeared that there was one, and Joule was grateful. She would not have appreciated cutting through the underbrush. However, that trail was marked by a notably thinner line on the map, indicating a less traveled path.

They had to move single file, and Joule couldn't see beyond the shoulders of the person in front of her, other than what little advantage her height gave her. While she could see over Dr. Murasawa’s shoulder, Barry held the front of the line, and there was no seeing past him.

The voice called out again, this time, multiple syllables, and it took her brain just a moment to put together what it was.

“Are you coming?”

By the time she'd even processed the phrase, Barry had responded once again in the not very deep voice, “We're on our way.”

Headed along the trail, she found that less traveled meant less snow. They paused again to take off their snowshoes. But even as they did, Joule cast a worried look back at her brother. “I don't recognize the voice.”

49

“I'm sorry,” Cage apologized to the man as he pulled up to a halt.

How had he gotten to the front of the line? How was he the fastest?

It didn't matter. He looked at the man trying not to be rude. “You aren't who we expected to find.”

The man shrugged at him as if to say he didn't know how to respond to that.

“What do you need help with?” Cage asked as his sister moved into the space behind him, both physically and mentally providing backup.

Dr. Murasawa had no issues being blunt. She’d clearly come here for a job, and this man wasn’t it. “Who are you?”

“My name is Ethan.” He paused. “Ethan Trowbridge,” he added, when no one responded to his first name alone.

Cage couldn’t connect the name. Behind him, he could feel the others looking back and forth as he tried not to do the same. Who was Ethan Trowbridge? “Why are you calling for help?”

“I'm stuck. I’ve been here for almost a day.”

Only then did Cage realize that the snow around the man was chopped up, but also covered in a little bit of light fluff, partially turned to ice. Next to him, a shovel was propped against a tree that he was standing a little too close to.

“My buddy and I got caught in a slide.” He pointed up the face of the mountain.

Cage turned to look and saw what he hadn’t seen before. The area they had been standing in had already sluffed and slid down.

“I got smacked up between these two trees, and my snowshoe got caught.” He pointed downward. Both of his legs disappeared into the snow. “This one's buried. I've been trying to dig it out, but the other one, I can't move it and I can't get to it.”

Cage didn't offer to free him and neither did anyone else in his group. Honestly, the lack of offer wasn't much of a surprise. It would have been easy enough to say, we'll dig you out, but something about the man flicked in the back of his brain. Even as he tried to put the disparate pieces together, Joule reached out, the back of her gloved hand tapping the back of his. Something she wanted him to say or think or do without having to tell him out loud.

“Where did you come from?” Cage asked, hoping more information would make things clearer.

Beside him, Barry was walking a large arc around the man. Even the person they had hired for security wasn't overly fond of this stranger who’d turned up in their territory.

“We were hiking the CDT.” The Continental Divide Trail, Cage knew.

“You're way off.” Barry’s tone was clinical.

“Yeah, first we got lost. Then we found other trails over here thinking we'd be safer out of the snow. We camped.” When that clearly didn’t satisfy the team of six staring him down, he continued. “We moved yesterday while it was snowing, which was a mistake, and this happened.” He motioned around him with his hands.

Something nagged at the back of Cage’s brain, the same way his sister's tapping hand physically nagged. The friend.

It was Barry who was fastest to that mark. “Where is your friend now?”

Ethan motioned with his hand. “Somewhere down there. He was swept further down the trail than I was. I hit the trees. You can dig me out and I'll go looking for him.”

An odd request, Cage thought. Not that they should dig him out, but that they would leave him to search for another missing hiker alone. He didn’t seem panicked about it either. If the friend hadn’t yet found him and dug him out, then Ethan could easily be the sole survivor. He didn’t seem all that affected by the possibility.

Still, his request was simple, minimal for the situation. It must be clear they had their own people to look for. Who else would be out in this weather now except searchers?

Then Barry seemed to make an executive decision. “We can help but, you and your friend should know there's been a major operation on this trail where they busted people both cooking meth and running it.”

“I didn't know that,” the man replied, maybe a little too calmly.

Wouldn’t anyone not running drugs be concerned about people running drugs on the trail they were hiking? Cage began to wonder, was this the man from the house? Or the one who’d trailed them through the woods?

His build was certainly close enough though they'd never seen his face. Had either of them gotten a hit on him that would still show? If they lifted his hat would there be a bandage or a still-healing wound? He didn't know.

“I'm pulling out my weapon to approach,” Barry told him, clearly going no holds barred.

Cage felt all his inner alerts go up. Anyone who had nothing to hide would raise their hands and welcome the help.

“If you want us to help you, I'm going to pat you down, and we're going to inspect your bags.”

The man’s hands went up. But he asked, “Are you the police?”

“I'm with the sheriff's office.”

“Well, go ahead.” Ethan moved his hands in an awkward weaving gesture.

It took a few moments for Barry to check. His gestures were fast and efficient, touching everything that could be reached above the snow. “Your bag?”

“I don't know.” Ethan shrugged. “It must have come off.”

Cage felt the warning bells going off in his head.

The pack should have stayed on no matter how Ethan tumbled down the hill. A hiker never wanted to be separated from their supplies. In order to come off, it would have had to unclip multiple places and both shoulder straps would have had to come loose.

If he was a hiker, like he said he was.

Behind him, Cage heard Dr. Murasawa, her tone clear that the official decision was made. “We're not leaving him here.”

She didn't say the second half of the sentence, but everyone understood that if they did, Ethan could die.

With Barry’s okay, the team moved forward. Their packs were lighter than a standard hiker’s pack, but they pulled out shovels and grabbed probe bars to check for the depth of the snow around the man's feet. They quickly measured and found it was almost a few feet.

They'd learned this with Ezra’s narrow miss. That the very thing that made the snowshoes excellent on top of the surface, made them deadly under the surface. Unless a person could get down into the space and undo their boot, the snow on top would hold them completely captive.

Any quick way to unlatch only worked if you could get to that spot to unlatch them. With his feet stuck, there was no way Ethan could. A closer look made it seem he was balancing precariously, one foot forward, the other back.

The team buckled down and quickly worked as a unit. Moving in and out, they took turns and quickly had his snowshoes dug out. His right foot had somehow gotten wedged between two tree trunks. Digging it out and unclipping the snowshoe from it wasn’t enough. Even just getting the binding straps off was difficult because of how it was wedged. Ethan was burning their time.

This was not what they had intended to spend their precious daylight on.

But they would save one life. Even if it wasn’t one of their own.

As Cage stepped back, Joule stepped forward and leaned into trying to pry the boot loose. “Can we take his foot out?”

It was quickly obvious that wasn’t an option. He was well and truly stuck.

From behind the trees, she examined the situation. She had looked at Ethan’s predicament from several different angles as the twins exchanged a few glances in silent conversation—making it clear that they both wondered if he was the man they had encountered from the cabin. If he was the man who had then followed them. They weren't even sure if those two people were the same person.

If he was, Ethan was dangerous, and they were freeing him.

50

Freeing a stuck person was absolutely the right thing to do. It just sucked that they weren’t finding Leon or the others. Joule continued to worry about them. But the counterpoint to what they were doing now would mean admitting she contemplated leaving Ethan behind.

Just because he might be one of the people from the meth lab. Not a very charitable decision.

Two team members held Ethan’s hands in front to brace him as she and her brother worked from behind the tree. They tried lifting the heavily structured boot out from where it was stuck, but had to finally deliver several hard, upward blows. She was trying not to break a sweat. It shouldn’t be deadly now, but it was always dangerous in this weather.

When at last he fell forward, his foot loose, Ethan stumbled, grunting in pain.

Still, he immediately told them “Thank you.”

His apologies gushed forth. He was effusive in his praise for them taking their time to find him when they were looking for their own people.

Though Joule had held her tongue when he asked who they were with and how many people they were looking for, others hadn't. Now he knew about Ezra, Gladys, Wilson, and Leon. Ethan also knew approximately where they might be.

Were they just going to say goodbye to him and let him go to meet up with his friend? If the other man even existed? Joule wasn't sure she believed the story.

As he stumbled forward, Ethan made a move as if he would simply walk away. But it quickly became clear that something was very wrong with the foot that had been wedged between the trees.

“Is it sprained? Broken?” Barry asked.

“I can check,” Carrie volunteered, and Joule remembered the redhead had rescue training. Good.

“I don't know if that's wise,” Barry commented, his hand up to stop her as she moved forward.

He’d already placed one arm around Ethan's waist and slung the other man's arm over his own shoulders for support. “We would have to take the boot off and then put it back on.”

“The ankle or foot clearly has some kind of damage,” Carrie reasoned.

“True. I just don't know if assessing it here is the best thing to do.”

“It'll also slow us down,” Dr. Murasawa said clearly, letting Joule know that they were still going forward.

This was not the end of their day. Joule agreed with that. She didn’t want to stop, though a good hour had been used digging this man out. And she hadn't yet told Dr. Murasawa what she and Cage had found.

Neither of them had said anything during the time that this other man was in earshot, a silent agreement between the twins to not overshare their information.

“We need to get him back for treatment,” Barry declared.

“Of course,” Dr. Murasawa said it as though to state she wasn’t heartless. But she wasn’t stopping either. “Why don't you and Aliyah take him back to the trailer?”

For a moment Barry paused. All of them did. Dr. Murasawa had just made the executive decision to split the team.

“I think I should continue forward with the group,” Barry said softly. He was, after all, the guard. And they’d just come across an issue that showed they clearly needed a guard. Joule agreed with him.

“The problem,” Dr. Murasawa answered in a calm tone, letting him know she'd already thought through every possible iteration of this scenario, “is that we need two of you. We need one of you with our group, and one of you needs to go back with him.”

Softly, with a gesture, she called Barry aside for a moment. Aliyah, seeming to understand her assignment, stepped up, placing her own shoulder under Ethan's other side, helping to support him. He stood on one foot with the other ankle raised.

The injury at least wasn’t faked, Joule thought.

Something was whispered between Dr. Murasawa and Barry. Whatever it was, Barry calmly conceded. “Aliyah and I will head back. But first . . .”

He motioned to Aliyah to take off her pack. She propped Ethan against a tree and followed along. It was clear from her expression that she only understood the basics of the assignment. The nuance was lost on Joule, too.

Barry told her exactly what to remove from the packs. He carried a tent, and so did she. She handed hers over to Carrie. Now Carrie and Cage each had one.

He passed back some of the water that the two carried. “We don't need this much. We're on a straight path back.”

As the pieces were passed back and forth—and Joule took her share and made room for it in her own bag—she realized her team was not heading back anytime soon. Given the time they had just lost, they were likely not going to make it back to the trailers tonight.

They would either be on a twenty-four-hour march, coming in during the wee morning hours, or they'd be unloading their tents and spending the night in the open. Barry and Aliyah had just handed over extra food. Even though they’d packed for three days initially, they were now loaded for slightly more.

Barry handed over a sat phone, which Joule accepted, not liking what it signified, but understanding.

She would have likely made the same decision. She couldn't leave Leon and the others out here. Even if she often said that Ezra could rot, she couldn't leave him to actually do it.

With their lighter packs, but Ethan as a far heavier load, Barry and Aliyah helped Ethan as they started back down the trail. There were three sat phones, Aliyah still had hers.

“Go,” Dr. Murasawa told them. “Get a head start. I’m calling it in.”

She motioned to the others to eat something as she pulled out her own phone and contacted the trailer. “Yes, I’m a little late.”

Just over an hour detour. Joule found herself calculating the time loss as she heard the boss letting the team know they’d found a man named Ethan Trowbridge.

She'd smartly stepped to the side, keeping at least one side of the call private. Joule wondered if the monitors back at the trailer were checking in with searches and the Sheriff’s department for any information about him. If anything concerning came back about the man they’d just freed, Dr. Murasawa didn’t share it with the group. Joule figured that meant he was okay.

Using the opportunity to open her thermos of soup, she quietly handed it to her brother to share. Carrie saw them and pulled her own thermos out, doing the same.

Dr. Murasawa continued to share the usual information. Like which trail they were taking in which direction, she told them she’d sent Barry and Aliyah back with Ethan and to expect the three to arrive in two to five hours.

During this time, Barry and Aliyah had gotten far enough away that Joule couldn’t see them anymore. The going was not easy, Joule knew. Ethan was hopping. Their steps were an awkward and heavy five-legged race. It would likely take them much, much longer to get back than it had taken them to get here, even though they'd come by a very circuitous route.

The others were long gone by the time Dr. Murasawa finished the phone call. Joule had been stamping her feet again, not wanting to stand still. They'd worked hard again to make sure no one broke a sweat, but becoming stationary seemed just as concerning a problem.

“All right, I think we should go this way.” Dr. Murasawa pointed as she put the phone back in her pack and pulled out her tablet.

Joule wanted to start walking, but she needed to tell what she’d seen. “Cage and I found something.”

51

“What did you find?” Dr. Murasawa clearly wanted to know. She turned carefully, her feet making little steps, rather than just executing a simple turn, like they would if they'd been on some kind of solid ground.

“It might be nothing,” Cage qualified even as Joule waved her hands back and forth, clearly thinking the same thoughts. “But the twine that went across the distance holding several of the instruments, it was tied with a knot that we've seen Leon use. It might mean they had been there.”

“I don’t think we’ll see any footprints or anything, because apparently a lot of the snow sloughed down,” Joule added.

“I was wondering that, too,” Carrie added. “There was snow build up on the equipment, but it wasn't a lot. I wasn't sure if it was simply difficult for the snow to build up on the equipment, or if it had only built up over the last day. That would mean they were here and that they cleared it.” She paused and looked around the group again.

“I found something else. Like what Joule and Cage saw, it’s not proof, but⁠—”

“What did you see?” Dr. Murasawa practically demanded to know.

Once again, they weren't moving. The remaining four of them were huddled in close together, the cold biting, trying to steal their sound. He noticed again that his sister was moving her feet, and he copied it.

“I opened one of the devices.”

Interesting, Cage thought. It meant she'd brought a tool kit, because these were not the kind of pop off backs that came on a remote control. They required screwdrivers with specific head sizes.

“The batteries were a different brand than what we originally put in them. That means somebody came through after last Thursday, when we got the new ones.”

Cage felt himself shaking his head. Carrie knew the battery brands?

She must have caught on, because she told him, “Monitors’ lives revolve around these batteries. Somebody has to come out and change them. We can’t let the equipment stop reporting. We get them in these mega packs. Last week, we were shipped a different brand and we've been asked to monitor the life on these, in case this brand is better. So it was obvious to me that these batteries have been put in since last Thursday.”

Cage held his hands up in surrender. He couldn't argue with information like that. She clearly recognized the tech. On top of that, she knew what dates it was associated with.

“It could have been somebody last week,” she countered her own evidence. “But it might have been this team, yesterday.”

“If they were here, where would they have gone? They didn't slide down and get stuck like Ethan, or did they?” he asked the group, though he expected no answers.

“I'm guessing they moved to the next point,” Joule said. “There's nothing here that indicates they were interrupted.”

Carrie nodded, catching on to what Joule was saying. “There's no device that was left unattended. There's nothing that was left half open. The string was tied back into place and leveled. They finished the job here. They probably headed to the next site.”

Dr. Murasawa nodded and held up the tablet she’d been clutching. Showing them all the trail they would take, she made it clear it was not about decision making, but to be sure everyone understood and they were headed the same way.

Dr. Murasawa now carried one of the satellite phones and Joule carried the other. If they split again, the two of them would need to split into separate teams. Cage didn't like the idea that the group had already splintered. It ratcheted up the concerned feeling that had been burrowing deeper all day.

“This way.” Dr. Murasawa pointed. “Assuming we're safe enough to cut across the snow here and that it's not going to slough again.”

“Maybe we should hold hands,” Carrie laughed, “like preschool kids.”

Though she'd offered it up in a snarky way, it was only moments before all four of them made a human chain. They were heading out, and once again, Joule and Cage were at the back.

Though no one had said it, and he didn't know if it was conscious, they’d put one of the satellite phones to the front of the line and one to the back. If they did get swept down the hill and separated, hopefully the groups would each have communication. What a shitty thought. But . . .

“Our sat phone worked here.” He finally connected something in his own brain. “That means, when the team was here, they should have been able to call in.”

“We'd already lost their GPS tags before this point,” Dr. Murasawa commented. As if that would also explain the sat phones.

“Ours clocked in?” he asked. There was a list that they went over with each call.

He wasn’t surprised when Dr. Murasawa answered confidently, “Yes. Aliyah’s one tag still isn't working, but the others are all still reading.”

“So what happened to the team?” He wished he had better answers. He wished that any of the three competent and incredibly smart women looking at him could tell him anything. The fact that they couldn't concerned him further.

They'd only made it a handful of steps before Cage caught a flash of color in his periphery. Yanking on Joule's hand, he paused before realizing that wasn't enough. “Stop!” he called out to the team, hoping he kept his tone light enough. “There's something down there. It's blue.”

“Do we need to go get it?”

He didn't know.

Carrie unlinked herself and immediately began moving across the way. “Of course we do! What if it belongs to one of our people?”

“I don't think any of our people have anything that shade of blue,” Joule replied, but they were all following Carrie now. She wasn’t stopping.

It didn't take too long—though they all stepped very carefully down the slope—before they arrived at what was clearly a pack.

“Is this Ethan's pack?” Carrie asked.

“It can't be.” Joule’s reply was instant.

Cage looked at her. “He said it was swept off of him further down the hill.” A tip of his head let his sister know what Cage had thought of that story.

“It's on the surface of the snow,” Carrie commented almost too casually. “Which means it hasn't been here as long as he was stuck in that spot. There's no snow accumulated on it.”

Carrie offered the conclusions like it was an absolute. While there were several flakes that had clearly blown across it, she was right. Nothing had fallen from the sky and built up on this as it would have if it had been swept away when Ethan said it was.

“Do we open it?” He asked.

“We absolutely open it,” Dr. Murasawa proclaimed, almost angrily. “It looks like he lied to us, and our people are with him.”

Cage felt the chill run down his spine, but he didn't have time to act before Carrie and Joule were reaching for the pack. “Be careful!”

“It shouldn't be booby trapped,” his sister said, even as she pulled at some of the latches.

Though she was absolutely right, he understood what was and what should be was not always in alignment.

The two were peering down into the pack, tipping it and aiming it to let the sunlight give them a better view, as Carrie said, “Oh, hell, there's a gun in here, right on top.”

Cage felt his hand come up to his mouth as he swallowed.

“Look at the snow,” Carrie pointed around the pack, even though they had already messed it up. “He threw it. Probably when he first heard us coming. He knew he had a gun on him and who knows what else is down in this pack.”

“Are we taking it with us?” Joule asked, looking up.

As usual, Dr. Murasawa’s answer was clear and already decided. “No. We don’t need the extra weight, or possibly to carry drugs someone is after.”

Cage watched as Carrie and Joule dropped it like a hot rock.

“We are however taking pictures,” Dr. Murasawa continued. “We're getting evidence, and we're geo locating it. We're calling in on the sat phone now and letting them know what we found. And we're taking the damn gun.”

She was already handing the phone to Carrie, making it clear that the monitor was to phone this in. She moved closer to the bag, maybe more willing to leave her own evidence on it than her employees. “We're going to search it. We are not leaving weapons out here for someone to use against us.”

Then she muttered under her breath, but Cage caught it. “We keep working jobs where people like to hide their fucking drugs!”

He tried to console her. “At least Barry patted him down first. Ethan shouldn't have any weapons on him.”

But was that enough to keep Barry and Aliyah safe?

The four looked back and forth, acknowledging that they had just sent two of their team members away with someone who was clearly lying. And probably part of an illegal network that was likely actively looking for him.

52

Joule stared at Dr. Murasawa, her mouth hanging open. “It was arson all along?”

“Maybe,” her boss replied, looking at the small team. “Probably.”

It was now just Carrie and her brother. Their team had dwindled. Though she knew it was a decision they’d all made together—and the right one—it still shot small sparks of fear through her.

Turning, she saw that Carrie was just as stunned. Cage had a look on his face that said Dr. Murasawa’s statement made it all make sense.

Fuck. Arson. They'd known it was a possibility all along.

“We really do suspect, then, that someone was trying to burn out the trailer? To make us leave?”

Dr. Murasawa nodded solemnly. “Given when the fire started, they think it's possible. Whoever set it actually tried to burn both trailers.”

Joule felt her mouth open wider. Thank God she’d put the face covering back on. Breathing these revelations into it was keeping her face warm.

“There was additional evidence found behind the first trailer. Accelerants.”

“And you didn’t—” Joule wasn't able to finish the sentence. She loved Dr. Murasawa. She knew the words would come out like an accusation, and ultimately, she couldn't stop them from coming out of her mouth. “You knew all along?”

“No, I've only known for two days. They didn't tell us about the attempt on the current trailer until they shared their final analysis. We were trying to figure out how to announce it, to let people leave if they didn’t like it.”

That at least sounded more reasonable. Still, she hated it. “Did they figure out who did it? Are they withholding that, too?” Damn. She sounded angry.

She was angry, but she wanted to be mature and at least not sound like it. Joule wanted to act rational and informed, neither of which she felt right now.

“They don't know who did it,” Dr. Murasawa said. “They're still looking into that. There's some fingerprint evidence, but it doesn't match to anybody already in the system.”

“What about the people they just got in the sting?” Carrie pushed.

Joule was grateful for the force behind the other worker’s voice. She didn't want to be the only one slinging accusations. Though maybe it was better that the workers didn’t know, she did not like being the one in the dark.

A moment of clarity raced through her brain.

Maybe it was time for another job. One that didn't have them consistently putting themselves in the kind of places drug dealers preferred, the kind of places where people got lost, the kind of places where the people who were already there didn't want them.

She'd faced all of that, more than once. Joule believed that the work was good and necessary. She still did. But it was a bit of a revelation to think she didn’t have to be the one doing it.

Things would have to change; Cage was right. People shouldn't be talking about Terraforming Mars. They should be talking about Terraforming Earth. If we could Terraform anything, why not do the one that required the least effort and yielded the most benefit?

This job seemed the closest she could get to that. She still believed in the corporate mission, but she was no longer willing to be downstream of all the knowledge anymore. She listened with a more discerning ear this time.

“So far, it doesn't match to anyone that they brought in from the raid,” Dr. Murasawa told them. She made eye contact with each of the three, making sure they believed her. Joule did.

“We have to tell Barry and Aliyah, of course.” Carrie said it with a hard sigh.

Being told the truth was good, but being told the truth too late was not.

Dr. Murasawa was already pulling out the satellite phone.

“But how do we do it without alerting Ethan?” Cage asked the group at large.

“Barry's got the phone,” Joule said, “and, as per usual, you'll probably have to ring him and then wait for him to call back or ring again, so he has time to get the phone out. He likely won't have it in his hand.” Which was a shame. They needed to know who they had with them.

“Do we call in to central first, or do we call Barry and Aliyah first?” Cage asked.

For a moment, none of the other three answered. Joule didn't have a good answer, but Carrie did. “We call Barry and Aliyah first. They're the ones in immediate danger.”

“What if they start acting different, though?” Dr. Murasawa asked. “What if it tips Ethan off that they’re onto him?”

Though it sounded like something out of Scooby Doo, Joule took the question in all seriousness. “Better they know first and tip him off than that they find out when he turns on them.”

Joule put her hands up in the air, thinking as she spoke, “or that they get close to some place he recognizes and he makes a break for it, or they run into someone with him.”

“Fair.” Dr. Murasawa began dialing the phone. As expected, no one answered, though she let it ring for a long time.

Joule tried not to let that disturb her. She knew Barry would be carrying the phone in the pack. He would also have one arm around Ethan, as Aliyah would on the other side. Ethan had only one useful foot and she was counting on his disability to keep the others safe.

When the phone rang back, Dr. Murasawa answered quickly, “Barry?”

Then her face changed. At the pointed looks from the other three, she held the phone out and pushed the button for speaker. Joule had to imagine that her own expression had been just as much imploring as Cage and Carrie’s had. She was glad that she wasn't the only one no longer willing to be left out.

She was a good, dutiful employee, but only to a point. Joule was more than willing to risk her life for one of the other employees, though she hoped like hell that wasn't what they were actually doing. But she was not risking it unnecessarily. She wasn't going out into the woods, unknowing, while dangerous elements seemed to have their eye on them. And were most likely the ones trying to burn down their equipment.

It wasn't Barry on the phone. It was Jeremy.

Joule felt her eyes darting to Carrie, her allegiance to the other worker growing even as she was disappointed in Dr. Murasawa.

“Jeremy?” Joule said, her voice acting before her brain.

“Joule?”

“Yes.”

“Is everyone listening? . . . The fingerprints on the arson were matched.”

Speak of the devil Joule thought.

“They matched to a man named Scott Trowbridge.”

She felt her shoulders slump, her head fall down, but a moment later, it snapped back up as she looked at everyone else. That couldn't be coincidence.

“Is he tall, slim, with short, dark hair and green eyes?” Carrie was already asking.

Joule felt her own eyes widening as she looked at the monitor. Carrie only shrugged as if to say What? I notice things.

“No. He’s about five-seven, heavier set, short brown hair, blue eyes.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief. Scott Trowbridge was not the man they just sent two of their people off with. But if Ethan had used his real name, they were almost definitely related.

“We were just calling Barry and Aliyah to let them know.”

“Let them know what?” Jeremy asked.

Dr. Murasawa explained about the pack and the gun.

“Can you bring it back?” Jeremy asked.

“Sure,” she replied, startling Joule and the others, then her sarcasm broke through. “If we don't continue looking for missing people. It’s too much to carry unless we are just heading straight back.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. We'll send somebody out for it.”

“Is that wise?” Joule asked.

“It should be okay. The day is warming up rapidly.”

She’d meant for their people to go out and look for what might be a large amount of drugs. Product that a dealer might be willing to go to a lot of trouble to conceal or get back.

But Jeremy was thinking about the weather. “Give us the coordinates. So you know, we’re considering sending a B team out to look for the others as well.”

None of them replied about that.

He offered to put in the call to Barry and Aliyah. He agreed to make sure the call wasn't handled directly in front of Ethan. Even if they'd been wrong about the backpack, the last name Trowbridge matching to fingerprints on the arson attempt wasn’t looking good.

“If you guys are going to stay out longer, you should be looking at better weather,” Jeremy said again before they all ended the call.

As Joule looked around the small group, the four of them looked relieved. The temperatures climbing above freezing would be enough to take off the heavy coats, to switch to their lighter fleece jackets, to move easier without the snowshoes slowing them down.

“I’m glad for warmer weather,” Carrie said.

Joule agreed, not knowing yet how wrong they all were.

53

They were almost thirty minutes farther along the trail when the sat phone rang. It gave four short bursts of sound, but Dr. Murasawa was already pulling her pack off and reaching for the device. Cage marched along behind her, trailing through the woods again.

He was listening for the sounds of someone calling for help. Watching for a sign the others had come this way. Hopefully, the sat phone was bringing good news.

The team didn't carry heavy hiking packs, not like the one Ethan had tossed away. At no point were they intending to do any heavy hiking.

None of this was on the agenda—not when they’d taken the job, not when they’d left the condo the other day. Besides, search and rescue shouldn't have been an issue. Nothing had gone according to plan.

He could look back now with hindsight and list several other things that they'd screwed up. They'd not taken heavy coats out the other day when they got caught in the snow. He and his sister were currently wearing other people’s coats. Theirs were at the parking lot.

He and Joule each had their own personal satellite phones—purchased for a search in the Texas desert—though the numbers weren't on record at the trailer, they easily could have told people how to call them. Each of the four here could have had their own satellite phone. The twins had brought the phones to the job, but they were sitting in the apartment because this was not part of the plan.

They hadn't been back to the apartment for going on three days.

They hadn't checked their online channels. They usually at least looked each evening. Reading the comments on the videos they’d shared. Cross referencing for any other videos people might have posted about the night hunter problems they might be having. Or about new versions that had been found around the world.

Two more breeds had been reported by amateur hunters. Cage and Joule had directed them to contact Dr. Banza’s office—giving instructions on how to collect blood samples, what results to get, and how to get those results to Dr. Banza and Nikkiki for analysis.

He wanted to follow up. Questions were going unanswered and all for what? Data not being mined, fields not being checked, solar arrays not being set up.

They were supposed to be returning home in another month, and the whole project was already so far behind. It was clear that wasn't going to happen. At this rate, there wouldn't be any transitional season, and the area would go directly from winter to summer. He was not looking forward to working in the heat.

And his thoughts were wandering to the random recruiters who occasionally tried to get him hired other places. Maybe when he checked his email again, he’d take those offers a little more seriously.

“What?” Dr. Murasawa said into the sat phone suddenly. Whatever she'd heard from the other end, she hadn't liked it. She'd stopped moving. Putting one finger in her other ear, old school style, she looked up between the trees.

They'd all taken their snowshoes off, following the trail where they hoped they had guessed correctly the direction the others had taken.

“What? . . . I have to call you back. I can’t hear you.”

Holding the phone out, she looked to the group. “The connection is getting worse.”

There had been a few moments the last time they'd used it, Cage had noticed. Places where they couldn't hear portions of words. A moment or two in the past when they'd all looked at each other and mouthed what they thought the other person said.

“Crap.” She pulled out the map. “We need to get to the largest nearby open space. That's our best chance of getting a decent connection.”

“If it's behind us, we lose distance,” Joule pointed out.

Dr. Murasawa had already absent-mindedly held the phone out, and Carrie had taken it. Cage and Joule crowded around, looking at the map with her. There was the open mountain side behind them, but . . .

“Here,” Cage pointed.

“And here.” Joule offered another spot.

They could keep going straight ahead, but the spot that Joule found—at least according to the markings on the map—should be slightly larger and closer. It was also a little more South.

“Fuck,” Dr. Murasawa said a little too calmly for the swear she didn’t usually use. “This isn’t the direction we were intending to head, but it’s closer.” She pointed to the space Joule had found. “We’ll have to cut through the underbrush.”

“At least it's not tick season!” Carrie said with a falsely saccharine tone.

“I hope Jeremy heard me when I said I was going to have to call him back, and that I might be a little bit.” Dr. Murasawa sighed heavily. “It looks like it will take us about twenty minutes to get there. If we can keep a good pace.”

Cage agreed with her assessment, and they all turned and began stepping off the path. The underbrush was nowhere near as easy to navigate as the trails had been. With his thick hiking boots, his feet simply weren't flexible enough to grip well, to mold to the spaces where he might confidently plant his foot. None of them were at their best.

They went up and over rocks, slid on icy patches, and heard more things shuffling in the underbrush than he cared to count. Birds chirped overhead, and slowly the patches of gorgeous, brilliant blue that shone between the treetops became closer and closer.

“There!” Joule called out and pointed ahead as the woods opened up.

He didn’t say it, but he had to wonder if they were even at the same field they'd chosen. They believed they were, but so many times they'd veered off the path they'd picked. Large boulders were in their way. Trees were down, and it was better to go around than over. But when they got to the end of it, they couldn't simply go back and pick up where they had left off. They diverged from their plan more times than they'd stuck to it.

While their GPS tags would allow the center to see them, they couldn't see themselves on the map. It wasn’t operating in real time. They couldn’t follow themselves as a series of little dots on the map trail.

Hell, the sat phone wasn't even at its best, most of the time.

When they reached the edge of the field, they all stopped once again. Reaching to the backs of their packs they all silently pulled out their snowshoes, strapped them on and headed toward the middle.

Carrie pushed the heavy phone toward Dr. Murasawa, having held it in her hand the whole way here. But no one said anything as she called the center again.

“Jeremy, it's Chithra!”

“Oh, good. We were getting worried.”

“What did you call about? We didn't have good coverage and everything you said dropped out. I need you to assume I didn't hear anything from the last call.”

“Understood,” he replied then tried to tell them again what they’d missed from the last call. “Barry and Aliyah aren't answering their phone.”

Oh, hell, Cage thought. But he blurted out, “They're heading back toward you! They should have better reception than we do.”

“Maybe they're in the woods and the trees are blocking it? Maybe there's too many rocks nearby? Who knows?” Jeremy said it as if it were almost casual, but Cage’s chest was constricting.

They'd sent two of their team members off with someone they'd since found out was likely part of a drug ring. Now they weren't answering.

“Their GPS tags?” Joule asked.

“Not picking up.”

“They should have five left!” Carrie protested, “You can't get one of them?”

“No,” Jeremy said solemnly. “Not one.”

54

“We have to go back,” Joule protested.

“But we've gone the wrong direction to do that,” Dr. Murasawa replied.

“What?” Jeremy asked over the phone.

“We're debating whether or not we should go back for them.”

“Were we?” Were they even debating it? Joule wondered, her mouth open again. They had to go back.

But Dr. Murasawa was shaking her head. “I think we're too far away now. They were headed back toward the trailer. It'll be faster if someone goes out to get them.”

“We can follow their footprints,” Carrie pointed out. “They left from where we were, and we watched them go. We can track them. They're headed toward the trailer, so the people coming from the trailer can't trace their movements, only hope to intercept them.”

Dr. Murasawa was still shaking her head, even as Jeremy said, “We've got our best people on it.”

“If we go back,” Dr. Murasawa said, one hand on the phone the other gesturing in front of her. Her flat palm was down as if needing to make a serious statement, “Then no one is looking for Gladys and Ezra and Leon and Wilson.”

Joule felt her own expression fall. She knew that the name in that list that bothered her the most was Leon’s. The one that got Carrie out here was Wilson. Joule wasn’t even sure she’d met Gladys. And no matter how much she might enjoy thinking of Ezra as a negative, he was a human being who lived in the same unit as she did. The thought of leaving him out without even a reasonable attempt to find him was more than she could bear. If she was lost, Ezra damn well better get off his butt and come dig her out.

“Where was their last GPS signal?” Carrie blurted out, leaning closer to the phone.

Joule found she liked the redhead, maybe because she also struggled to hold her tongue. But those were the kind of people that Helio Systems Tech hired: bright, educated, creative, dedicated to the plan. Unfortunately, it also seemed to come with a side effect of blurting out whatever ideas they had the moment they had it.

“The last GPS signal we got was when we checked twenty minutes after they split from your group. We had their GPS when they were with you. We have your GPS moving away and their GPS moving toward us—all five of their tags showed. But about twenty minutes after that, when we pinged them again, nothing came.”

That first part was good, Joule thought. Unfortunately, it was more reason to her why they shouldn't turn around and go back. If everything was going well and it was just an equipment malfunction, then Barry, Aliyah and Ethan would be getting further and further away from them. And a team was heading out to get them.

“The tags suddenly not responding as they get closer to central monitoring . . .” Joule tried to put the pieces together. “That feels like a really bad sign.”

“I hate to agree with that assessment,” Jeremy said, “but I do.”

“Should we come back?” Cage asked again.

“There’s nothing you can add here,” Jeremy told them. “Please keep looking for those who are lost.”

His tone finally broke. As if one of the names on the list bothered him, too. Not just as four workers, but someone he needed to see again. “We are on this on our side. There are extra people coming in from the sheriff's office. Two of their people are missing now.”

Interesting. Joule had not been overly keen on having the sheriff's office involved. She'd had run ins with other sheriffs and deputies in the past, and wasn't impressed with being questioned repeatedly for a crime she'd had no involvement in. Her phone had been impounded, most likely cloned, and handed back to her—likely as bait.

But she liked Barry well enough, and he'd done a good job. If his being part of the sheriff's office got more eyes on finding him, she couldn't be upset about that. However, the local sheriff's office had run the sting operation, supposedly making the place safe for them again, but now she was beginning to have her doubts.

With the decision made, and no word from Barry or Aliyah, the four of them turned to look at each other.

“What do we do now?” Carrie asked. “If we keep looking, shouldn't we head the same direction we were going?”

“That would make sense,” Cage said, “But first, we need to be sure where we are.” He looked around as if trying to triangulate them by sight alone.

“Have you pinged us recently?” Dr. Murasawa asked into the phone.

In a few minutes, they had their coordinates and were grateful they were where they thought they were.

“If we go back to the trail, we have to climb back up that hill.” Cage pointed behind them. “I don’t want to unless we have to.”

Her brother was right. It had been much easier going down than it would be going back up. “What's our likelihood of finding our trail?”

“Well, we're in the right field, which means we might try to aim toward the second station,” Carrie offered, turning slowly on her wide snowshoes. “That way?”

“That’s probably our best bet. I agree we didn’t come down cleanly enough to retrace our path.” Dr. Murasawa looked up the slope as if she could see right back through the woods. “Even if we climb back up, I'm not confident we'll run into the trail.”

“Agreed. It’ll be much harder to find a trail in the woods than to find an open space like this.” Carrie held her hands wide, her head turning back and forth, as if she were just surveying the space. But then, as her head turned to the right, something subtle shifted in her posture. Her back straightened. “What's that?”

Joule followed the finger Carrie was now pointing as she stared. But she’d already seen it, too. Tapping her brother on the shoulder, she did her best to move quickly in her snowshoes, as they all tried to take off running.

55

“What about this one?” Cage asked pointing to the orange streamer tied to a low branch.

The others turned to look. They'd almost reached the pink flag they'd found about thirty feet away.

“It could be nothing,” Carrie cautioned. “It might not be our people.”

Joule nodded, but as his sister stepped toward the flag she reached out and rubbed at it between her gloved fingers. It was two inches wide, thin pink tape, fluttering in the light breeze. “It could be nothing, but this is the exact tape we carry in our packs.”

“We have pink and yellow and orange,” Cage added pointing behind them as they weren't paying enough attention. “This one's orange.”

To their left, the orange flag lifted slightly though he didn’t feel a breeze. To their right, the pink one did too.

“Okay!” Carrie stopped, her hands out as if she were leading the troops. “Before we go following these, we should be far more certain it's our own people.”

“I think it’s them. Look at the knot,” Cage added.

“It's a knot.” Carrie looked at him like he was dumb.

“No,” Joule told Carrie and Dr. Murasawa, “It's a Leon knot. Leon likes knots.”

Leon had sailed with his family as a kid, Cage remembered. Like most of their histories, it wasn’t a pleasant story. One day, the boat had capsized from a near tsunami-like wave triggered by an earthquake. Leon and his sister had survived but lost both of their parents. Relatives had taken them in but sold the boat as if angry at it for letting their family die.

“These aren't sailing knots,” Carrie protested.

“They are not!” Cage agreed with a grin, as though he had made a pun in the middle of a ridiculous situation. “But they're absolutely the kind of thing we've seen Leon use around the condo. I'm willing to bet that this is him.”

“And the pink?” Carrie asked, looking between the two, confused.

At first glance, they looked much the same. From what he’d seen, both had torn ends, as if someone had ripped at it with their teeth. They were about the same length. It seemed they’d been made by the same person or people.

“Pink one’s tied the same way,” his sister called back after heading across the space and getting her face close to the other one.

They stared at each other until Dr. Murasawa took control of the conversation and her employees. “Okay. The very good news is that we seem to have found some information about our people. The question now is, which direction do we go?”

Carrie listed what they had. “The Northern way uphill was labeled pink. The orange way heads downhill, South.”

Downhill was an interesting way to put it, Cage thought. They were on the side of a mountain, not a hill. Given the way they'd seen the peaks on the opposite side, there were sheer cliffs, drop offs, rock faces, and more. Hardly what he would determine downhill in any other scenario.

“Let's look around a little bit more. See if we can find better information,” Dr. Murasawa offered, when they'd stayed quiet for a moment trying to sort out what they needed to do next. “Maybe if we can find more flags, we can figure out at least which direction they were headed.”

They split up, each slowly moving one way or another. Cage found himself pulling out his sunglasses against the glare now that the sun was fully up, and everything was reflecting icy white. He found he was afraid they'd find a string of flags, and that the string would still require a choice of one direction or the other.

“They should have left us some fucking arrows,” Carrie commented, close enough for him to hear her.

Looking over, he saw she lifted her hand to her forehead. She called out to Dr. Murasawa. “Sun's been out for a while. Is it warm enough to take off these coats?”

Cage hadn't realized but around him, the three women—who all seemed to possess body heat superior to his own—were squirming.

Joule exclaimed, “That's what it is! I just felt irritable for the last hour or so.”

“I think it’s warm enough to go down a level,” Carrie commented, already shrugging out of the heavy outer layer.

“Just remember, it'll change if we go back under the trees,” Dr. Murasawa added, “Keep it handy?”

She said it with a question mark. These weren't the kind of coats where one could simply tie it around your waist and be able to put it on and take it off at will. Still, it would be better if they stayed the right temperature.

All three women turned to look at him as he made no move on his own coat. “Not yet for me.”

It took another fifteen minutes to locate more flags. They found one more pink, and two more orange.

“I still have no idea which direction they were headed!” Dr. Murasawa threw her hands up in the air. “We're going to have to make a guess.”

“Well, the good news,” Cage said, “is that they knew they were lost.”

The other three had looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Before this point, they weren't leaving any signals for us to follow.” He watched as understanding dawned and the three faces nodded at him. “Whatever happened when they were near here, they decided to start marking their way. Either to find their own way back or for us to follow. They probably realized they weren't getting any information from their satellite phone. They may have tried to call in several times, maybe the day was getting too late.”

“We're talking yesterday, of course,” Joule added. “Wouldn't they have realized they were lost at some point before the night fell?”

Dr. Murasawa nodded solemnly.

“My guess is they would head this way.” He pointed in one direction.

His sister looked at him and just asked, “Why?”

56

Joule watched as her brother straightened his spine. The others might not know it, but it was a sign that he wasn't as confident as he appeared. It meant he was trying to give himself the little extra room he needed, but she wasn't going to be upset about it. Somebody needed to make a decision and Cage at least had some level of reasoning for it.

“Just listen,” he told them.

They all obeyed and paused. Joule heard all kinds of things and still had no idea what her brother was talking about. There was water dripping from the trees still. Birds took turns singing back and forth. Did he recognize some particular bird song that indicated where the others might have headed? She wasn't picking up anything useful.

“Water,” he said, “not the dripping. There's actual running water, and of course, running water will be lower. They had enough supplies to be out for the day. But not more.”

Joule caught on again, as did the others. Cage may have had to straighten his spine and convince himself, but the logic was sound.

“If they were lost,” she picked up the thread, “They would realize they didn’t have enough supplies. Getting to clean water would be a priority. With all the snow this season, whatever's down there is mountain runoff. It should be drinkable.”

She remembered that: a brief one-off line here or there in the rapid and incomplete training they’d been given. There wasn’t supposed to be this much snow. But if they got lost? Head downhill, aim toward running water. If she got thirsty enough, she could probably drink it safely at this time of year, but no guarantees.

Did Leon and Ezra remember all of that? Did Gladys know?

Mostly, Joule had been focused on learning how to move her feet the correct way in the snowshoes, keeping her stance just a little bit wide in those early test scenarios. She, like everyone else, had wanted to bring her legs too close together, and more than once, she’d clipped her ankle with the side of the snowshoe. If she hadn't been wearing such heavy hiking boots, she would have bruised herself.

“So . . . we think what?” Dr. Murasawa asked. “The knots all seem to have been made by Leon. He left all of the flags or he showed someone how to make the knot, and the team split up and they went different ways? That seems less likely to me.”

Joule shrugged to the others, looking back and forth. “It may seem stupid to split up, but we did. And we had a good reason. Who knows what they've encountered?”

She didn’t want to think about it. Maybe the two colors designated two trails.

“The other option is they went one way then changed their mind.” Dr. Murasawa was looking at the flags as if they might tell her more now than they did five minutes ago. “They might have changed the flag colors to keep themselves oriented.”

“If they went up and encountered what we did coming down, they very well may have changed their minds,” Carrie pointed out. “It was likely snowing heavily when they were here. And aiming up that hill in those kinds of conditions?”

Carrie didn't finish the sentence, except to add, “I don't know if I could have done it.”

The other three nodded, and Dr. Murasawa declared it. “Decision made. We follow the orange flags, and we head south.” Then she added, “I'm calling it in.”

Hadn’t they just called in? Except Joule discovered as she checked the time they hadn't. It had taken nearly forty-five minutes to get to the first flag, for her brother to find the second one, then make a decision.

The day was wearing on, and it would take another while for the satellite phone to connect up. At least when they called in, someone in the mobile trailer was waiting and answered when the phone rang. It wasn't quite the same as if they were trying to get Barry.

Though Dr. Murasawa motioned for them to move, she stayed behind to talk. Cage and Carrie started heading down the slope, looking for the next orange flag, but Joule tapped her boss on the shoulder, slightly interrupting. Dr. Murasawa kept her head down, her ear pressed to the phone and shook her head.

It was only after she hung up that she looked at Joule, and Joule got to ask. “Any word on Barry and Aliyah?”

Her boss only shook her head solemnly, no. She wasn't going to elaborate on more of it, but Joule couldn't help the worry that crept in.

She reminded herself that Ethan Trowbridge had at least a sprained ankle, if not a broken one. There were two of them to one of him, and Barry was trained and armed. Aliyah was scrappy.

She followed her brother who followed the orange flags. The going was slow. The trail moved from open field to covered trees, seeming to simply follow the easiest downward path. The small team stopped periodically.

“Is there any indication how many of them were here?” Carrie asked, as if the others might have somehow become expert trackers in the last hour.

Joule shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and watched as Dr. Murasawa and Cage mostly did the same.

“If they were coming through here in heavier snow, it was also a full day ago, if not longer. So whatever tracks they made would be obscured.” Dr. Murasawa looked disturbed by that. They had only the flags to go on.

They continued on, the pink flags having disappeared some time ago, hopefully indicating they’d made the right decision. Maybe this was where the others had started. They’d headed north, maybe trying to get back, then went south when they realized it wouldn’t work. All Joule could do was cross her fingers and hope that they'd made the right decision.

It was only a few hours later that the light in the sky began to change. They'd been out all day.

“We need to stop,” Dr. Murasawa said.

Joule didn’t understand. They were making good time. Their snowshoes were off. Though they could have kept them on, it was faster without them. In some places, the snow had formed a crisp shell on top from the sun. Luckily, it wasn't deep enough here to cause too much trouble. She either stepped on the surface and stayed there or punched through. It seemed entirely random—every footstep either holding or dropping her suddenly a good six to seven inches, but it was still faster than the snowshoes.

They stayed attached to the strap on her pack, occasionally making a small thunk as they tapped against each other. The shoes on her brother’s pack looked the same, but no longer had his telltale tape. The first pair had been confiscated for evidence, but HST had simply handed over yet another identical pair for him to use.

“It's getting late,” Dr. Murasawa said, though it wasn’t yet. “It's actually past time to make a decision, and I feel like we may have inadvertently made it already by not making it sooner. Let’s eat while we decide.”

“About going back?” Carrie asked softly.

Dr. Murasawa nodded. “If we head back, we’ll be marching mostly in the dark. Even if we do our best to aim straight back, we'll arrive very late.”

“That’s without any errors. And it’ll more likely be early tomorrow morning,” Joule added.

“Exactly.”

“I don't like the way the snow is melting,” Carrie said. “The trail won't be the same on the way back as it was on the way out.”

They all looked at each other, knowing the navigation had been hard enough in the light.

Cage added, “If we go back, we're not here to start the search tomorrow morning.”

Every day they were out, it was more likely something had gone wrong for the others. Every hour they stayed out, it was more likely something would go wrong for them. Joule understood. “So we're looking for a place to set up camp?”

“I say we go another hour or two,” Carrie volunteered as if hoping that might be enough. “We still have daylight. When it starts to fade, we find ourselves a spot.”

“We’ll need to be up high, off of the ground,” Dr. Murasawa added. “Jeremy gave me the weather report and it's supposed to continue getting warmer.”

“Hallelujah,” Joule whispered under her breath, and she watched as Carrie grinned next to her.

She and her brother polished off the soup from their thermoses. Best to eat it while it was still warm. As they finished and closed the empty containers Dr. Murasawa looked between the four of them.

“I hate to litter, but leave the thermoses, the extra weight isn't worth carrying.”

She didn't add I don't know what will be carrying on the way back. But Joule thought it.

“We shouldn't chuck them, and we shouldn't litter.” Carrie held hers up as if to demonstrate. “We should leave notes inside them. When we were here, which direction we're headed, how to find us.”

“Smart.” Dr. Murasawa smiled. “We’ll leave them at intervals.”

In a few moments, they had the first note constructed and pushed inside the thermos that Carrie had done her best to wash out with a fistful of snow. They tied it to a tree with their own yellow tape. Then they were off again.

Several hours later, they had to admit they needed to make camp. Joule searched the area, looking for wood in the low light as her brother set up the tent for the two of them. Carrie and Dr. Murasawa would share the other but they anchored them side by side. Nothing could happen to one without the other knowing.

She and Carrie had been sent out to gather wood for a fire. When they returned with arms full of the driest wood they could find they’d started the fire quickly thanks to Carrie and a bag of Fritos.

She'd grinned. “These are perfect fire starters.”

“I had no idea they were that greasy,” Joule commented.

“They're perfect for camping!” Carrie popped one into her mouth. Closing the bag, she set it aside for later, making Joule wonder how many nights Carrie thought they might spend out.

“I brought a flare gun,” Dr. Murasawa announced, as they sat around the fire in the last moments before turning in. “I'm going to set it off. Maybe they'll see it. Maybe they'll call out.”

No one spoke as they watched their boss stand tall and aim the gun high into the sky. They watched the trail of orange-red as it made an arc into the air.

“Fingers crossed,” Joule said out loud to the night at large and watched as, almost ironically, both her brother and Carrie held up their crossed fingers. A little superstition never hurt anyone.

She debated whether or not to mention the huge paw print she'd seen in the snow.

57

Joule woke from an unbothered sleep. But even as she opened her eyes, her brain went on alert. She was in the tent. There had been a massive pawprint in the snow nearby last night. Jolting quickly upright, her head brushed the top of the small tent.

She heard nothing now. The tent was intact. Luckily, whatever it was that had been walking around had decided they weren't worth bothering. She hoped not to encounter it again.

As she turned, she found her brother was already awake and staring at her. “Shall we?”

Used to sleeping in long stretches compared to her brother's often short bursts, Joule was surprised to find they were the first two up. “We beat Carrie and Dr. Murasawa?”

Without an alarm, she’d expected to be woken by someone else . . . or something else.

She decided to be grateful that wasn't the case. As they crawled out—the only option for exit—the zipper from the other tent slowly slid open. Shit, maybe she'd been too loud. Probably she'd been too loud. “I'm sorry.”

“No, it's good. We came out to find people. We need to be up and going,” Dr. Murasawa told them, her expression as solemn as the words.

They ate their energy bars and drank from their remaining water bottles. Though no one said as much, it was clear to Joule that they were all counting what was left and calculating how much longer they had.

She thought they might make it one more night, but she sure as hell didn't want to. She knew her brother didn't, he liked the cold even less than she did.

Dr. Murasawa and Cage, the two who had set up the tents, were the obvious choices to fold them back up. Carrie and Joule made short work of making sure the fire was out, then gathering whatever rocks they could and placing them in an arrow. They left another note in a thermos. At least if someone came back along the trail, they would know they had been here and which direction they were going.

Aside from the flickering orange tapes, there had been no other sign that the people they were following were still out in front of them. No sign that it was their own people—just the fact that it was the same marking ribbon they all carried. But couldn’t anyone get it at any hardware store?

“Do we just keep going?” Carrie asked, her expression a little bleak. “We haven't seen anything convincing.”

Dr. Murasawa for once seemed to sit back as if she would go with whatever the crowd decided. With only the three of them voting, there wouldn't be any ties, Joule thought. Though she understood Carrie’s ambiguity, she said, “We have enough food to stay longer.”

Thanks in part to Barry and Aliyah unloading some of their supplies to the four of them still out.

“We have tents,” Cage added, looking back and forth. It wasn’t a vote, but it sounded like he, too, was leaning toward staying out.

“We might not find anything, but at least we'll be able to say we tried.” Joule thought that was the only vote she could live with. If she was voted down, she would turn around and stay with the team, but she wouldn’t sleep if they just headed back because they could.

Carrie nodded, then shrugged off the large coat she'd slept in. They were all looking a little worse for wear. Carrie's pale face showed dark circles under her eyes, and so did Dr. Murasawa’s browner skin. Joule figured she had it too. Somehow, the only one who actually looked refreshed was Cage.

Then they headed southward. Each time, they slightly fanned out until someone found a flag. Then they would fan out from that point. Joule found the first one, Cage the second.

They were spreading out again when Carrie pointed, “I think that's the third!”

She aimed her finger off to the side, excited. “Look at that!”

58

Cage followed Carrie's outstretched finger, trying to see what she was pointing at. But he saw nothing but snow and now ice.

A lot more had melted overnight, but it didn’t disappear so much as meld together. The pretty fluffiness was gone in exchange for glaring, wet surfaces and the sounds of dripping water everywhere. He shrugged at her.

“Look!” she said again, at least he wasn't the only one shrugging at her. She walked over, grabbing at a piece of silver foil from the surface of the snow. Yanking it from the grasp the ice had on it, she held it up and waved it back and forth.

“You found trash?” Joule asked incredulously.

“Yes!” Carrie’s excitement was palpable. “I found trash that's the same energy bars we just ate.”

“Oh!” Cage replied, finally excited—relieved to have some evidence that they were on the right track. Everyone who went out from HST took the same snacks. They were welcome to pack whatever else they wanted, but those stupid, silver-foil-wrapped granola bars went with everyone.

“It was stuck in the ice,” Joule commented. Her tone indicated she didn't quite know yet what that meant.

But Cage did. “It means it’s not one of our wrappers that blew over here. It also means they were here likely a whole day ago. If they're lost and still moving, who knows how far ahead of us they are?”

“If they're still moving, they should have made it back to the trailers!” Carrie pointed out, one hand gesturing behind her, though Cage wasn't sure that was the correct direction. He didn't know which way was which anymore either. “They haven’t. Or we would have heard when Dr. Murasawa called in our location this morning.”

“Should we be calling out as we search now?” Cage asked, hoping they might finally be getting close.

They had unanimously decided not to openly and loudly announce their presence initially. They knew where they were supposed to be looking, where their people were supposed to be. They just hadn’t been there. And they didn’t know if the sheriff's department had successfully rounded up everyone they needed to or not. They’d already encountered Ethan.

“Are we far enough out that we're beyond the range of the sting?” Dr. Murasawa asked.

None of them knew.

“I have no idea if they would be out this far,” he offered, though he wasn’t confident of the idea, “but I'm beginning to think that maybe calling out would at least alert them that we’re coming so they can close up shop and get out of the way.”

“Maybe they can come out and say we didn't see anybody over here,” Joule said. But then her body language changed as she clearly thought of something else. “Unless they have our people.”

Cage hadn’t considered that before. “Damn, but even so wouldn’t it be better for us to know that there are other unsavory people around than to just walk blindly into it?”

The three women all shrugged back at him. There were no good answers. And they would only know if they’d made the wrong decision when things went badly. There were options that might be safer for them and others that might be safer for the people they were looking for—nothing that wasn’t a risk for someone.

They took a quick vote, leaving Carrie undecided and both the twins and Dr. Murasawa thinking that maybe they should begin calling out.

“If we don't find them today, we're trekking straight back and we have to call it a loss,” Dr. Murasawa said. She seemed to realize what words had come out of her mouth after she said it. It was quickly clear that none of them wanted to lose.

“Leon!” Cage yelled out before anyone thought better of it. He’d yelled and it was done.

He listened as his voice reverberated through the hills and the snow, glancing off the ice and bouncing through the trees. Next to him, he watched his sister make a face before she yelled out for Ezra. Carrie called for Wilson and Dr. Murasawa called for Gladys.

It was a good hour later, he was still calling out. His yells weren’t as frequent as his hopeful first calls had been, he'd grown lackluster. Still, his voice bounced around him. They'd been in more open territory, and he was afraid that the sound of their calls would wind up with them getting simply picked off by a sniper.

Who would come find them? He wondered. He’d thought before that someone could simply push their bodies off one of the cliffs and they might not be found for decades. Here, could their bodies be left out? Unless a helicopter flew over while their blood was still fresh and obvious, no one would ever know. He didn’t like those thoughts.

Joule and Dr. Murasawa had moved more to his left. He and Carrie had fanned out to the right as they looked for the next flag. Suddenly, Carrie smacked him on the arm. “Shush.”

Snapping his jaw shut, he waited for something, anything. Not too far away, his sister and his boss both yelled out several names each. They’d long since stopped calling for one person each and were now slowly cycling through all four. Though some of them got a little more gusto than others.

Carrie called out again, and Cage paused, not even letting his feet crunch in the snow that was now breaking under his feet more often than not. At least the icy snow shouldn't crack loose and slide past him.

Carrie pointed one finger in the air, again motioning for him to stand still and wait, but he heard nothing. But then he did.

“Wilson?” Carrie yelled out, excitedly.

The sound bounced back to him, but he thought he heard it say, “Here!”

59

Cage ran. He and Carrie had frantically signaled to Joule and Dr. Murasawa to come along.

The other two didn’t seem to know why they were running, but they were coming.

Carrie yelled out again, “Wilson? Leon? Where are you?”

Cage was still moving toward where he’d heard the voice. He couldn’t identify it. He had to get closer. He ran without thinking about what might happen, about what their calls might attract. His feet punched through the surface of the snow with each step, until the few times they didn't. He slid a few times, mostly staying upright, but once he fell over onto his right side. The ice was a jarring jolt that ground his wrist bones together. He was glad he still had the gloves on.

The field was large, wider than it looked. His exertion was taking a toll, finally making the heavy coat too hot. Though he didn't want to stop, he had to take it off.

“Wait,” he told Carrie.

They’d had too many discussions about not breaking a sweat. He would be no good to anybody if he brought his own trouble, rather than help. Carrie waited impatiently as he took off the pack and shoved the coat down in.

The snowshoes still remained on the outside, not having to be moved to open it. For that he was grateful, but he thought he was now carrying them for basically no purpose. They could shed the things they didn't need. He didn't think the company would be upset about the loss of some equipment while they were busy saving lives.

But God forbid they headed back and it snowed again. He would not put it past this place to snow on him another time. He pulled out the thick fleece, slinging on the heavier jacket against the cold already seeping in. Then he shrugged back into the pack.

Joule and Dr. Murasawa were catching up.

“We heard Wilson!” Carrie said.

As they were all together, all breathing a little heavier, Carrie motioned for them to pause, and she called out again, “Wilson.”

“Here!” the voice called back.

This time, when they turned to look, they saw him—dark coat, dark gloves, making his way out of the woods. Cage didn’t recognize him, but Carrie bolted forward, running until she had her arms around him. It was obviously a hug that quickly became awkward. Cage remembered she’d said it wasn't that they were good friends, it was that he sat next to her on many of their shifts.

“You came,” he breathed out his relief to see them.

Cage listened as Carrie replied, “I did, and that means when I go missing, you have to come.”

Wilson laughed. “This way. Gladys is down, twisted ankle—not broken—but she can't walk on it.”

What was with the ankles? Cage thought, not realizing he'd set it out loud, until Joule beside him, answered, “It’s got to be legs or ankles. Otherwise, they'd just walk with it.”

“True,” he agreed. It was no mystery then, just bad luck.

“We've got her over here,” Wilson motioned, leading the four of them into the trees.

The little camp wasn’t very far off from the field. Cage was impressed at the small fort they'd built. It was covered now in snow and ice. The top was now melting and dripping in on itself.

“How long were you here?” He shouldn't have asked that, but too late.

“Almost two days now.” Wilson looked back and forth between them, maybe a little confused. “We were out. The storm hit. We weren’t prepared. We started making our way back, but then realized we were lost. Gladys twisted her ankle.”

Wilson looked back and forth between the four of them. “Wait. Why don't you know this?”

Cage looked to the others who looked to him, and they all shrugged at Wilson.

“Why would we know this?” Dr. Murasawa asked, sounding just as confused as Cage felt.

“Because Leon and Ezra went back to get a rescue squad.”

When the four continued to look at him wondering why he thought that would be important for them, Wilson asked, “You didn't talk to them? How did you get here?”

“Your team didn't come in,” Dr. Murasawa told him as if nothing could be clearer. “So we came out looking.”

“Leon and Ezra didn't find you? They didn’t report in at the trailer?” Wilson asked, his expression moving rapidly from excited to very worried.

They all shook their heads, no.

Cage asked, “So you don't know where Leon and Ezra are?”

60

“No!” Joule protested, “we don't split up.”

She looked back and forth at everyone. Were they crazy? Instead, they were looking at her like she might be the crazy one. But not Gladys, the older woman was confident in everything she said.

“I agree with her.” Gladys’ tone was grim.

Joule knew she had an obvious outward reaction from her relief. Gladys’ was maybe the most important agreement she could get.

Dr. Murasawa turned to the woman. “You're the one who needs to go right back. If we don't split up, you don't get medical treatment as fast.”

“I can deal with that,” Gladys replied instantly and curtly, her conviction clear, for which Joule was grateful. Because she knew she was arguing against Gladys’ immediate care—or at least as immediate as possible. Nothing could happen to take care of her ankle now.

“Splitting up is what seems to have gotten us in trouble in the first place!” Gladys did everything shy of ending with a “hmph!”

Joule couldn't agree more.

It was Wilson who had looked at them so oddly when they said they hadn't seen Leon and Ezra. Gladys took the news with the seasoned disappointment of one used to being proven right.

“If we had all stayed together,” Gladys said, “We would all be found right now. I'd be getting taken directly back for care. Instead, we have to find the others.”

“Where did they go?” Cage asked. Though he didn’t openly agree, he moved the conversation forward is if he had.

“They headed back.”

“Which way did they aim? Which way is back?” Her brother said it as if he didn't know. And Joule realized that she would absolutely turn around and aim her body in the direction she thought home base was. And she would also absolutely be getting a compass out to be sure that what she thought was the same as what actually was. Because she wasn't sure about it at all.

Maybe that was what had happened with the missing group. The storm knocked out the GPS signaling, then, when the weather cleared, they were too far away, or the tags were too damaged to make a connection. There might be mountains in between blocking the signal.

It was far too easy to see how Leon and Ezra might have gotten turned around. They’d likely realized it, too, given the flags they’d found.

She was wondering if Ezra might not have gotten the two of them into some kind of trouble. She hated to think it, but she couldn't stop herself. Ezra was arrogant and wanted to be a lone wolf—but he’d never figured out that lone wolves weren’t safe. Anytime he disagreed with the group, he would simply go off on his own. Which made it possible that they would find Leon, but not Ezra. Or vice versa.

She didn't know how her friend and roommate would react to Ezra once again saying he was done with the group decision, and he would simply take himself somewhere on his own. This time, Leon might have just let him go. Which would mean they'd have three different sets of people to bring back.

“All right,” Dr. Murasawa said, but Joule should have known that the agreement wasn't solid.

“If we split up,” she posed—there it was: if. “How do we do it? If we go together as a group. How do we do that? Gladys can't walk. There's a reason that they've been stuck here for two days.”

“I can walk,” Gladys said. She’d been sitting next to the little makeshift tent, not demonstrating any walking. While they'd all gathered around, she'd managed to scoot herself a little bit forward. But she didn’t walk or even stand up off the folded fleece jacket she used as a pad. From the looks of it, Joule was willing to bet she was no longer willing to wear it.

The little fort they had built was suffering the drips and wetness of the increasing temperatures. Joule had no doubt that it was reasonably warm inside their little branch covered lean-to. Once the snow had covered it, it might have been even better. Snow was an excellent insulator, but it was rapidly melting, and they hadn't built it to be waterproof. They hadn't thought they'd be out there for too long.

Joule would have done the same. But now, Gladys couldn't even stay inside unless she wrapped herself in a tarp that Joule didn't think they had. Maybe she’d used the thin, folded blanket that was no longer issued in shiny foil, maybe that had been enough to keep the water off her.

“We can splint my ankle.” Gladys looked up at the others from her seated position. “There's enough of us here now, and it’s daylight and warm, someone can reasonably find a way to make me a crutch.”

Dr. Murasawa paused for a moment before adding, “If you could do that, why didn't you do it before?”

“Well,” Gladys replied, clearly trying not to sound as put out as she was. Joule also felt the woman was not irritated at anyone there, just at the circumstances. Another gut-deep reaction Joule felt in common with the older woman.

Gladys was clearly senior in age here—a guard who had been on duty in these hills for a long time. As Gladys opened her coat, maybe having grown warm sitting in the sun, Joule saw a badge pinned to her belt. It didn't surprise her at all.

“We split up because Leon and Ezra were faster alone. With me going along, it would have slowed the whole group down. They were supposed to get to the trailer and send a team back for us. Wilson stayed with me so I wouldn’t be alone.”

She paused and when no one protested fast enough, she kept going. “Now that we're not willing to split up again, I'll slow us down, but we won't lose anyone else.”

Or, Joule thought, they would lose all of them.

Whatever it was, they were in it together. Now there were five healthy and one injured and two still missing.

Gladys looked back and forth between the four new faces. “You said you started with six but split up. You lost Barry and Aliyah?”

Lost. What a word. Dr. Murasawa said they hadn't heard anything, but it had been overnight. Surely the two should have made it back to the trailer by now. Surely the team that went out for them found them, even if they’d gone no further than the last time Joule had seen them.

They would have heard at check-in. Now Joule simply believed her small group implicitly agreed not to talk about it. What could they do? There was a team from the base camp looking for the missing trio. They were notably closer to the base camp than her own team was now. All they could do out here was wait for word.

Lost in her own thoughts, she'd missed some kind of unspoken exchange. But now, Gladys pushed. “Dr. Murasawa? What aren’t you telling us?”

Dr. Murasawa looked back and forth between them. Then she sighed, resigned. “I’m not supposed to say anything. But they found Barry.”

61

Cage felt the announcement like a hit to the gut.

He tried to breathe through it, to not calculate all the words Dr. Murasawa hadn't said as he waited for her to tell them more, but she didn't.

When the silence stretched too long, Joule jumped in, even though she couldn’t seem to voice the whole thought. “You mean …?”

Dr. Murasawa nodded. “He's dead.”

Gladys—already seeming not to be one to mince words—spoke Cage’s fears out loud. “And her?”

He realized then that the older woman and Barry were coworkers. Who knew if they had been partners? This might be a bone deep loss for her.

Dr. Murasawa nodded again, shamefully. “They don’t know.”

“You didn't tell us?” Carrie protested.

“It wouldn’t do us any good.”

“Hell yes, it does!” Carrie almost shouted it in her fury. “Someone killed Barry, or Barry died of his own accord?”

He was glad she was the one yelling. Cage was still trying to figure out what he wanted and needed to know. “You told us that there was no word?”

“You lied to us?” Carrie pushed harder, clearly angry, clearly not feeling the kind of allegiance to Dr. Murasawa that Cage and his sister did.

He realized then that maybe not everyone had their boss attempt to take a bullet for their sister. He’d formed his opinions of the Indian woman in those early days. Did his opinions need to change? Was she not worthy of the credit?

“There was no word on Barry and Aliyah, just Barry. They still can't find Aliyah.”

“And Ethan?” Cage pushed, finally finding his own voice. His sister was still staring at their boss.

Joule was the one who'd gotten into the thick of things and survived with Chithra Murasawa at her side. She was likely having even more cognitive dissonance about having information withheld by this woman than even he was.

“I didn't want us to go back,” Dr. Murasawa said, as if it were any consolation about the lie. “I don't know how to get back to the trailers now without walking through territory that left a sheriff’s deputy dead. I was hoping that by the time we found these four,” she motioned to the two, her tone clearly indicating how upset she was that they weren’t four, “that there would be some word that the sheriffs would have rounded someone up or have an answer.”

“You're telling us, though, that someone killed Barry? He didn't die from something else?” Carrie pushed.

Dr. Murasawa shook her head. “I'm sorry. Technically, I'm in charge here, and I’m legally under a gag order. I would have had to break it—and maybe void protections that we need—to tell you. I didn't see the need to make people more upset in a situation that has enough other dangers associated with it.”

“If you're in charge here,” Joule said, her anger leeching through. Cage felt as mad as she sounded. “Then you need to be in charge, and you need to understand that we can leave your charge.”

“I just broke my gag order, and you're still an employee of Helio Systems Tech,” Dr. Murasawa said.

“I don't have to be,” Joule replied, her tone just short of seething, her words sharp and short.

It was wild to see his sister turn like this. She'd practically worshiped the woman. There were times when he wondered if his sister would follow in Dr. Murasawa’s footsteps. Become one of the higher ups in this job, lead her own teams.

Dr. Murasawa looked back and forth at them. “You're right. I'm done towing the line. But—before I say anything—I would love an agreement from you all. You never heard this, and you didn’t hear it from me.”

They looked at her oddly. Cage noticed no one agreed, though.

“If anyone needs medical help or the corporate insurance to cover something—” She turned, pointing to Gladys, “I think you're covered under the sheriff's office, but still, no one can mention this.”

Cage frowned at her, wondering what she was going to say. He was not prepared for her admission.

“There are strict orders coming down the pipeline. I was not allowed to tell you about Barry's death. And I'm still not.”

62

Joule searched the surrounding area for a sturdy stick. Each time she thought she found one, it failed the test.

Sometimes they crumbled in her fingers as she grabbed at them. Other times she got one all the way up almost under her arm. Gladys was not as tall as she was, and Joule accounted for that. It didn’t matter. The moment she put weight on it, it cracked. She was no longer sure they were going to find something workable—let alone the three Gladys suggested.

But they almost had to. Joule wasn't sure how they would go forward without some kind of better system for Gladys to walk. Unless they were simply going to use two people, one on either side of her the same way Barry and Aliyah had. Copying anything Barry and Aliyah had done seemed like at least an omen of bad luck. It hadn't ended well for either of them.

“That was some shit news,” Carrie commented almost casually as she tested another stick under her own arm. It seemed to pass the initial weight check, but Carrie held it out and bumped it against a tree, at which point, it snapped easily right in the middle. Tossing the remaining half aside, she began looking again.

“I'm still processing it,” Joule replied, her eyes on the ground.

“Me too.” Only Carrie's voice was softer this time, as if she was going to allow them the space to do that.

Aliyah was not found. Nor was Ethan. Barry was down—dead on the trail, apparently not of natural causes. But no one had been able to get any more out of Dr. Murasawa, who claimed she simply didn’t know more. She didn’t know if he’d been stabbed, shot, strangled . . . Joule tried to think of other ways a Sheriff’s deputy might get taken out. She didn’t like any of the options she came up with.

Apparently, there was a combination of the sheriff's office being involved, and the high level of insurance that was needed to cover the operations for Helio Systems Tech, that created gag orders for the top employees. Corporate insurance was nothing to shake a stick at, Joule thought, as she picked up yet another stick and shook it until it broke.

“We've already filed multiple claims on this job,” Dr. Murasawa told them. “I was the lowest level employee included in the meeting when we were given gag orders. The sheriff's office informed me in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to tell you that Barry was gone. And they weren't allowed to tell me what exactly happened to Barry, other than that he's not alive anymore. Something about the ongoing investigation.”

She was clearly angry. Maybe she was angry at the heads of the company, maybe angry at the sheriff's office, maybe at herself. Joule wasn't able to distinguish the nuances and therefore had simply decided maybe all those angers existed together, and they were all justified.

“Got one!” Wilson called out.

“Excellent. We need two more.” Gladys called back.

Wilson seemed used to Gladys’ abrupt style of leadership. Joule turned, looking back. The older woman’s voice carried cleanly across the snowy surface. Gladys almost shrugged. “What if it breaks while we're out? No one wants to stop and do this again. Also, there's lots of downed branches here. This is our best chance. With this many of us, it should be easy enough to carry a couple others along with us.”

It was another ten minutes that they weren't looking for Leon and Ezra, Joule thought, but she saw no other option. They weren't splitting up again. They had six here, but one was injured. Another was dead, and the other three were unknown. Joule did not like those numbers.

“I've got one!” Dr. Murasawa held hers up.

Joule was grateful. One more, and they would meet Gladys’ requirements. She was looking around the ground near her. The team hadn't split up, per se, but they'd fanned out, moving off in different directions. Though they could still see and hear each other, this seemed as far away as anyone was willing to go.

Looking around at the others, Joule hoped someone would hold up a sturdy stick and this portion of the day would be done. She realized she couldn't see Wilson or Cage.

It would be okay, she told herself, looking back to the ground. She had lost sight of her brother before, and he was still here.

For a moment, she flashed back to the two of them in high school, thinking of themselves like adults. Yet, one fateful night, her parents had made them climb over the dryer and into the back unused corner of the closet. Her mother had said, “I've got this.” And “Don’t worry.”

It was the last thing Joule had ever heard from her. Looking up, eyes scanning the field, Joule searched for her brother. She tried not to panic as she couldn’t find him.

But then she heard his voice.

“Guys? Don’t move.”

63

Cage stood perfectly still—or he tried to. Controlling what he could, he rocked slowly from one foot to the other.

No sudden movements.

His gaze stayed trained on the eyes that stared back at him, keener and more alert than he expected. Yellower and more intelligent than he'd expected, too.

The creature padded back and forth in front of him. Its big paws and powerful hind legs making it an excellent predator for this situation. Something Cage was not. If he was lucky, he would survive. The cat looked determined.

“Cage!” He heard his sister call out. “Cage!”

Unsure if she could see him, he didn’t call back. He didn't think he could afford to startle the creature by yelling. Slowly, he waved one hand behind him needing Joule’s attention but not any more of the cat’s. Hopefully, she would slow down and keep quiet.

“Cage?” This time it came from Carrie.

Damn it, they were all coming.

The large cat looked like it was ready to try anything and that was the problem.

It was thin. Just beyond its rib cage, the flesh caved in a bit. There was enough fur that Cage couldn’t make out each rib. He’d also worked with Dr. Brett enough that he could tell on a domestic dog or cat if this was the right weight, but on a wild creature he didn't know. What was the physique supposed to be? Was this normal?

It was possible this cat was entirely healthy and just mad at them for wandering into its territory. It was equally possible the cat was starving. Cage had to consider the chance of kits nearby, too.

It was supposed to be spring. Would there be babies of all kinds of creatures romping in the snow? And would there then be mothers of all stripes willing to lay down their own lives to defend against any perceived threat?

“Snow. Shoe.” He ground out the two syllables his head tipped as far back as he could without taking his eyes off the predator in front of him. He hoped he made himself heard.

“What?” Joule asked.

The large creature walked past in front of him again, this time the eyes flicking away and clearly looking back. The cat could see his sister getting closer. What if that forced its hand, and it made a move? He couldn’t afford that.

“Snow. Shoe,” he said again hoping she understood. It was that or the flare gun, he thought. The sat phone was almost heavy enough to do some damage, but any hit would also damage equipment that they would need in the future. A rock would be better, but he didn’t have one. A stick would be passable, but as they had all discovered, a good stick was difficult to identify on sight. There was every possibility he would put everything behind the blow only to find he'd accomplished nothing against the cat except maybe making it angry.

“Oh!” He heard Joule connecting what he was asking for and why.

Still unable to take his eyes off the cat, Cage listened. He had no idea how he heard it, but he did. Joule basically squealed to a stop behind him. There was no noise from the snow against her boots, yet he heard the move as plain as day.

Behind him, he heard voices. They would attempt to get him the one weapon he could think of. How long would it take? He still shifted slowly from foot to foot, tense, waiting, knowing a strike could come without warning and faster than he could likely react.

“Can you back up?” Joule asked low and clear.

Of course he could, but he didn't want advice, he wanted a weapon in his hand. He wanted something that wouldn't feel excruciating pain and require medical attention if the cat decided to bite it. Because right now his best bet was his boot, and it didn't go far enough up his leg to protect him if he had to kick at the cat.

So far, the cat hadn't made any moves other than to stare him down and let him know that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It continued pacing, loping five to ten steps to the right, turning and tracing its path back the other way. It never once looked away from him, so Cage never once looked away from it. That could be a death sentence.

Joule’s voice sounded behind him. “I've got you.”

He couldn’t feel full relief yet, but this was a move in the right direction. He took several slow painful steps backward, reaching his hand out. The cat came forward as he moved back. The dance steps brought the cat closer to the other people. He didn’t like that.

Another step back. Another move forward from the cat. Still pacing back and forth but maintaining the close space between them.

Something was wrong. The cat should have backed down by now. Cage hadn't, so she should have. She’d not attacked, but she’d not left either.

Holding his hand out behind him again, this time he felt the reassurance of metal and teeth across his gloved fingers. She'd handed him the snowshoe toe end first.

Unable to get close enough, Joule hadn’t been able to get it to him in a usable grip, just enough to hold onto. As she let go, the extended weight of it fell behind him. He watched as the cat flinched. Did it know what was coming?

Slowly, he lifted the device around in front of him, clutching it as close to baseball-bat-style as he could. Cage stood, ready for a good swing.

He'd already defended himself against a human this way, but he was afraid the cat would be a tougher opponent.

It didn’t move.

64

Joule crept steadily into position beside her brother. She motioned for Carrie to stay back; Carrie could be the second wave.

Unfortunately, she and her brother had experience staring down large animals that wanted to kill them. She felt as ready as she could. Also, her experience didn’t matter. She still had her brother and she would fight until her dying breath not to be the one left behind.

Moving beside him, she stood shoulder to shoulder. Her left-handedness meant that the snowshoe that she held raised would swing the opposite direction of his. Neither of them had to have an open flank. They just needed to be sure they didn't swing into each other.

Now, the two of them presented a better front to the cat. The weapons were not great—not what she would have chosen. She’d packed her bow and arrows for this trip, as she always did. What she wouldn’t give to have them now. But they were in their carrying bag, tucked into the back of the closet at the condo. For all intents and purposes, useless.

A baseball bat might have been better, she thought, but it was even less likely to be on hand than the arrows. At least the snowshoe had some teeth on it.

She wouldn't have taken the risk if she were alone, but next to her brother, she was willing. Joule took a step forward.

Next to her, Cage did the same. Slowly they advanced on the cat until they reached the point where Cage had started his standoff. As the cat refused to leave, Joule stepped up her game. She just hoped it didn’t get her or her brother killed. But standing here in this stalemate could get them killed too.

She made small sudden lurches as if she would leap. The second and third still did nothing, but at her fourth feint, the cat turned and padded off. The twins didn’t move, just stayed poised and ready should the cat change its mind. It looked back over its shoulder several times, though she had no doubt it could hear they weren't following it. It seemed to be issuing a warning.

“Thank you.” Cage’s ragged breath might be his first in a handful of minutes.

“What happened?” she asked, still not quite ready to lower the snowshoe.

“I was looking for sticks, just like we all were. I picked one up, and when I stood up, it was maybe five feet from me, staring me down.”

“Holy shit.” She wanted to tell her brother he should have been paying more attention. It would be easier to blame him for not being aware of his surroundings, but she knew that was not the problem.

It wasn’t Cage, it was the environment. That meant the cat could get to them—could get very close—without them realizing it. She didn’t like that possibility.

Carrie and Wilson came up quickly behind them. “Is it gone?” “What happened?”

Joule listened as Cage told the story again.

“That was smart to use the snowshoes,” Carrie said.

“Unfortunately, we've had to do it before. At least they're sturdy.” She held it up, though she didn't say the shape alone lent it extra strength. “And they've got teeth, so if you have to swing it, be sure you're swinging it teeth side out.”

Wilson nodded, clearly not having imagined it as a weapon before.

How had he not? Everyone had faced something, she knew. Then again, a lot of the ‘somethings’ had been nothing a weapon could touch. She couldn’t have fought the flood or the mosquitoes this way. But she’d fought enough things like this to understand how to make a weapon out of what was at hand.

“Do we have any idea why it was here?” Dr. Murasawa asked.

Though Joule heard the question, she spun around because the voice sounded close. Dr. Murasawa was right behind her and Joule felt her heart race. It wasn't her boss she was concerned about, it was⁠—

“Gladys!” she yelled, taking off across the field. Even from when they'd started, Joule could tell the snow had melted more. Her feet punched through the icy surface with each long stride. She didn't slide on the slippery top the way they had before. That much was good. But this was not.

“Shit!” She heard her brother behind her, but she saw Gladys sitting on a rock on the other side of the open space.

“Don't!” she called back to Cage, her own breath coming heavy. “Don't run!” But Joule kept going, because no matter how fast she might be, the cat would be faster.

And what they didn't know was if it was one cat. If the print that she'd seen before was a singular creature stalking them. That would be highly concerning. But she couldn’t tell as she bolted for the lone woman if there were multiple cats here, maybe all of them hungry and willing to get too close to the humans.

She reached the spot next to Gladys and scanned the area. Nothing. But as her brother had said, he’d simply looked up and it was five feet away. Her breath soughed thickly from her sudden burst of energy. Leaning over, she braced her hands on her knees, standing awkwardly while her chest heaved. She didn’t want to set down the snowshoe.

“I'm okay,” Gladys said, as if she didn’t understand Joule’s frantic run. “I saw that cat.”

“No one should be left alone.” Joule heaved it out between breaths that were finally slowing down.

Gladys raised an eyebrow and finished the sentence with what Joule hadn't said, “Certainly not the slowest member of the team?”

“Exactly.” Standing up because she couldn't afford to lose any vigilance, no matter how tired she might be or that she had just run when she knew she shouldn't. Joule scanned the area again.

If there were multiple cats, there might not be enough humans to defend their position.

“I can take care of myself,” Gladys said firmly, motioning to her firearm.

“I don't doubt it,” Joule replied, “but we shouldn't leave anyone alone.”

She’d seen the hunters keep coming even with a bullet or two in them. This looked like a standard issue Colorado mountain lion to her, but she didn’t know that for a fact. And she didn’t know what diseases it might have that could make it more aggressive. She didn’t know how hungry it was. She reiterated what she’d said, loudly this time. “No one should be left alone.”

It might mean having to change their strategies. But that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“Agreed. We shouldn’t split up anymore,” Gladys commented slowly as the others came in close. Joule was glad she agreed, that the older woman wasn’t standing on ‘I can defend myself.’ She’d only seen that get people into trouble in the past.

"Did you break a sweat?” Dr. Murasawa asked, the concern instant and clear.

“Of course I did,” Joule replied. Between standing at alert with her brother and then racing across the field to get to Gladys before any other woodland creature could take a swipe at her, Joule had certainly broken a sweat.

“We'll wait until you cool off,” Carrie said softly. “What else do we need to do?”

They looked to Dr. Murasawa as if she would have the answers, but it was Gladys who said, “We just want you to slowly cool down and dry. And not get hypothermic. The good news is—” She lifted one hand up, gesturing at the sky. “The day has gotten notably warmer, so the danger isn't anywhere near what it was unless you're still sweaty when the temperature drops tonight.”

It didn't escape Joule that Gladys thought there was a good possibility they would still be out tonight. As they all regrouped, seeming to have an unspoken desire to stay close together now, Gladys turned to her brother.

“Do you have any idea what made the cat come so close?”

“I don't have any clue why she stared me down as long as she did.” Cage added, “It’s possible she didn’t come close, but that I startled her as much as she startled me. I could see there was trash in the area, food wrappers. I don't know if they were just litter that smelled like food or . . .”

He trailed off and Joule looked at him, worried. The or was concerning. “You think someone left their food out here?”

She didn't say the scarier part: that maybe someone had lost their path, was taken down, and the cats had torn into it.

Thinking about Carrie’s find earlier, Joule turned to her brother and asked, “Did you recognize any of the wrappers?”

Unfortunately, he nodded.

65

The little group marched along the path. Like all good wolves, they kept their weak in the middle. That meant Gladys.

Which, Joule thought, was unfortunate. The guard was the best trained of them. She knew the terrain, but she could only share her knowledge at this point—all physical prowess had been stolen from her for the time being.

Cage and Carrie took point. Joule and Dr. Murasawa took the back. Wilson stayed sandwiched in the middle with Gladys. The guard had handed her gun to Cage at the front of the line and the sat phones and other weight had been redistributed.

Gladys looked back over her shoulder at Joule, an awkward move with the crutch and only one good leg. With a head nod that meant the gun, she asked, “Are you going to trade with your brother?”

One arm had been slung over the makeshift crutch they had padded at the top. The other was free, the only hand she had available if she needed to defend herself or if she tripped or any number of things that could go wrong.

“I’m better with a bow and arrow,” Joule replied.

“Sadly, I didn't bring one of those with me.”

Joule offered only a vaguely accepting smile. Because the irony was she had. But it was sitting in the stupid condo. Dr. Murasawa trekked along with her at the back, seeming to be lost in her own thoughts. Joule didn’t comment; she wouldn’t want to be in charge of the mess this job had become.

Wilson had already been working with Gladys the last forty-eight hours, and the woman seemed most comfortable accepting his help, if any at all. The two kept up a soft but animated chatter that Joule didn’t try to decipher. It seemed they were just happy to be part of a larger—hopefully safer—group, though they were clearly still worried about the other two they’d lost. The ones they’d thought would save them.

“There's a flag!” Carrie called out.

Though Joule might be at the back of the little line, it wasn't that far between them with only six.

“We found a flag again?” she asked. She hadn’t expected that. “By following the trash?”

“Flag means they were upright,” Cage said. “It probably means they were doing just fine and marking their trail.”

Joule had to agree with that. “Then what's with the trash?”

“I don't even know,” her brother called back. “Who would even—” He cut his own sentence off.

From the back of the line where no one could see her, except maybe Dr. Murasawa, Joule rolled her eyes. She decided she didn’t care anymore if the boss saw her and she was grateful when it was the other woman who muttered, “Fucking Ezra.”

Joule kept her feet moving, her boots and activity keeping her warm enough. Even though the day was the highest temperature they’d had in a while, it was still chilly. But that was better than the alternative. Better than it had been.

“He's the best at these ops,” Dr. Murasawa told the group as if excusing something. “When it comes to figuring out how to digitize spaces and collect the right kinds of information, he's the best. He seems to have an innate sense of what should go where, which direction it should face, what data it should gather . . .”

The words trailed off, not quite holding up.

“So?” Joule asked.

“And he's also an asshole.”

“I can vouch,” Joule muttered under her breath. Ezra had made no attempt to get to know anyone else in the condo. He'd done nothing but complain. “I don't recall him leaving his trash all over the place, though.”

Dr. Murasawa looked at her, then at the rest of the group, her expression resigned. “That's the thing. For someone who seems to have such a serious understanding of how nature is set up and which way the winds are going to blow, he has no concern for it. No natural sense of preserving it. I honestly don't know why he works for this company.”

An interesting thought crossed Joule’s mind. “Is he getting paid much better than the rest of us?”

“Only marginally,” Dr. Murasawa finally admitted. “He kept negotiating better deals, and when we put him on this, there were a few people who said they didn't want to work with him again. But they weren't on this project, and we figured we could handle him.” She waved her hand at a wrapper. Like the others it had stuck to the surface as the snow melted and refroze. “I don't know for a fact that this is him, but I do suspect I won't be working with him again in the future.”

The words made Joule think again. She wouldn't be working with Ezra either, especially if she didn't work at Helio Systems Tech. How much work had they gotten done? Not anywhere near enough. It felt like nature always fought back.

She loved the ideas, but the execution always seemed to leave a little something missing.

What would her brother say if she told him she'd been thinking of finding a different job? The advantage here was that they hired on project by project. It meant they could take the projects they were offered together and leave the ones they weren't. Where would she find something that had this kind of adventure and the chance to work with her brother? Then again, this kind of adventure might be exactly the problem.

Pushing the thought aside before she could make that decision, Joule focused on the first task: they had to get back. To the trailer, to the condo, to her own life. And, before they got back, they had to find Leon or exhaust every possibility, trying.

“Do we think Leon's tying the flags and Ezra is walking along behind him, leaving trash as he goes?” Carrie looked back and forth between the others.

“That's what I'm starting to believe,” Cage added. “We have our own little Hansel and Gretel to follow the breadcrumbs to.”

In front of Joule, the line stopped. Though it made perfect sense to stop, leave another note in another thermos, and re-evaluate, she didn't like it. She hated losing time.

It was Carrie who said, “The wrappers are still slightly frozen into the ice, which means we're still reasonably behind them. This was dropped at best yesterday if not the day before. If we're going to catch up to them before we have to give up, we either need to move faster—” Her eyes flicked to Gladys, a combination of shame and sorrow and apology in them. “—or do we just give up?”

“I can't give up,” Wilson said. He didn't look at Gladys.

Once again, Joule wondered what would happen if they split up. But she’d been there. It had possibly saved Dev and Sarah or nearly gotten them killed. The jury was still out on that. And Aliyah? Joule looked to Dr. Murasawa. “Has there been any word on Aliyah, or even Ethan Trowbridge?”

“No, but I'll ask the next time we call in.”

“How long is that?”

Dr. Murasawa checked her timer. Joule knew they all needed the reminder. It was too easy to lose track out here. Over the years, Joule had grown used to using the sun as a good measure. But here it was so bright and the days were so crazy, she wasn't confident that she was counting time correctly.

“Twenty more minutes,” Dr. Murasawa said.

“We just keep going forward along the path?” Carrie asked. “Tracking the materials and hoping that we get lucky before we have to turn back?”

“I think so,” Joule said, casting her vote.

Dr. Murasawa agreed. “Luck may be the only thing that saves them.”

Or us. Joule kept the thought to herself.

“But if we turn around now, we definitely don't get lucky. We definitely don't find our people.”

“Valid.” Carrie said with a nod. “Then let's keep moving. Is there any way to pick up the pace?”

“I'll give it my best,” Gladys said, and they headed forward again.

Joule was lost in her own thoughts, looking out across the land while trying to keep an eye behind them. The beeping startled her as Dr. Murasawa said, “Time to call in.”

Again, the line stopped. Her boss reminded them to eat something and drink something, and Joule noted the water was getting low. At least they were headed toward the sound of it, she hoped that would be good. They could fill the collapsible bottles they’d brought.

As Dr. Murasawa stepped aside looking for a satellite connection, Joule turned, surveying the land. But she startled as she saw a shadow disappear behind a tree.

66

“Are you sure?” Cage asked his sister.

“Of course not,” she replied. “If I was sure, I would have told the whole group.”

They'd rotated around—Carrie trading to the back, Joule coming to the front with him.

“Do you want the gun?” he asked, but Joule shook her head. “Gladys was sure impressed with your shooting.”

“I didn't remember her.” Joule sounded like the complement was uncomfortable.

Apparently, Gladys had carefully watched the employees on their training day, keeping track of who she wanted it charge if it came to that. Cage and Joule had both made the cut, though Cage had to admit he didn't like the reason why.

Of all the things his parents had taught him, shooting a gun was his least favorite. And probably one he had the most practice with. He didn't even like the weight of it in his hand now, didn't like the possibility of being startled by someone. Though he worked very hard not to have a twitchy trigger finger, he knew it was always possible. What if he shot Ezra or Leon? He had to admit, he wasn't sure he would have the same level of guilt over those two.

Turning his thoughts back to the task at hand, he leaned a little closer to his sister. “What did you see in the shadows? Something ducking behind a tree? Could it have been human?”

“I didn't see it clearly enough.” Then Joule added, as if that were an afterthought, “It might be, but I don't think so.”

“Night hunters?” He hated that he had to ask it, and he dreaded that she might say yes.

“I sure as fucking hell hope not.”

But he tucked the possibility away, because they both knew the creatures were popping up everywhere. He asked instead, “Large cat?”

“Mountain lion, that's my guess.” She then mused, “Are there cougars out here?”

“Only Cougar out here is me!” Gladys called out.

“Shit,” Cage muttered as he turned. The others were a little far back. He and his sister had absentmindedly begun picking up their pace. They had to watch for the others.

“Look,” she added as they stopped and waited.

Following her outstretched gloved finger, he tried to see what she was pointing at. Though she and the others had taken themselves down to their fleece jackets, she still wore her gloves. Carrie and Dr. Murasawa had peeled theirs. Cage remained in his coat, but he had eventually unzipped it. The day was definitely warmer, and he could admit he liked it.

“Large cat?” Gladys asked, as the middle slowly advanced, catching up to them. She’d obviously been paying attention and watching Joule point to the ground. As Cage spotted the paw print, he realized the older guard had made the correct conclusion.

“We think so,” he told her, but she wasn’t done.

“Could it be one of those hunters?”

Cage stilled, “What do you know about those?”

Gladys stepped up next to him her gray curls still neat despite her last few days. Her hopping gait probably better than he could have managed under the same circumstances. “We've seen a couple of them. And evidence of a full pack.”

“Dogs?” he pushed, hoping.

“No, not wolves either. The first evidence we had was a wolf torn limb from limb.”

He watched his sister flinch and knew he did the same.

“I knew I recognized your voice from somewhere!” Gladys suddenly declared.

Cage could only shake his head. They'd been walking together for hours. She'd been there when they trained on the weapons, when they learned to snowshoe. What did she⁠—

“You two do those videos!”

He couldn't help it. His gaze flicked to his sister, as if to ask, what do we say? But the very act of doing so was an admission that it was them. Joule merely shrugged at him. “Yeah, that's us.”

“You two might be the world's foremost experts on night hunters,” Gladys added, and he watched as Dr. Murasawa and Carrie and Wilson turned to look at the twins who stood not saying anything. What was there to say?

Gladys had no such compunction. “I heard they took out entire neighborhoods.”

“Ours,” Cage said, softly.

“Holy shit. No wonder you got so involved.”

“We're not the experts,” Joule added. “We met up with a scientist and her doctoral candidate who are following them. They've got DNA samples from at least four continents. And they're not dogs. They're something new. The veterinarian we were working with⁠—”

Cage felt his chest twist, and he didn't say the name, Dr Brett. The man had been a surrogate father to them for a while.

“—helped us run tests. They're a new species.”

“More of those around here than I'd like,” Gladys added nodding as she scanned the landscape.

Cage watched as the reaction of the group moved from face to face, changing from concern to shock to resignation. Before he could say anything else, the satellite phone began chiming from Dr. Murasawa’s backpack. Already stopped, she scrambled and actually managed to answer it.

The entire team tensed, and he felt it in his muscles. Hopefully it was good news about Aliyah, maybe even Ezra and Leon had turned up back at the trailer.

“Uh huh, . . . yes,” Dr. Murasawa said, nodding her head, as if those on the other end of the phone could hear it. She looked up at the others, her face excited.

He felt his fingers cross involuntarily. They needed good news.

Dr. Murasawa hung up and looked at the others. He'd only heard bits and pieces of the conversation as she'd often turned her face a different direction. “Sarah came back. She’s at the trailer!”

“Okay?” He was glad to have Sarah back, but it was hardly the news he'd expected. And not about any of the three people who were missing.

“She thinks she knows where Aliyah went.”

“What?” he asked. “Aliyah went somewhere?”

Dr. Murasawa nodded. “It took them a while to find somebody who could read her tracks. But they just told me they think—they hope—that when Barry went down, Aliyah managed to escape. They found evidence of multiple people running through the woods.”

“That wouldn't have been Ethan,” Cage said, his mouth working faster than his brain. He shouldn't have said it, but they all nodded. Ethan didn’t even have a good crutch or backups like Gladys did.

“Somebody else was chasing her?” Joule asked.

“They don't know for sure, but apparently that's what some of the tracking information seems to yield.”

He shook his head. None of this was good. “And Sarah's back?”

“Yes!” Dr. Murasawa was once again excited. “She thinks she might find Aliyah.”

There must have been somewhere that the two of them found on one of the day trips, some place she thought Aliyah might remember.

They all paused for a moment, taking in what little they could, trying to synthesize it, hoping that it was the good news they wanted to hear. But then, in the distance, the sound of a sharp gun retort crackled through the air.

It brought him fully to attention, his spine snapping rigid, his senses on sudden alert. He might have even ducked just out of sheer innate reaction. The others all looked back and forth and, just as his brain was processing that it was not a gun, but yet another cracking and falling tree branch, he heard another sound.

One he recognized instantly as a human scream.

67

Cage bolted toward the yell without even thinking about it, but his sister's open hand smacked against the front of his coat, stopping him.

“No.” She said it low and firm, turning as she spoke to look at the others.

Another sound came again, decidedly human, and Cage looked at her. Without speaking, he asked why they weren't moving forward. Why weren't they helping?

“This is how we got Ethan Trowbridge,” she commented, and he felt all the fight go out of him right then.

The last thing they needed was to pick up another traitor and help carry him home.

“Also, Gladys can't run, and we don't split up.”

“Fuck,” Gladys muttered, but she started moving. “I can at least head the right direction.”

“Someone should go ahead and scout it out. But stay in sight!” Dr. Murasawa looked like she was going to choose someone, but Joule grabbed Cage’s hand and began moving.

“We've got this.”

Even though she held on tight and moved quickly, Joule stayed low, watched where she put her feet. He realized she was trying not to crack any twigs or make noise. Cage also wondered if someone had been gravely injured. By taking their time, would they be too slow? But she was right, the possibility that not taking their time would get them killed—or worse—was unfortunately too high.

The sound had carried to them, but it wasn't close—not close enough to keep them from needing to split up to go quickly.

“We're just moving a bit ahead to scope it out,” Joule said.

Of course, he thought, but then asked, “Why did you volunteer us?”

“I’m afraid we’ll get split from the group, and I’d rather it be you and me.”

He offered only a small nod that she didn't even see. She'd already turned away, aiming at the path.

Sole survivors, the twins tended to stick together. They could handle going different ways, but when the shit hit the fan—like the scream indicated it had for someone—they stayed tight.

“I figure we just get close and look.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Cage nodded. The sound didn't come again, and they had to creep forward only on their memory from where it was located.

As they inched their way, putting a little more and then a little bit more space between them and the other four, they began to move faster. He scanned everything now, not only looking for whatever had caused that horrifying scream, but also the other people they might encounter. And large cats, and maybe even night hunters.

His core body temperature had dipped several degrees when Gladys said she had seen them, too. He had no idea, not having had the wherewithal to follow up on the story, if Gladys and her team had managed to eradicate them, or at least keep them out of the area. He moved now with extreme caution.

Eventually, the twins slowed. Looking at each other, Joule raised her hands palm up, and Cage made the same gesture in return. He hadn't heard anything, and he wasn't sure anymore if they were headed the right direction.

Did that mean whoever it was was already gone, or maybe even hit hard enough to where they'd succumbed to unconsciousness?

“Do we go back to the group?” Joule was asking when another sound came.

“Help! You’re supposed to be helping me.”

A second voice replied, “Shut the fuck up!”

Though she didn't speak, Joule's expression flew wide. This time, she turned and ran.

68

Joule aimed toward the sound. Her feet pounded over the harsh landscape, and she no longer cared if she broke twigs or started a rock rolling along the sloped ground.

Her brother was right behind her. He’d clearly heard the same thing she did. The first angry voice had been Ezra, and the reply was Leon. Both were at least well enough to speak. As she took another leap forward, she found her jacket tugged the seams, going tight at her shoulder. It was a solid moment before she realized her brother was trying to pull her back.

“What?” she threw the word at him, a harsh indictment. But he stopped, his breathing coming a little heavier, the bolt and the rush of adrenaline taking it out of both of them.

“We can't afford to twist an ankle. We already have one person down, and probably another.” He motioned with one hand into the space in front of them as Joule looked back toward the group. “And just because it's Leon and Ezra doesn't mean it’s only Leon and Ezra. We don't know that we're the only ones who heard them.”

“Fucking fucknuggets.” The words rolled out of her mouth, and she knew Cage was right. With a deep breath and an attempt to slow her heart rate, she moved toward the sound. Water rolled by just beyond, but other noises crept back in around them, none of them human.

“Do we call out?” she asked. That was the tempting thing. They could yell out and the others could call back. But everything in her life had led her to this point where even a call for help had to plausibly be considered a trap.

Joule did not like it.

Within a few moments, they were again slowly creeping toward where they’d heard the sound. Joule caught sight of movement in the distance. Silently, she motioned to her brother to follow in close. Looking back, she realized they’d lost sight of the group behind them.

Crap. Not much they could do about it now. She didn’t say anything and pushed a little closer.

She saw one person was down and the other on their feet. A large branch, maybe even a whole tree, lay across the downed man, only pieces of his coat and a boot showed from underneath the thick branches. She looked around and saw no one else—not their group catching up yet, but thankfully not any unknown people either.

She wanted to tell her brother to run back and alert the team while she moved forward. But while she would be connecting with the two other people ahead, Cage would be running solo in between the two groups. In another life, she would have more than been willing to let anyone do that. But in this life, she'd grabbed her brother and run forward so that they didn't split up. So no, they wouldn’t suggest that, even just for this small distance.

“Leon!” she called out softly, grateful when the standing man turned around. She hated the little bead that settled heavy in her heart. That she was glad it was Leon standing and Ezra stuck. That she automatically assumed it was Ezra’s fault they were in this position in the first place. But she didn’t have time to fix her flaws right now.

Seeing them, Leon clearly breathed a sigh of relief. He yelled out, “Joule. Cage!” Then turned to run toward them, but Joule lifted a finger to her lips.

Leon stopped, his eyes darting left and right, his hands out at his side asking what her issue was. It would have been comical, if not for the possibility of actual danger. He asked softly, “What do you think is listening to us?”

“I don't know.” And that was the problem. There was still distance between them, so she called back but tried to keep it soft. “Big animals, dangerous people?”

He nodded, still moving closer. At least Ezra was stuck where he was. “Do we think there's people this far out?”

“We don't know.” She almost explained her reasoning—that Aliyah was missing, that Barry had been killed. Those things had happened closer back to the trailer, but now was not the time to unload all the ways this trip had gone wrong.

“I can't lift the tree off of him,” Leon changed the subject. As they caught up, he turned to move back to where Ezra lay stuck.

She watched her brother move closer. Turning to her, he added, “You stay on alert. We'll try to move the tree together.”

“If we can get big branches, we might be able to pry it up so he can roll out. I couldn’t move it enough by myself,” Leon explained. “Maybe we can find something to pry it with.”

Joule had her doubts that the two of them could do it either. Sturdy branches had been reasonably hard to come by, so she watched as they tried to find something strong enough. But they quickly gave up and just lifted the tree. Branches radiated from the trunk at every angle, and their ability to lift it high enough to un-cage Ezra seemed to be more than they could manage.

“We have others coming. Don’t hurt yourselves,” she said, motioning to the two men. “If he's okay where he is, we should just wait. We'll have more hands in a few minutes.”

She looked back but still didn’t see the others, though at least now she thought she could hear them. Again, she thought about running back to meet with the group, but she wouldn't take that risk. The easiest option would simply be to call them, as long as there was some kind of signal out here, they should be able to get from one phone to the other. Even as she thought about it, she raised a hand to her face.

“We don't have a sat phone anymore,” she told her brother. They had divided themselves without thinking about what they carried.

Leon added, “We have a sat phone.” But his tone of voice told her exactly what the problem was.

69

“You could have called and given us coordinates,” Dr. Murasawa said.

By this point, Cage was almost laughing. The others had come along slowly, their top speed set by Gladys . Once they were close enough, Joule and Cage had begun to call out softly.

“The sat phone is down there,” he responded by pointing to the boots sticking out from under the tree.

“Are there enough people to get me out now?” Ezra complained. He'd been complaining the whole time.

Whatever Joule and Cage thought about keeping quiet, Ezra didn't seem to care. At one point, his sister had gotten frustrated enough to tell the man, “If someone shows up who's foe and not friend, we're leaving you here. We can't take you with us.”

“Whatever,” Ezra had commented, “Obviously, no one's coming.”

“We came,” Cage had pointed out the obvious and tried not to laugh. His sister then muttered under her breath, “and we are regretting some of our choices.”

“Oh damn,” Dr. Murasawa said now, taking in the situation. “How do we do this?”

Leon, Cage and Joule explained, hoping that they had enough people now to lift the tree. They shuffled positions, moving Cage and Leon—who had been making the effort of attempting to lift it and not quite achieving it. They were sent to stand with Gladys and all three were on watch now.

Cage at least, felt they'd made enough noise that they’d hopefully scared off anybody with any nefarious intentions. Surely, people running drugs in the area did not want to run into others any more than his team wanted to run into them. He watched as the group, now united, struggled again to lift the tree. Multiple Attempts didn't yield enough space for Ezra to get out and of course, Gladys, the one with the most field knowledge, was only able to direct.

She held up her free hand, the one not clutching the half-assed crutch, and called to Ezra, “If they can lift the tree high enough, can you scoot out?”

“I think so,” he said.

Gladys walked him through a quick check of all his limbs. While Ezra was no favorite, Cage was grateful to hear that everything worked. Fingers and toes wiggled demonstrably. Ezra didn't mention pain, and though he also didn't mention irritation, that came through in his tone.

“It looks like we have two options,” Gladys announced to the group. They'd all taken a break. It looked to Cage like they got it adequately high enough for Ezra to do his part and slide out, and the other man simply hadn't.

“Can we maybe focus on getting this damn tree off of me?” The voice came out from under the greenery.

“You know what? We're trying. Don't be an ungrateful little shit,” Gladys snapped.

Cage’s mouth flew open, and he saw others around him do the same. Gladys finally said what everyone was thinking. Maybe she'd just developed old person attitude. If she'd had a spare hand, he would have high-fived her, though the optics on that would not have been great.

“There are a bunch of people working here to get you free.” Her attitude now matched his for irritation. “So you can be helpful, or you can shut up.”

Turning her attention back to the group and shifting, her one foot hopping, leaning heavy on the stick, she offered her plan. Cage was grateful the crutch had held up as far as it had.

She told them, “If we can locate the base of the tree, we might be able to get enough of us to almost climb under it and rotate it up.”

Cage appreciated that she said we, though Gladys would definitely not be one of the ones doing it.

She went on. “If we can walk it upright enough, pushing back into the base and tipping it up the way it came down, it should be more than enough to get him out. We don’t have to get it anywhere near upright.”

“We don't know that we have enough room to tip it up high enough,” Carrie spoke as she surveilled the scene. “Can we lift it from the base? Or the middle?”

“I don't know how to do that without walking over Ezra,” Joule agreed.

Gladys hopped forward a little bit, looking down the trunk from root to tip. “We can try. It may be too long for us to walk it up at any reasonable angle. The other option is that we lift and Ezra scoots, and then we do it again and again until he's out.”

Neither sounded like the better option, but Dr. Murasawa declared the second one the only way that seemed to work.

“Ezra, you're going to have to do your part,” Gladys warned him.

“Fine.”

They went through several rounds of three or four of them lifting the tree enough for Ezra to scoot a couple inches. He complained about running into branches. He complained about the dirt and the mud underneath him. But he did move, if slowly.

His torso was closer to getting free, though branches in the ground still caged him.

“Can we roll it?” Cage asked the group. But Gladys answered.

“I don’t know, but we can try.”

“We can try breaking off some of the branches that are holding him in place too,” Carrie suggested. They weren't carrying saws, but maybe the shovels.

“I'd hesitate to be hacking at anything that close to him,” Joule replied, her lip curling. Cage understood that was pretty serious, because Joule liked Ezra about zero percent.

But when they lifted the tree this time, Ezra managed to get himself most of the way out. The team could only hold the tree for so long. Grunting, they declared themselves done and set the heavy wood back down. Ezra hadn’t been fast enough. His foot was still caught underneath.

“I can't move it!”

“Dammit, we were so close,” Gladys frowned.

But even as the monitor complained, Cage heard the crack of a gunshot. He no longer ducked for the sound he now recognized as a breaking branch. This time, he splayed his feet out and crouched, dropping his center of mass, trying to get his most sturdy position. His eyes darted from side to side.

Almost immediately, he heard another branch break and another, followed by a roaring noise. He was frantically searching for something, his brain not able to process any explanation for what he was hearing. But as he scanned the faces around him, Joule, Carrie, Wilson, and Leon all looked as startled and as confused as he must.

But it was Gladys who said, “Oh, Holy fuck.”

70

“Run!” Gladys yelled.

Joule didn't think she'd heard the older woman actually scream before, but this would be close to what it sounded like.

“Which way?” Carrie asked. She and Wilson looked frantically from one direction to another.

“Up!” was Gladys’ only reply. The older woman turned and tried to make her way up the hill, seeming to catch on that she needed to get moving if she would make it.

Wilson stayed beside her, supporting her as best he could. Dr. Murasawa took Gladys’ other side and Leon led the way. They were hindered by trees, rocks, and more.

“Help! You can't leave me here!” Ezra’s voice was demanding.

For the smallest moment, Joule thought, Yes, we can. We're only here now because of you.

But she didn't know that. She didn't know that he had caused this. She just highly suspected it. Though she was very confident that, had it been Leon stuck under the tree, he would have told them to go on without him.

“Pull your fucking leg loose!” she told him. His lower leg was the only thing still caught, but apparently the weight of the tree was too much.

“You guys keep going up,” Joule called up to Wilson and Gladys. Gladys was moving as fast as she could, hauling her own ass out of there, maybe because she knew the others wouldn't leave her behind, and she was the slowest, weakest link right now.

“What's happening?” Carrie asked, confused by the onslaught of noise. A roaring was punctured by the sounds of cracking branches and other loud sounds Joule couldn’t identify.

As Joule and Cage attempted to lift the tree again and get Ezra out, he scooted a little further. But their strength gave out again. Carrie grabbed on to help and, this time, when they lifted, he managed to get far enough that he had enough strength to get the foot out.

Ezra scrambled to his feet, looking around frantically as they all tried to identify the cracking noises that had continued the whole time.

“Go up!” Carrie said, as if she knew what she was talking about. But they all listened as they scrambled up the hill, no trail to make the way easier, just the idea of up.

“What is that noise?” Cage asked as the cracking sound of gunshots was getting closer.

Joule had always been told that she would recognize gunfire when she heard it, and throughout her life, she'd found more and more that wasn't true at all. She'd heard gunfire and not known. She'd heard things like this that she now suspected wasn't gunfire, but she would swear it had that sharp, cracking retort of a bullet. The noises cut through the air too swiftly to be anything safe.

“It’s trees!” Gladys called from up ahead, her voice carrying back.

Trees? Joule thought. Just trees breaking and getting closer and closer?

“It's a flood!” Gladys’ words were choppy as the older woman worked at jumping her way up the hill on her one good leg. A grunt let Joule know that she’d likely stepped down on the bad ankle, but she kept going. That was enough to let them know how serious she was.

The twins scrambled to follow, Carrie right in front of them, Ezra right behind.

The cracking sounds came nearer and closer together. It was almost too loud to hear anything over it, but in the distance now, Joule could make out the roaring, rushing sound of water.

Another flood, she thought. But this wasn't like Stanford, where the rain came down and the water came up. This was water coming sideways.

Only then did she put it all together: the mountains, the melting snow, the valleys funneling everything into the dips and craters. They were told to go toward the water, to go down, because that's where the water would be. They'd been told that the melting water would be cleaner. They'd not been told that the nearby creek could become this.

She scrambled, her feet slipping on ground that suddenly now seemed very, very wet. Her eyes flicked one way then the other, watching for anything that could kill her.

“Oh, shit!” Cage said, grabbing her hand and holding her back. Reaching forward as she saw what Cage did, Joule grabbed Carrie—the only thing she could think to do in the split second she had.

“What the fuck!?” Carrie yelled, angry at being pulled back, at being pulled toward the water, rather than letting her scramble away from it.

But even though Joule held only the twisted fleece of her friend's jacket in her fist, she felt the woman's tension change as she saw what the twins had. Ezra, not paying attention, scrambled up the slope right past them and into its path.

71

The largest cat Joule had ever seen was bounding right at Ezra. Whether that was because Ezra was its prey or just in its way, she couldn't tell. Somehow, Ezra didn’t see it and there wasn't enough time to explain.

She watched as he took the hit on his shoulder, bumping him sideways. His body jarred as the big cat slammed into him.

She froze, both hearing and feeling Carrie’s gulp as the woman stilled, witnessing the cat take their coworker down. In a split second, it became clear the cat’s goal was not killing Ezra but getting him out of its way. Though it had body slammed him flat to the ground, it ignored him and simply bounded past, giving the other three not even a sideways glance.

That was maybe worse.

Joule figured there were likely a handful of big cats out here. The weather had stayed cold. Prey was likely difficult to come by, but whatever was going on this cat was not interested, not even in Gladys, who should be easier pickings. Surely, the people weren't that intimidating, so it must be the sound coming at them that spooked the large cat enough to leap through the middle of a group of humans.

Her hearing had temporarily stalled by the shock of seeing the cat and watching Ezra go down. But with it passing them by, her ears opened to the sounds and again she heard almost nothing over the water rushing at them. Turning her head almost involuntarily, Joule glanced to her right to discover she could now see it in the distance. Between the trees, frothy white spurts burst up as the water threw rocks and trees around with ease. It moved some and cracked others in half. The gunshots now made perfect sense.

Water was an immovable force, and it was the one doing the moving here. Almost nothing could stand up to it, surely not them.

Pushing at Carrie’s back, Joule scrambled and watched as her friend’s feet pushed at the ground, propelling herself higher again. Next to her, Cage rolled forward, his hands hitting the dirt. For a split second, Joule wondered if he was injured, if his ankle hurt but there wasn’t time to worry about injury. What was coming would be much worse.

Her brother had been holding onto her but had let go when he’d fallen forward. She frowned but found herself again in that super high processing speed that her fear allowed. She saw now that he was trying to scramble upward on all fours, and she did the same.

Luckily Gladys and the others had made it slightly up ahead. Hopefully, they were high enough. Though Joule didn’t know what “high enough” would be. It would hit them soon.

When she flicked her gaze to her right again, she saw water coming directly at them. She saw Ezra scrambling to his feet, now he was behind them, but he was moving higher, too. There wasn’t anything net positive about going back ... She told herself he would make it.

It was once again her own strength and fortitude against a thing that she couldn't beat. Whether she survived this would be her best effort along with a mere roll of the dice.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Though she made it further up the hill, in her peripheral vision she watched as the water got too close. It grabbed Ezra like a monster taking its victim. He tumbled downward, disappearing in the current before she could even call out.

Had anyone seen it?

She scrambled again, the water passing too close though she barely registered that her boots were now wet. Making it to slightly higher ground, where she was finally beyond the edge of the water, she turned and slumped backward onto her butt. She caught sight of what she thought might be Ezra’s coat as he rolled and tumbled further and further away.

“Joule?” Cage asked softly and she sucked in a deep breath, nodding.

The water was rushing past her feet, barely more than a yard below where her heels were dug into the dirt. But it wasn’t up where she was. Below her, the small creek—or maybe it was even a river—that had been gurgling through the culvert was now a rushing, twisting mass claiming everything in its path, even their co-worker.

“Oh God,” Carrie gushed, and Joule couldn't tell if it was oh God we've lost Ezra or oh, thank God that she was above the water line herself. 

Joule's body worked without her, her ribs cranking in and out, heaving oxygen into her lungs to make up for the burst of speed and fear. She told herself they would be okay. That Ezra would be okay. He'd gotten washed away, but he would manage to climb out once he got further downstream. 

Even as the tears pressed at the edge of her eyes—because she was realizing any loss was too much loss—she heard the noise. She couldn't place it. The water had already rushed past. Still more trees were cracking, more coming closer. But the flood was already here, already rushing past, taking more things with it and she didn't understand what the changing sounds were until she turned and glanced to her side again.

“Oh shit.” 

They weren't done. Another wave of water was coming at them, higher than the first. She'd seen this before; where the water level could be several feet different from just a short distance down.

“Up!” she yelled again, still unable to process or call out coherent instructions. 

Turning, Cage and Carrie scrambled and so did she right behind them. But she felt it like a hand around her ankle, grabbing her and tugging. As it tried to pull her under, she reached up, calling out to Cage, her hand splayed into the open air.

Whether he heard her or was already on his way to grab her, Joule didn't know. 

It seemed as if she felt his hand at the same time she saw him diving for her. He grabbed on tight, sliding slightly down the wet and muddy slope. But the water was stronger and it pulled at her, fighting a tug-of-war with her brother. She shouldn't have reached for him.

Opening her fingers, she tried to let him go. But Cage didn't let go. 

Her last thought as the water pulled her under was that she had taken her brother with her.

72

Cage tumbled through the reckless rush, unsure which way was up. Had he hit every rock and branch as he went past? It felt like it.

The water was so fast that he struggled to even break the surface and find air. As he finally did, he gulped in and got a mouthful of water before he was tugged back under.

He'd long since lost hold of his sister. The water rushed up to her feet, and he hadn't expected it to rip her away the way that it did. It shouldn't have been so strong, but it was. As it tugged at her and he held on, it was enough to topple him forward. He may have even been fully submerged before she was. Either way, she was in here with him. Somewhere.

Pulled beneath the waves again and trying hard not to cough out the water he'd swallowed, Cage cupped his hands and pushed. It was brighter to his left, so he aimed that way. Finding the surface, he managed to stay upright, though treading water was too strong of a term for his flailing.

He breathed. He shook his head flinging drops of icy water in every direction. He was still getting tossed along with the current, but his head was up, and he had oxygen. The air temperature was so notably different from the water that it was the first time he realized how cold he was.

He wasn't one to have much body heat in the first place. Though whether that would help him here or hinder him, he had no idea. Would he function better in the freezing cold, simply because it wasn't as much of a change for him? His core body temperature always read low at the doctor's office, to the point where he'd had to be sure and notify them that if he read 98.6 that meant he surely had a fever. Or would he be closer to the point where his enzymes just didn't function and his muscles couldn't contract? Would he just be faster to the point of no return?

He had no idea. He slapped the water, trying to keep his head up, but something locked around his ankle and pulled him under. He shook his head again, though this time it did nothing. He took a hard slam on his right shoulder and curled into a ball until he realized that only made him tumble faster.

Spreading out starfish style slowed him down, but he hit something else. It jarred his eyes open, and again he saw the light to his left and almost behind him. Cage clawed his way toward it.

Breaking the surface again, he kept his head up, mouth open this time and managed not to get sucked under. When he breathed, he only breathed in the spray around him. He would have appreciated the water at another time, in another place. But here he was rotated against his will, smacked backward into something he couldn’t identify, and rolled again. He couldn't see what was coming, and sure enough, he slammed into something else quickly, but it didn't hurt.

His backpack. It was still on. He felt for it then, the straps were still over his shoulders, but everything was now soggy, if not sodden, and pulling him down. He should lose the pack. He couldn't lose the pack. He had to find his sister.

With a great gulp of air and ignoring the water particulates he breathed in, Cage screamed her name.

Either nothing came back or he couldn't hear it over the roaring of the water. For a moment, he regretted every choice he'd ever made. For another moment, he told himself he was invincible—after all, he'd survived everything so far. Then he told himself, maybe he’d just gotten lucky, and it was finally his turn.

But he couldn't give up, because if Joule was still out there, she wouldn't give up looking for him. He cupped his hands and pushed them against the water.

Once upon a time, he'd had scuba classes, and he wondered now if rolling over and aiming the excess weight downward would help him back paddle. It would certainly—maybe—protect him from the things he bumped going by. But being in the rushing water head first didn't seem like the best idea.

If he could turn around, get his feet up and forward, maybe he could ride the water the way he’d been shown how to shoot rapids should he get tossed from the rubber raft. But his body didn't want to turn, and his feet didn't want to come up.

It was too cold to feel it, but the water was sapping him.

Could he get to the edge? And if he could, could he get out? He tried to kick his feet, but all he could do was scissor his legs. His feet didn't quite respond anymore. His shoes were too heavy, but he aimed for the side, because if it were him, his sister would keep trying. He was not going to be the sole survivor, and he hated the idea of it so much that he could not let his sister be the sole survivor, either.

He aimed to the dirt wall where the water had already washed away a new path, making slow progress as the water kept tossing him back toward the center. With each stroke, his limbs responded a little less. As he approached the side, he and the backpack got heavier. Cage felt himself get pulled under the water, and there—with his head submerged—he snagged on something.

Though he struggled, thinking it was past time to leave the pack behind, he tried to unclip it. Tried to wiggle his arms out. But his fingers couldn't operate the clip. And he couldn't break free.

73

Joule tugged with everything she had. Her teeth chattered. Her knees, despite being covered with leggings and insulated pants, felt crushed into the heavy rock. Her fingers gripped the rough surface, though how tight that grip was, she couldn't tell.

She was so cold, and she was pretty sure she'd broken her pinky finger and at least bruised an ankle bone both on her right side. Her brain worked enough to tell her that at least she was left-handed. But she tugged at the heavy stick, grabbing and pulling, making sure she didn't tumble off the rock and back into the water.

The wind whipped at her, stealing whatever body heat might remain, and making sure that anything that was still in her core didn't make it to her extremities. She was soaked. The pack on her back weighed a thousand pounds, but she couldn't give up. The black thing on the stick had been getting tossed down the river like a rag doll. It might be her brother. And if it wasn't her brother, maybe it was one of the others.

Joule pulled harder and harder but wasn’t able to pull whatever—or whoever—it was out of the water. She changed tactics, leveraging the stick upward. Her mouth fell open as she saw her brother's head break the surface.

He gasped for air.

Still alive! she thought. Though whether he was controlling his body or just operating on innate functions, she had no idea.

“Cage!” she cried out, though the sounds didn't quite form around her chattering teeth. It was more just a grunt of recognition, but his eyes flicked up to hers. He saw her. He recognized her as she recognized him. But that wasn't enough. He was still in the water.

“Hold on!” she called, though, once again, she wasn't sure if the words were even intelligible.

Pushing on the stick, she tried to use that leverage to get him out of the water. Unsure exactly how he was caught, she was confident that he was. He might not be tumbling further down the river getting slapped about anymore, but he was still submerged. The icy water was still stealing his body heat, and it was still deadly.

She braced against the stick using all her body weight and her strength—what little she had left of it. If they stayed like this, they'd both die, both from exposure, one in the water, the other in the wind. If she broke down, if her muscles quivered too much, if she let go, her brother would continue his journey down the river. At that point, she might throw herself in after him, but it was better not to get to that point.

She pushed harder on the stick, looking frantically across the small rock ledge she had been thrown against. Somehow the water had tumbled her face forward into the rocks. She probably had scratches on her temple from where she'd hit it, but she'd managed to grab and hold on. The very stick that now snagged her brother had been the thing her hand had found underwater. She’d flailed about, bashing against it, and would be covered in bruises tomorrow—if she lived long enough to see them.

As she'd pulled herself out, she remembered being a kid, laughing, trying to climb up the ladder in the wave pool. The waves would push her up and it felt so easy. But then she'd be high on the ladder, and the force of the wave going down would pull her off. She’d giggle and try again, getting tossed into the aluminum rungs and yanked off them again.

This was worse. This hadn't been fun, and she clung to the rocks, sticking her fingers into the tiny crevices and telling them not to unfold. When the water went up, she reached up for the next thing and held on against the massive forces trying to pull her off and toss her back into the rapids. Her feet had been tugged from their places on the rock and she dangled loose, holding on for dear life, until the next wave pushed her up and she climbed again.

Now she sat a foot above the surface, but it was enough. As long as the water didn't rise again, as long as another massive sluice didn't come down, or a tree get carried just the right way to knock her off, or, or, or . . .

She pushed against the stick, moving it along the ledge, hoping she didn't grate at the bark enough to make it snap. It had held her and right now it held her brother. She pushed again and again until she managed to get it braced into a crevice. With the stick finally holding itself, she reached out for her brother.

“I'm stuck,” he said, “my pack.”

She understood him. So maybe he could understand her. “Can you get closer?”

He maneuvered a little, sliding along. Had the stick gone through the pack? Was he actually hooked onto it? She looked again, tipping her head to see better. His snowshoes! His snowshoes had caught over the branch. They’d wedged in somewhere, not letting him go.

“Hold on!” she said, flattening herself on the ledge that was only slightly bigger than her body length, and only wide enough to think that maybe if she fell asleep, she wouldn't tumble off. She reached down, grabbing for the snowshoes, trying to pull them free. With her free hand she motioned up behind her own neck. “Can you get to the Velcro strap?”

She tried to hold on to the snowshoes, but as her brother reached up and yanked with clumsy fingers at the Velcro behind his head, he was suddenly ripped free and flung down the raging waterway. It wasn't the snowshoes she should have been holding onto.

74

Cage tumbled along the rocks, his freedom too sudden to react.

He rolled like a little log, trying to grab on to something, anything, and failing at all of it. He’d wondered what he was stuck on, and his sister had figured it out, but he should have held on to her. As soon as he'd undone the Velcro, he should have reached out and used her as an anchor. But then again, maybe he shouldn't. All he would have done was take her with him.

He was too quickly past the end of the little rock ledge where he'd seen her. It would be impossible to get back, but he reached out anyway, his fingers slipping past anything he could have grabbed quickly. Everything was slick or not large enough or too large. He probably peeled the skin from his fingers, but he tried again and again and again.

At last, he managed to snag the roots of a tree. Dirt and small rocks jammed under his fingernails and crept into his skin. At that moment he was just grateful he could still feel it. Cage held on tight until the roots ripped free, but he smacked out his other hand and grabbed for a stronger one.

It would be impossible to sustain this for long. The water was trying to rip him away, and he held on by one hand even though his fingers weren't really functioning anymore. As he first reached up with the other, he felt the drag. His pack was too much, too heavy, too wet, too big—enough for the water to grab it and try to pull him along. Without it, he might have been sleek, aerodynamic even. He fumbled again attempting to undo the clip, and he couldn't. He couldn't push his fingers tight enough to set himself free, not with the top clip. He certainly wouldn't get the one around his waist either. So he curled his fingers and dug in as best he could.

“Cage!” he heard and looked up. His head was above water, though his body was still in it. Joule had crawled to the edge of the rock ledge closer to where he was. He hadn't traveled as far as he'd thought.

“Can you get back?” she asked.

He didn't think so. There wasn’t much between him and the ledge, only more dirt and rocks. But rocks didn't rip away the way that roots did. If he could find a rock he could hold on to, he told himself he would be good.

The roots of the little tree held him, so he executed a sideways pull up against the force of the water, and in doing so, he found roots from another tree nearby. They were higher up out of the water, but everything took tremendous force.

Trying to hold onto one while reaching for the other was too much. He wouldn't be able to push himself with any force against the water, even the attempt would have him ripped away, but he scrubbed the toe of his boots along the dirt underwater and found a small hold. It was enough to anchor him so he could reach forward, grab the rock that jutted out, and move closer to the ledge.

His sister sat on her knees, her hand outstretched as far as she could possibly go, and yet still too far away. It was a gamble, reaching for the next root, next rock. If his fingers didn't work, then none of it would, but he reached out anyway, digging them in, jamming dirt and tiny rocks further under his nails as he grabbed on. Flinging his free arm up and out of the water and over his head, he slapped at the root, hoping it would provide enough force to hold on.

At least he was there. Two hands on the root, the water pulling at his body, trying desperately to break him free. His feet were loose, floating in the rushing current behind him, hands outstretched in front as he prayed to hold on. In a happier time, he would have thought he was Superman. Right now, he was anything but.

“There!” Joule pointed.

It was only a foot ahead, but a foot was so far right now. She pointed to a crevice in the rocks. Would it be enough to hold on to? They'd been rock climbing in the gym, and though they tried the handholds that required finger strength—rather than the ones that acted more like handles—he hadn't been that good at it. Joule was better, but she wasn't the one in the water right now.

He pushed his hands toward it. Pulling up against the roots, Cage worked at getting his face even with his hands, his only hope of getting another hand a whole foot farther forward ahead. When he smacked his hand forward in his first attempt, he was still inches shy. He didn't have to touch the edge of the break in the rocks, he had to get close enough to jam his fingers in far enough to hold on against the water.

Placing his loose hand back on the root for stability, he took a deep breath and tried again. He pushed. He again flailed his upper arm out of the water and over his head, aiming for the rock crack. It wasn’t until the third try that he caught it, but as he did and got his fingers jammed into it, he realized he was stuck.

He had to let go of the root to get forward. Was his hold in the rock crevice enough? His feet had once again been pulled loose and were flailing. Could he get one foot into the roots of the tree somewhere below him? Was he that flexible? He'd done it a few times while rock climbing, but this was a whole other level.

Turning himself sideways, Cage kicked at the side of what was the new creek bed. With his toes trying to find a hold, each time he moved the water bumped him, tore at his pack, and tried to pull him away. He jammed his fingers tighter into the rock and thought about the man who'd sawed his own hand off because it was stuck.

With another superhuman effort and a prayer that nothing bumped him back at the wrong time, Cage pulled himself forward with the last of his strength. His muscles weren't as strong on the second pull as they'd been on the first, and that hadn't been as good as they usually were. His coordination had gone first, but now he was losing his strength, too. Managing to get his second hand into the rock crevice, he shoved his toe into the space he’d jammed it into, a spot he couldn't even see well below the line of the water.

The water tossed him, and he fought to hold on. His sister still kneeled on the ledge, reaching out. From here, it seemed like he might be able to reach her fingertips, but neither of them would be able to hold on like that.

He was looking to the side trying to calculate what he might grab next, what might span the distance in between them. But as he did, he saw a huge trunk of a tree, rolling down the surface of the water. Battered and broken, with all its limbs stripped by the journey, it was clearing everything in its way. The splintered end aimed right toward his head.

Doing the only thing he could Cage prayed and ducked.

75

Joule hauled backwards with all her weight. Her wet and slippery fingers threatened to give way at any moment against her brother's slick skin, but she couldn't let go. His legs were still down in the water, even though they'd managed to get the upper half of him almost onto the ledge.

Throwing herself backward, she thought about how heavy he felt. The number of times one of them had dug the other out of some disaster, she felt she had a good grasp on what her brother weighed. Surely the fact that it felt like the water was a gravitational pull was partly her weakened state, partly her perception heightened by fear, but also partly that he weighed much, much more. He still had on the heavy coat. He still had on his pack, and his insulated pants like hers, probably soaked up the water like a sponge. Who knew how many tens of pounds heavier he actually was because of water that now saturated his clothing and his hair?

She tugged, dragging herself backwards, long since out of every ounce of energy she might have had, but unwilling to give up. She watched as he lifted one knee, trying first and failing to get it over the edge but managing on a second attempt. Getting his leg up gave him much more force and took some of the pressure off her. She continued hauling him backwards but realized she needed to pay attention to the ledge behind her. God forbid, she gave a good yank and sent herself tumbling off the other end.

When at last he was there on the ledge on all four limbs, having made it to his hands and knees, his heavy backpack weighing him down, they collapsed together into a small heap.

She'd been on the ledge only just long enough to unclip her own pack and set it aside before she caught sight of him tumbling down the river after her. Now she breathed heavily, unable to muster the energy even to turn her head and look and see if it was still there.

“Cage,” she whispered.

“I'm good, Joule,” he whispered back, and she nodded, wondering how long they might actually be good for.

It had to have been a few solid minutes later before either of them made a sound.

“What did you do?” he asked. “That tree was coming right at me.”

“I don't remember. I just grabbed the stick and pushed it out of the way.” She did remember that the stick itself was wet and heavy, but like Cage, she had a clear image in her mind of that splintered tree trunk rolling right at him. “I think I pushed it, and it just missed.”

Lifting her head slightly, Joule checked to see if she could watch it in the water that rushed by. But if it had even been there—if it was real and not a figment of both their imaginations—the splintered log was now long gone.

“We have to get up,” he said.

“No,” she replied, even though she knew he was right, they couldn't lie here in the cold. The water level was high enough that it splashed against her periodically. There was no way they would get dry.

“What do we do?” she asked. Her cheek still pressed to the wet rock ledge, her body still crumpled.

“First, we sit up, then we figure out how we get off here.”

She didn't say anything. Maybe she was wrong. She'd barely been on the ledge for a minute or two before she saw her brother passing by. It wasn't like she'd had any time to take a decent inventory. But Joule didn't think there was a way off other than jumping right back into the water.

Maybe the rushing river would calm down, though it wasn't like they had any kind of rubber boats in their packs. The things they carried were small and lightweight. They'd not intended to do any white water rafting. They’d not intended to have much of anything to do with the water. Yet here they were.

As slow as her brother moved, Joule did the same, pushing herself up onto her hands. It was a gargantuan effort. It took everything that she had left. If anyone had drifted by in the water, even if they had been kicking and screaming, she didn't know if she would have seen them.

She tried to take in her circumstances. They weren’t good. The daylight had been still strong when they’d been lifting the tree off Ezra, but it was already fading. The light changed quickly here in the mountains. And the temperature was about to drop.

“Do we take off our wet clothes?” she asked. When the answer didn't come, she turned her head to see her brother having stopped there on all fours, reaching across his chest for something. It took a moment to realize he was trying to undo his pack.

It took both of them multiple fumbled attempts to work cold fingers and unclip it. He slid out of it, but not gracefully, rolling slightly and letting it fall onto the ledge beside him. There was barely enough space for both of them. It was even more limited with their packs beside them, but the thought of losing their equipment, wet though it might be, was more than she could bear.

Plus, her teeth were chattering. Her limbs were shaking. She needed whatever she might have. Her brother was sitting up, leaned back against the rock, while she curled her arms around her bent knees. She asked again, “Do we need to get out of our wet clothes?”

“I don't think so. I don't think we can possibly get dry here.” Even as he said it, some rogue mass of water bounced against the edge of the rock wall and smacked her in the face.

He was right. Even if they had dry clothes in the pack, they would be wet within a minute or two.

Hearing her brother take a deep breath, Joule realized they'd have to do an inventory both of themselves and their own physical ability, as well as whatever might be in their packs. Because, unless a helicopter came overhead and dropped a bucket to them in the next hour, they weren't going to survive the night.

76

He fumbled with everything. His fingers didn't work, any fine motor skills were gone.

“My snowshoes?” Cage asked, though he really didn’t know why he cared.

“I got one,” Joule said, pointing. Hers were still clipped to the back of her pack. But a third—his—sat propped against the wall next to it.

He no longer had a pair. Though he liked the idea of having them as a weapon, there was only so much that would be worth carrying. They had to survive whatever darkness and cold was coming or get off the ledge. First, they had to get warm enough they could actually do anything.

Opening his pack, he shoved clunky fingers down in. “What do we have?”

“We have those foil blankets,” she offered, starting to open her own pack. It, too, was soaked. But maybe something would have stayed dry.

He looked for the little pack but remembered they weren't foil anymore. Right now, they really could use some light reflection, not the light absorbing ones they had. If there were any sunlight, the light absorbing ones would have done a good job at warming them up. So of course that wasn’t happening.

He searched almost blindly, unable to feel what he was touching with his fingertips, and mostly just going by size. He pulled out three different small bags before finding the one that had his blanket and then the spare. This is good.

Opening the first one, Cage carefully wrapped it around himself and his sister, trying to conserve whatever remaining body heat they might have. But it slipped off as Joule was still rummaging through her own pack, and he tried the same. Surely there was more here that was useful. He pulled out the second blanket and wrapped her separately as she laid out a neat little row of granola bars.

He was grateful then for Barry and Aliyah having sent their extra food with the remaining searchers.

“I've got water,” Joule announced, her wry tone seeping through.

“If it wasn't cold, it might be good.” He shouldn’t be upset, they needed water. But it was likely there were gallons of it in reach.

“Oh, hell, look!” She held out a small metal can of liquid fuel. “I mean, it's for heating food that we don't have, but if we heat water with it, we can drink warm water.”

“If we can light it.”

But Joule was jazzed by the thought, and she wasn’t deterred. Good. Setting down the can, she looked for more. Cage rummaged through his own pack hoping for more useful pieces. No satellite phone, though, he thought. That would have been nice, but not being here in the first place would have been nice.

The light was disappearing quickly, making their search that much harder. It took another few minutes, as best he could tell, to find a lighter. They had both tiny butane lighters as well as scratch lighters. They lined up four liquid fuel cans between them.

He and his sister each tried to light the tiny tin, and each time their fingers fumbled. Each time, the lighter didn’t catch or if they did make a flame, it flashed away before the wick could hold it. He didn't say it out loud, but he was confident his sister felt it, too: He was not going to die out here with a way to heat his water and a way to light the heater, but not a way to make his fingers work.

They just kept going. He didn’t count how many tries it took until one of them got lucky and the flame caught.

“Yesssss,” Joule hissed next to him. Though they had intended to open the water bottle and hold it over the flame, she first held her fingers over the space.

Smart. Cage did the same but quickly realized the heat was there but escaping. “The blankets!”

He showed her what he meant, opening the front of his blanket and holding it around and over the small flame. The thin sheet reflected the heat inside. Catching on, Joule mimicked his stance until they formed a small tent with the lighted tin in the middle.

“Won't we keep the fumes in with us?”

“I suspect that’s the least of our worries.”

Joule fumbled a few times getting the lid off the water bottle, but didn’t complain. Then she held it over the heat before motioning for him to take over the job. Was she really that weak? he wondered.

Luckily, it seemed she was more about reaching for the granola bars she’d laid in a neat line. “Food,” she declared.

He hadn't gotten his out of the pack. There was more than just what was here, but it still wasn't what he would consider what they needed to get back to the trailer. They struggled with the wrappers then chewed clunkily and sat in the growing dark. At least the little fuel tin gave them some heat.

“What about the other one?” Joule asked. “We need a signal light.”

“Flashlight,” he said. They carried spare batteries. They could afford to leave it on overnight.

Setting it in front of them, Cage balanced it so it shone up against the sheer rock wall above them. As far as he had seen, that was their only way out. Neither of them was in any shape to go up, and it was too dark anyway. They had to make it until morning. Until they could see and reassess.

In the meantime, they were left hoping that if someone came by, they would be spotted.

A while later, with the granola bar gone, the water heated and drunk—which felt insanely decadent—he settled in. He was starting to get a little warmer. Or at least not colder. Could he go to sleep? Or would it be the last thing he ever did?

Was feeling better actually a sign that he was doing worse?

Next to him, his sister sighed. Was she already asleep?

But she wasn’t. Her voice, soft but serious, still shaky from the ordeal and heat loss, said, “I think I'm going to give up.”

77

Cage watched as the last of the liquid fuel flickered and died. To its credit, the little flame had held on as long as it could, re-catching each time it sputtered. He thought it might come back for one last round, but this time it didn't.

He and his sister had rationed the little cans. They lasted plenty long for something like a chafing dish. But not so great as a heat source overnight. Luckily, it hadn’t gotten as cold as it could have and the thin, heat retaining blankets did their job. They’d tented theirs together to catch and share the heat.

When the first can burned out, they'd used the flashlight to rummage in their packs and pull out the shake and heat warmers they'd managed not to use this whole time. Then again, he thought, the world had slowly been melting around them. Things getting warmer. When they'd been out the night before, they'd been in a tent and hadn’t needed the additional heat.

It would have been nice to climb back into the sleeping bags, but that wasn’t going to happen. Despite their near perfect insulation, they were now very wet. He thought about it more than once—could he just find a way to use them? Cage had even gone so far as to pull the sleeping bag out of its tiny bag and check it over.

The bags crushed down to almost nothing in their little waterproof, drawstring pouches. He was convinced that if the backpack had gotten splashed or even rained on, the sleeping bag would have been okay. But he and his sister had been dragged through the river, bumped, tugged under and soaked. While there were miraculously dry patches, neither sleeping bag was good enough to climb into and stay warm.

They’d set out a few things to let them dry. But only things that fit on the ledge. Gloves. The small lighters. The gun—which he’d dismantled into pieces. It was the only hope it would work.

He looked out over the water, catching bits of moonlight shimmering off the choppy surface.

Their phones were another miracle, though Joule pointed out that they used only the most sturdy, waterproof cases. After Stanford, anyone would.

Still, they’d turned off one phone, preserving the battery. Then they’d put his into energy saving mode, and used the timer to wake themselves up so they could sleep in shifts.

Cage tried to resist touching the screen. Every use drained just a little more battery, and he had no idea how much of it they would need in the coming hours. Because, overnight, no one had come to their rescue, no one had seen the flashlight, no one had found them, no flares had been shot up, no one had called out.

He caved and checked the time, thinking that he could see the faintest hint of light in the sky. He was right. It was approaching seven a.m. Also, the little timer had less than a minute left. This was it. Joule had gotten the last round of sleep. He waited, listening to the water still burbling by. He could see that it wasn't as rough as it had been, and that it was higher. High enough that—if it kept rising at this rate—the ledge would be underwater by afternoon.

They were going to have to get themselves out of here.

Even in the short amount of time that it took for the timer to do the final countdown, his thoughts drifted away. He wondered if Kayla and Ivy were worried. Probably. They hadn't heard from either of the twins in several days. Normally, the family chat stayed hopping with who arrived where and when, did anyone need anything from the store?

Of course, both of the twins had warned their surrogate moms that they'd be out all day, maybe even overnight. But this was the second night. This morning was when Kayla and Ivy would wake up and realize there was still no word. He didn't want them to worry.

A wet plop nearby had his head turning, wondering if there were fish enjoying the increased waters. Something should, he thought. Then the timer went off.

His sister made an odd little groan—not surprising given they’d slept upright, wrapped in thin blankets with only rock for cushioning. He watched as her eyes fluttered open. Reaching out, he shut off the progressively louder chimes.

“It's time?” she asked groggily.

“Depends on what you mean by time.” He looked around. “I don't think it's time to start going up, not enough light, but it’s time to start planning. Time to eat.”

She nodded, seeming to fully understand that something was only the few granola bars they had remaining.

They had decided last night that they would be better off starving at the top of the ledge than not fueling enough down here and maybe not making it up. He’d pointed out that high levels of adrenaline could help with anything to which she'd replied, good, then they can help us at the top too. He'd laughed, decision made.

Even so, they were still stuck here for maybe another half an hour or so while they figured out how to get up, what to pack, what to leave, and more.

He asked again, “When you said you were giving up, you just meant the job?”

“I just meant the job,” she replied, though she’d told him that before.

They ate their granola bars, shared a bottle of water, and chatted as if they weren't stuck, as if it might not be their last day.

“If we leave, what should we do?” he asked.

“Thank you for saying we.”

“Of course.”

“You just shouldn't have to suffer my decisions.”

“No, I fully agree,” he reassured her. He’d had a few thoughts of his own bigger than making a better choice for the next assignment. But Joule was clearly thinking about more than this profession . . .

Once she'd said it, it had settled firmly, a good decision. If they could stay alive long enough to carry it out.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked.

“I don't even know. Our videos are doing well enough that we should just pull the trigger and monetize them.”

He nodded along. The channels had been offering it to them for a while, and they hadn't wanted to. However, Joule had recently learned that the viewers were seeing the ads anyway. So, the two of them might as well make some money off it, especially if they didn't have other jobs like this.

She finished her granola bar, crumpled the wrapper and stuffed it down in her pack. His sister was no Ezra, Cage thought. That fucker had been littering the whole time, and the starving animals of the forest had followed him—shitty, shitty little Pied Piper that he was.

Leaning her elbow onto her knees and her head into her hands, Joule turned to look at him. “I got an email last week offering us work. They said they were a producer, had seen our videos and they wanted us to do a TV show.”

He frowned at her, “Do you think it was a scam?”

“Of course, it was a scam.” She smiled at him. Then she laughed a little, and he realized he could see her face. The sun was up.

“Are we good?” he asked.

His sister nodded, understanding exactly what he meant.

“Now, we have to figure out how to get off of here.”

“The only way I see,” Joule said, “is up.”

78

Joule stayed where she was, clinging to the side of the rock wall, doing her best monkey imitation.

Her arms weren't shaking, but she wasn't far enough up the side of the sheer rock yet to know she could make it.

Luckily, the wall was mostly vertical. It would only be better if it sloped, but at least it didn’t veer outward and she didn’t have to scale the underside of an overhang. She didn’t think she had the skill for that. She was questioning her skill at this already.

The hand holds were not the same as she was used to in the gym. She spent a good amount of time—too much—simply hanging or holding her entire body weight while she searched for the next place she was confident enough she could set her fingers.

She and her brother had both voted that she go first for no reason other than she had more experience in the gym. So that's what they were relying on, her entirely indoor gym experience, of which she was not that great. She climbed level fives and sixes by the wall ratings, but the eights were hard for her. And this? Who knew what this was?

Her left hand had a fantastic spot, but she couldn't stay here, and she struggled to find a place for her right hand. There were crevices in the rock, but she needed to be able to grab them. She didn't want to wedge her hand down in, she was too afraid of getting stuck. Then where would they be?

Though they'd burned all their fuel cans, the sun had come up, and the day had immediately begun to warm. Between that and the exercise, even though her clothing was still relatively wet, she wasn't too terribly cold. Still, none of this was good, and she didn't know how long she could survive it. But it wasn't the same as if they were out in sub-freezing, or even near freezing, temperatures.

Finding a spot that was simply good enough, she dug her fingertips in and pulled herself up. Right hand, left hand, right foot . . . she poked around with her left foot, only finding a space after checking across her center mass. It would have to do.

Around her waist, they’d loosely tied the webbing in a good knot. At the top she could rotate it to the front to untie it. At the last minute, her brother had handed her a knife just in case she couldn't get it undone. The purple tail now trailed her as she moved slowly upward. If only they'd had a grappling hook or had known where or how they could throw something upward for an anchor. She could have simply hauled herself out. But no. She was going to have to do it the hard way.

That seemed to be the story of her life.

Reaching upward with her foot across her center mass was difficult. Joule looked above her. The better hand and footholds appeared to be on her left, but they were further away. She thought through every possible path—move up and to the right, try to cut sideways, jump for the left, stretch for the left—and finally figured she just had to do it. Her adrenaline would have to come through.

Trying to play it smart, she moved her foot first, hoping to get it more stable. It was still an awkward position, but at least her feet were now on either side of her. With a prayer and a push, she launched herself toward the next handhold.

And she missed.

79

Cage watched as his sister reached and missed.

She slid downward against the rocks. He winced as he jumped into place, hands up, as if he could catch her. For a moment, he imagined her crashing down on top of him, and it didn't matter if he caught her gracefully or not. Either way, they would both go tumbling off the ledge. His only consolation was the water landing shouldn't damage them.

Of course, the river water was likely close to or below freezing, and they wouldn't last long.

All of it churned in his thoughts as he lifted his hands over his head. His gaze was sharp as he waited to feel her smacking into him. But he didn't.

“I'm good.” Her voice was reedy and thin.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Okay as I can be.”

He took that to mean that she was pretty bashed up. But as he looked her up and down, there were no obvious broken bones, and she took only another deep breath before moving upward again.

He held his breath, too good at weathering these adrenaline rushes.

And too good at surviving.

For a moment the night before, when his sister told him she was done, he'd panicked. Thinking about how he couldn't go on without her, and then it occurred to him he didn't have to. He could be done, too. But it had lasted only the barest hint of a moment. He couldn't be done.

His mother had sacrificed herself for them. His father maybe hadn't meant to, but ultimately had. Cage and Joule still didn't know if the man in the woods was Nate or not. He had to agree with his sister, though. They had called out “Dad! Dad!” and if it had been their father, he would have at least reacted in some way.

He'd buried his mother, slowly let go of his father, and he'd be damned if he was going to do it with his sister. So he watched as she grunted and hauled her way to the top out of sheer force of will and then she disappeared over the high end of the edge.

80

Only as she put her hands flat on the ground and her feet wide apart and pushed herself to standing, did Joule feel the shaking in her muscles. It had been too much effort, but it didn't matter, because she was at the top.

She scanned the area around her, checking for threats, anything useful, any people. Somehow, now “wet and snowy” looked glorious.

The ledge up here didn't extend very far before disappearing into the trees, but she was back on even ground and well above the rushing water. Maybe they could begin to find someone else on their team, or anyone who could help. The work was by no means done.

“You good?” her brother's voice called up.

“Yes!” she called back down, relief flooding her voice. She wondered if he mistook any of it for happiness. But she was happy. She was alive. They had one granola bar left to split, and she counted that as a win, but she couldn't leave her brother on the ledge. The water was getting higher, and though it wouldn't be over the lip for probably another couple hours, she hadn't come up here to roll in the grass and admire the sky.

Turning, she moved to peer over the edge, but felt something on her arm. Lifting it, she saw blood trickling down. She probably had more scrapes than just that. And she shouldn’t have pushed the fleece up to her elbows. She probably wouldn’t have gotten scraped if she hadn’t had exposed skin. But she’d finally felt warm.

Damn it.

She hadn't brought a first aid kit or even a water bottle up. The goal had been to send her up as light as possible. She looked at the once-nice fleece. Fuck it. In fact, the pale jacket was probably already beyond ruined. She pulled the sleeve down and pressed it against her left arm. Calling down to Cage, she told him, “I'm bleeding just a little. I need a minute.”

Okay, it was more than a little. She was dripping. But it wasn’t life threatening or worth making her brother wait. She pressed at the fleece, then leaned over, waving at Cage. “Hold on!”

Working the webbing loop around her waist, she brought the knot to the front. After a few attempts to untie it, she considered cutting it, but she didn't like losing the length. They'd already tied two rolls together, and it was probably overkill. But, as she looked back over her shoulder, she tried to figure how far she would have to go to get a sturdy tree, then wrap around it.

Though she and her brother were close in height, he did weigh a bit more. Using herself as an anchor would simply be bad physics. She had not clawed her way to the top to get yanked back over by bad design.

Not yet willing to give up, she worked with the knot again. It was just webbing. It should open easier than this, but they had to make sure she made it to the top without it coming loose. Otherwise . . . She didn't want to think about otherwise.

“All right, I've got it!” she called back to him. “I'm going to go find a tree to tie this around.”

“Sounds good.”

The first one up, she’d had the harder climb. She also would do the work of finding a sturdy tree, setting up the line and hauling the packs up. Finding the right tree, she wrapped the line around the trunk and made her best knot and called out to her brother. “Ready!”

Slowly, she lifted the first pack, and then the second. She set them on the ground next to her. Dammit. She was still dripping some blood. That slide down the rock face had not been kind. She could feel a scrape on her knee, which was probably also bleeding. But first she had to get her brother off the ledge.

Finding the sturdiest ground she could to brace herself on meant she was too far back to see what Cage was doing. She wedged one foot into place, wrapped the webbing around her arm and tugged until she felt it just begin to give.

“I'm coming up!” he called out.

She held on and prayed for this last little miracle.

81

“Oh, it feels good to be at the top,” Cage said with a big breath in and a stretch. Then he jumped forward and hugged his sister tight. He just as quickly jolted back. “You're bleeding.”

“Not badly.”

“You should have wrapped it up.”

She stared at him like he was an idiot. “First priority is getting everybody and everything to the top. Did that! Second, I would have done a shitty job wrapping it myself. So now you're here.”

Joule peeled back the sleeve of her fleece, and he tried not to wince. She hadn't quite shredded the skin, but she had sliced and diced it.

“Look what I did,” he said, reaching into his pocket and producing a water bottle. “It's river water, but it's better than not cleaning it.”

“How many did you get?” She frowned at him, now looking and seeing his clothing hung oddly with the extra weight.

“Four.”

“You shouldn't have carried anything extra.”

“I climbed with extra help, and it's water.” She winced as he poured it over. “Does it sting?”

“Yes, but mostly because it’s cold.”

He'd scooped it in at the last moment, in a fit of what he considered might be brilliance, right before he came up, so he wasn't surprised. Patting the wound gently, he let it dry while he opened the first aid kit and rummaged through. It only took a few moments to get her taped up, at which point she announced. “And my leg.”

While he hadn't seen the blood on her dark leggings, he could see it on his pants where she had hugged him. “Are you going to be okay? Are you good to go on a serious hike?”

She shrugged and lifted both hands up, her pinky still a bit swollen, but she hoped now she was wrong about it being broken. “Good enough, I guess.”

They just had to not run into any drug dealers or wild animals, or, or, or . . .

“Who's carrying the pack?” she asked. They had split things into what to carry and what to leave behind. Wet things were notably heavier, and they needed to travel light. Though they had hauled the second pack to the top, it was full of their trash and anything they deemed not worthy of the weight. They would be leaving it here.

“I’m carrying it,” he told her. “Obviously you had the harder climb.”

She didn't argue with that. “Which direction?”

“Back toward the trailers.” He said it as though that should be obvious.

Making fun of both of them, she spun in a circle with her eyes closed and her finger out. When she stopped, he was pretty sure she was pointing almost exactly the wrong direction. He told her, “Compass.”

“Of course, compass,” she agreed, and he figured it was a good sign that she could be silly or laugh. She couldn’t be hurt that badly.

He was putting the first aid kit back when she said, “You brought all three snowshoes.”

“Seemed smart.”

“Give me one?” She held a hand out, and he pulled one free to do as she asked.

With the compass out and their direction planned, he pulled on the pack. His sister walked ahead of him, carrying the snowshoe, swinging it almost like a police officer with a billy club. The lone shoe wasn't good for anything other than . . . Well, whatever it might turn out to be good for. They simply didn't know yet.

He felt a slight rub at the back of his still wet shoes and wondered if he should worry about blisters. Of course, the outside of him mostly looked dry, but the inside wasn't. He wondered if it would be worth airing themselves out, or if there was even time.

They quickly passed through the clearing and headed back into the trees, finding a trail that seemed to run—if not in the direction they wanted—close enough. Ironically, the snow was heavier in the woods now. The sunlight hadn't penetrated to melt it. It was frozen and crunched beneath their feet as they broke the surface with each step.

Neither of them spoke much, and he wondered if they should be calling out or staying quiet. Every once in a while, his sister would hold her phone up into the air then shake her head and put it back into her pocket. Of course, there wasn’t signal out here. Sometimes, he turned to see a shadow duck between the trees. But it must be paranoia, he didn’t actually see or hear anything.

“What do you think happened to the others?” she finally asked.

“I think—I hope—that Dr. Murasawa and Gladys and Leon and Wilson were high enough that they weren't swept away by the water.”

“I hope so too,” she said softly, then added. “I hope so for them, and I hope so selfishly. Because they had sat phones, and they would see where we went.”

“Good point.”

“Ezra?” she asked.

“Who knows? He already had a bad ankle.”

“Oh, those damn ankles!” Joule mocked, before adding, “I know, I know! Broken arms don't stop anybody out here.”

“I think his arm was injured, too,” Cage said. “Ezra didn't say anything, but he was cradling it. Carrie?”

“No idea.” Joule shook her head.

“I think I saw her go into the water. But I can't be sure. She's possibly up with Dr. Murasawa and Leon. She's also possibly—” He didn't finish. He was thinking somewhere down the river. Anyone who went in the water and didn't get out probably wasn't doing very well. Though he hadn't said it, his sister turned around and nodded in agreement.

They came to a split in the trail, shrugged at each other, and then motioned toward the one that more roughly went the direction they wanted to go. As if they might walk the whole way back to the trailer themselves without getting found. At least they weren't several days walk away from their goal. They'd made a bit of a loop, at least, or so he thought.

Ahead of him, his sister stepped into something that crunched, and he heard an odd yelp. It wasn’t Joule.

“Oh shit,” she muttered as she stopped dead.

He ran into the back of her, unable to completely stop, but she jolted again, arms splayed out, as if protecting him from something in front of her. He couldn't see what it was.

But when it screamed, he heard it.

82

“We can walk around it,” Joule offered, though she suspected she already knew what he would say.

In the middle of the trail, a large cat stood staring at them. Jaws wide, it hissed and growled. Luckily, it didn't come any further forward.

“I think it’s stuck,” Cage offered.

“What?” Joule hadn’t taken her eyes off the cat. It pranced a little bit, but now she saw that it didn't move its right front leg. That paw was pushed down into the snow and didn't come out like the others did. “He looks a bit thin.”

Walking slowly in an arc, she made it a quarter of the way around the cat, watching him rotate as far as he could. Not only did the front leg not come out, it didn't turn.

“What's it stuck in?” Her brother seemed to be musing out loud, but she answered him anyway.

“It doesn't matter. If it doesn't move, we can get around it.”

Her brother looked at her and she knew what that look was.

“Are you serious?” she pressed.

He was the biologist. At one point as kids, they had both considered going to veterinary school. “I don't think it's humane to leave it.”

She sighed. He was right, starving would be a horrible death. So would starving to the point where something else decided it was a worthy meal. That might be worse. She looked at the ground and noticed several larger prints around where the cat was stuck. Her heart squeezed.

She didn’t want to admit to herself that she recognized those prints. Something had been here, and it had circled the cat. Though thin, it was a big cat. Maybe the creature had decided to come back later.

“What's it stuck in?” she asked this time, realizing it probably did matter. “Do you think it stepped in a hole, got wedged? I mean, if that's the case, how do we even save it?”

“I don’t think so. Look at the snow. The snow around the foot is moved a little bit.”

Even though it was deep enough for the cat to be caught, it wasn’t flat. Who knew how long it had been here? It looked like the snow had fallen over it and then frozen around it.

“I think it's like Ezra,” Cage said softly.

It took Joule a moment to process, because like Ezra mostly meant like an asshole to her. Ezra had also been stuck under a tree, which this cat wasn't. But then she thought back to the first time they’d had to deal with the results of Ezra’s arrogance. Ezra had been caught in the snow slide. “So it’s something big, something wide.”

“I think so. That way when the cat lifts it—because you can see he's trying to—” Cage pointed, and she did see it. “—He can't lift the whole thing and the snow on top of it.”

“How would we even dig it out?” It would be more humane, safer even, to use one of their bullets and put it out of its misery. But she didn't think she could be the one to pull the trigger. She knew if she couldn't her brother couldn't either. “Can we wrap a coat around it like a straight jacket?”

It took fifteen minutes of their precious time just trying to figure out how they might do it. In the end, they decided to use the webbing to tie its feet.

“Wrap it like an At-At!” she said. Her brother had laughed, but he'd seen Star Wars, too. He moved very wide circles around the cat. They did put a coat over its head, which it did not like, but its three loose feet were already anchored. Between the claws and the fangs, she had to hope to hell their contraption held. “Can we tie the coat on with more webbing?”

They also tied the feet a little more carefully, now that they were controlled better. Even so, she hated that they had to do it, because she thought it hurt that front leg a little bit more to do so. But she could not have it swiping at her or Cage.

Grateful the pack shovels had made the cut, they unfolded them and began digging. The cat wiggled, untrapped paws moving, head thrashing side to side, getting in their way. It would have been easier to dig out a back leg, she thought. But no, nature had not been kind enough for that.

“What are we even doing?” she said to her brother, when they cleared enough ice to hit black metal.

“We're being the kind of people mom and dad wanted us to be,” he replied calmly.

Well, shit, she thought, and went back to digging. Sure enough, in a few moments, the trap was revealed.

“Yep, just like you said.” She sighed and the cat heard. It began trying to pace again. “How do we open it? Something to pry it with?”

“The shovels?”

“Might as well try it.” He motioned with his. The pieces were made more for digging and lifting.

“Crap.” She stepped back and looked at it again. “Even if we get it open, the cat has to lift its foot out, and we just tied all its stupid-ass feet together.”

It took a few more minutes to draw a new plan. It took the last of their webbing to reach around the two back feet, tying them and then looping them to the left front foot and securing the whole thing with a slip knot. That part was good, she decided. Because, at some point, they had to get the cat loose and get out of its damn way.

They removed the old webbing that tied all four feet together, reclaiming it, but not yet willing to put it in the pack. Joule wondered what fantasy that would be useful in. It wasn’t like she could lasso it.

The cat didn’t swipe at them. It seemed sadly resigned, for which Joule was grateful. It was still stuck in the trap, though the trap was now out of the snow, and if the cat had enough power, it could swing its front leg and just sweep them out.

“Got it,” Cage announced, and they both stepped back for the big reveal, where he yanked the coat off the cat's head. Of course, it didn't go according to plan. The hood got caught over the cat's eyes, and it shook its head back and forth. Joule prepared to die, to meet her ghost parents and tell them she’d tried to pet the wild kitty. Or worse yet, to have a paw swipe across her midsection and leave her for dead in its place.

It couldn't do that, she reminded herself. They had tied it. But as Cage stepped back with the coat, she saw the cat turn to look at her and then to her brother. Was she humanizing it too much? Did it recognize what they were doing? This time it remained reasonably calm for a wild creature that was essentially hog tied.

“Okay. Moment of truth,” she said. They would have to get close to get the shovels in. Though the shovels extended, they weren't full size, but she had no hope of finding a branch that would be sturdy enough to pry open the trap.

“We just have to get it far enough open for him to get his foot out.” Her brother said as though that were easy.

“Also, I’m sure he knows that it's his job to lift his foot out,” she said wryly.

“Three.”

She took a breath. She was close enough that the cat could take a swipe at her as soon as the foot was freed. She was close enough that, if it made a leap, it could get its mouth around her leg or her arm—or her brother.

“Two.”

They pushed the blades of the shovels into the mouth of the trap.

“One!” Cage declared and they both pulled.

The trap came open, and the cat leapt out.

83

Cage watched as the cat pranced slightly. Three legs were still tied, not tightly enough to make it fall over, but enough that it couldn't swipe out or leap at them or even run away. It put its damaged paw gingerly onto the ground, testing the weight.

Though that was the only paw that was loose, he and his sister had already jumped back out of the way.

“Moment of truth.” He took a deep breath and held it as he picked up the trailing end of the webbing. If everything went well, he would pull it, the slip knot would come loose, and the cat could be free.

“I already said that,” Joule told him. She stood back, her shovel held in front of her, ready to use as a weapon if the cat decided they were foe and not friend. “This is a dumb idea.”

She was probably right, but she couldn't have left it there to starve any more than he could. They couldn't have left it there to get mauled by whatever creature would make a feast out of it because it was stuck. The snap trap had at least been a slightly more humane version and hadn't broken the cat’s leg. Cage had no idea if the trap and bait belonged to a hunter who hadn't checked in, someone trying to keep the cats away, or some scientist who wanted to tag it but hadn't come through. Whatever it was, he was letting the cat go.

Without a countdown this time, he yanked at the webbing, grateful when the knot slipped free. In a few moments, the cat had kicked off the loops and bounded away.

“Oh, thank God.” Joule breathed out and he did too.

“Good deed for the day done!” he declared.

“It took too long.”

And wasn't that the truth? They spent a few more minutes with one of them gathering up the pieces and repacking it while the other stood guard. He rolled up the webbing and shoved it in place. He folded up one of the shovels but left the other. Joule could carry the spare snowshoe, and he would carry the shovel. Just in case the cat didn't like what they had done. Just in case the cat didn't agree that it had been a good deed and came back.

“That cat looked hungry,” Joule muttered. The snow level and freezing indicated it had been there for several days.

“I'm hungry, too,” Cage replied.

“Yeah, well, we're not getting any food out while there's a starving wild animal in the vicinity.”

“Good point.” His stomach rumbled but he ignored it.

They headed onward, the going relatively slow.

“Do you hear that?” Joule asked.

“I hear all kinds of things.” Cage had no clue what she was talking about. He thought he heard something behind them, but each time he looked it seemed to just be his imagination.

“The water.” She pointed to their left. “I think we're kind of trailing along the water. Is it worth going and looking?”

She didn't have to say what they would be looking for. Ezra, Carrie, hopefully not any of the others but he didn't know.

“Is there a quick way to duck over and look?” Ugh. More side quests taking up more of their time, stopping them from making a straight line back to the trailer, but he hoped they wouldn't make it. He hoped somebody would be out looking for them and would find them before they got there. He hoped a lot of things.

He heard something behind him again, and Cage whipped around, once again catching a glimpse of a shadow. Maybe it would be better if they headed over to the edge of the water. There wouldn't be so many trees for things to duck behind. He figured the cat smelled their food and was trailing along.

His sister, though she was in front, must have caught his odd action. “What?”

“It's stupid.”

“It's never stupid. What?” She simply waited for his answer.

“I feel like something is following us. But it’s probably the cat.”

She didn't comment. She had to have noticed. “It’s probably trying to kill and eat us!” She sounded a little harsh as she turned and started walking again, but he knew she would have done the same thing even if it had just been her.

He almost hoped it would be the cat. Cage harbored a stupid fantasy that he could turn to the cat and say, No, it's me. I'm the one who saved you, and the cat would turn away. But he was afraid it wasn't the cat. He’d seen the prints in the snow.

“Is there anything we can do about it?” Joule asked.

“I don't even know that anything's back there. I might just be paranoid.”

Joule stopped again. She stared him down, snowshoe still at the ready. She gripped it in two hands now, prepared to use it. “You know that I am not going to call you out for being paranoid.”

She didn't chastise him, but he felt chastised, so he nodded. “Best thing to do is keep going then and be alert.”

They only made it ten more minutes before he heard another scream. Both of them stopped, heads whipping around to look to each other. The last time the scream had clearly been animal, but this one was human.

“Help!”

84

Cage took off running, the backpack bouncing heavy against his back, but he didn't care. The shovel was still braced in his hands. He wanted to hold it in front of him to block a shot or to swing the sharpened edge if he needed to, but he couldn't hold it quite straight across. The trail wasn't wide enough.

Shifting his shoulder awkwardly, he tried to let his feet go as fast as they could without injuring himself. If either of them went down, they couldn't help whoever was screaming.

They burst through the trees into the open space in front of them. As with so much of the terrain around here, one side of the space dropped off precipitously, and Cage ground his speed to a halt. If he kept going, he would run right off the edge. If his hearing didn't deceive him, he would go right back into the water they had fought so hard to get out of.

In front of them, Carrie stood, feet wide, crouched low. “Oh, thank God.”

Her voice carried a multitude of layers. Thank God someone was here. Thank God it was them. Thank God they hadn't gone into the water. But her eyes didn't move from the creature hunkered down in front of her, mouth open wide, low growl emanating.

Cage didn't need to see the canines to know what it was. The pale coat was new to him, but not the creature.

He crept forward, trying not to draw the beast’s attention. Closer to Carrie, he took a better look at her. Her lowered stance indicated she was ready to fight. Whether she was injured or not, she was upright and ready to swing, a screwdriver at the ready in each hand.

His adrenaline-fueled brain processed things as fast as he could. Her pack was gone. The screwdrivers were like the orange-handled one he'd seen her use before. One Phillips, one flathead. Not the interchangeable heads kind, these were actually better weapons. She had no coat just the fleece jacket.

And, like his sister, she had several cuts. Had one of the creatures already swiped at her? As he looked at the trail behind her, it seemed like she, too, had climbed the rock wall. Maybe even only just now had she made it to the top to find herself facing down this creature. But her fleece coat, pale like his sister’s, was covered in spots of blood.

Blood. It all snapped together. His sister had gotten cut on the way up. He'd hugged her, so even he had blood on him. The cold weather, the extended winter—all the local wildlife was likely in dire need of food. They had become bait.

Only then did he register the crashing of feet behind him, faster and closer until a second growl made him whirl around.

85

She must have screamed, though Joule didn't remember doing it. She did remember using the top side of the snowshoe as she barreled into her brother, the metal and plastic contraption in front of her held out rigid to push him out of the way.

She probably wasn't reading it right, but it looked like the beast was already midair and aiming right for Cage. With her heavy hit, he stumbled to the side, falling to the ground, but she had already whipped the snowshoe around and swung it with everything she had. All her old karate skills came back as she twisted, her torso and body weight following through.

It wasn't enough, the paw still hit her in the shoulder. If it cut her, she was in too much of a rush to feel it. The creature went down, but its open jaws didn't make it to her skin.

Luckily, her brother was fast. He was back up faster than she could count, and he charged it, blade of his shovel digging into its side. Whether that injured it enough, she didn't know. It was at least a hard enough hit to get it off her. Joule did the only thing she could do, which was get back to her full height and get two hands on the snowshoe. Weapons seemed to be their only advantage.

“Are you okay?” Carrie asked.

“Good enough,” Joule replied though she kept her eyes on the creature pacing in front of her.

The three of them now stood there, facing down two night hunters.

They stayed in that standoff. Bloody humans must be looking like a good meal right about now, but at least there were three humans, and every single one of them had a metal weapon in their hands. Still, she was concerned about Carrie's ability to swing very far with those screwdrivers.

“You good?” she asked the other woman.

“Good enough,” Carrie repeated Joule’s response.

Putting their backs together left the cliff side behind them. Though it was a good seven or eight feet away, Joule didn't like it. If one of these creatures hit them and tumbled them backwards, they could go over the edge together. Not good, she thought.

They stood there in a stalemate while her brain churned through all possible ways out of this. They couldn't stay here forever. Someone or something would have to make a move. Though there were three humans, the two night hunters stood large in front of them, and blocked their way out of the tiny clearing.

Then she watched as a third padded out of the woods. Then a fourth and a fifth.

86

“Holy fucking shit,” Carrie commented.

Joule couldn't agree more. Something in the other woman's tone, though, told her Carrie wasn't familiar with these particular creatures. Unfortunately, Joule and her brother were. And there was nothing good to know.

These looked more like the ones she heard about from Dr. Banza and Nikkiki—the pale ones the two women said were running around Finland. Part of her wanted to find a way to get a DNA sample, send it off to be analyzed, and find out what was happening. The larger part of her only needed for the three humans to make it out alive.

They'd been cut off when there were only two night hunters, and now there were five.

“How long can we stay like this?” Joule asked the others, though her eyes stayed trained on the creatures in front of her. She watched in her peripheral vision for anything from Carrie on her left and Cage on her right.

“Not long,” her brother replied. “We have a strength disadvantage and a numbers disadvantage.”

“And a position disadvantage,” Joule added. She did not like the cliff edge behind them.

“We have a brains advantage,” Carrie corrected them, and Joule understood.

She had been here before, even if Carrie hadn’t. They would have to use every ounce of intelligence to survive or get very, very lucky. The luck could not be counted on.

“Can we make ourselves big? Be scary ass?” Carrie questioned.

“That doesn't work on these guys,” Joule replied, though the fact was, she didn’t know.

“What are they? They don't look like any wolves I've seen.”

“They're new,” was all Joule told her. There wasn't time to explain the rest.

“And they’re aggressive,” Cage added.

If they had only brains as their biggest advantage, then knowing their enemy was the most helpful thing. And Carrie didn't know their enemy.

Carrie also had the least weaponry, which Joule didn’t like either. She would give about anything to get one of the snowshoes into her friend's hands.

“Inventory,” Joule declared.

Carrie sighed. “I gave my one of my guns to Gladys and the other disappeared in the river. So I just have the flare gun.” She sighed again. “Though not in my hands. And it’s wet.”

Fuck.

“Actual gun—nine-millimeter,” Cage said, “unknown amount of bullets. In my pocket.”

It was loaded, Joule knew, but it wasn’t ready to point and shoot. And a nine-millimeter wouldn't stop a night hunter, not on its own. She told Carrie as much.

“That makes sense, just looking at them.”

They all stayed in the stalemate, the humans almost completely still, the hunters pacing the edges of the space, clearly making dinner plans. Joule did not like being on the menu.

“Think of them like bears on drugs,” she added. It would have been funny if she wasn't concerned it might be one of the last things she would ever think.

“We have snowshoes, screwdrivers, a shovel, another shovel.” Cage continued the inventory. “Though not all in reach.”

“The flare gun seems like the best bet.”

Nodding along, Carrie asked, “Do you want to cover me while I get it? But it’s wet, it might not even go off.”

“It’s our best option,” Cage told her. Joule agreed.

“The gun went in water, too,” Joule added. Though at least they had dried it. It wasn't as good as cleaning and oiling it and taking care of it the way it was meant to be. So whether or not it would fire a bullet was a crapshoot. So she said, “Snowshoe first.”

Joule shifted slowly and told her brother, “Move behind us.” She motioned Carrie forward a few steps, not wanting to put her brother any closer to the edge than they had to.

“Should we be aggressive?” Carrie asked.

“No. Casual,” Joule replied, understanding that her friend was asking how she should approach the creatures. Was it better to seem like something crazy they wouldn't want to attack, or to not startle them? There were no good answers.

Joule’s fingers itched for the bow and arrow she didn't have. She lamented the sat phone she hadn't carried with her. They were almost out of food, and it would even be an effort to get to the two remaining snowshoes still mounted on Cage’s pack. Probably there was no way to carry enough on her for all the contingencies she might face on any given day.

She thought again that she wasn't just quitting at the end of this job. She was quitting as soon as someone found her, as soon as she met up with any semblance of civilization. Hell, she would hand in her resignation letter back dated to the moment she went into the water.

“Got it,” her brother said softly.

She smiled as she saw him slowly hold a snowshoe out to Carrie.

“Better than the shovel,” he commented. Joule agreed. It was a telescoping, extending shovel. Who knew when it would collapse? The snowshoe, at least, had a solid outer edge full of teeth.

“I'm going for the flare gun next,” Carrie told them, then slowly she and Cage traded places.

In front of her, Joule watched as dark brown eyes flickered. The intelligence in them worried her.

“The flare gun might misfire,” Carrie added again. But, like the nine-millimeter, it was likely the best defense that they had, definitely better than Carrie's screwdrivers.

“Got it,” Carrie told them a few moments later, and Joule made the mistake of breathing a small sigh of relief.

Had all five night hunters signaled to each other? Because somehow, they leapt forward in unison.

87

Cage watched as his sister went down under a flash of claws and fangs.

Carrie, though she'd been slightly behind him, got taken out by one coming in from the side. How was he the only one still on his feet?

He would not go out like this. He would not watch his sister die. He would not stand by idly while his friend fought a creature she'd never seen before.

Joule seemed to have been hit from the side and had sprawled from the impact. Carrie at least was face up. The decision was made before he even understood that he'd made it. He couldn't use the gun. The creature was on top of his sister, grabbing and tugging, jaws snapping. He could only imagine it was ripping her apart, but if he shot, he could kill her.

He used the shovel, swinging sideways, turning the blade out, hoping to make a cut. He was rewarded with the thunk of metal into heavy flesh and then the bloom of a bright red gash and a yelp as the creature jumped to the side.

Joule was on her feet in an instant, but Cage didn't have time to be relieved as another one leapt at them. It seemed she'd stuck her arm in its mouth and done the smart thing by pushing it away. It meant she was bleeding more profusely now, but it hadn't ripped her arm off. It hadn't gotten a mouthful of much more than fleece.

Whirling around, looking for their best defense, he turned to Carrie.

From the ground beside him, the red head hollered out, “Die mother fucker!” and he heard the whoosh and pop of the flare gun, but he didn't see the flare.

He just watched as the creature stumbled backwards. The gun had worked, but where was the flare? No streak of light burned his retinas, no bloom of blood showed on the side of the animal. It should have, as she had been at very close range. But it seemed stunned, and Carrie was pushing it off her, crawling to her feet. Cage watched as it stumbled away and fell over suddenly.

“Right down its mouth,” Carrie announced, her tone dark, dirty, and satisfied.

Nice, he thought, but he had eyes on the two women and wasn't expecting the one he'd cut to hit him from the side.

It felt like being smashed by a brick wall. All he could do was throw his hands up, and hope to protect his face.

88

They couldn't seem to get all three of them to their feet at once, Joule thought.

Even as she reacted, the one her brother had shoved off her by slicing it with his shovel had only been made angrier. A night hunter operating on the same fueled up adrenaline they were running on wasn't anything she wanted to tangle with. And four were still upright.

So far, only Carrie had managed to kill one. Beginner’s luck!

Joule whacked at it with the snowshoe, trying to make sure that the teeth were outward as she aimed for the head. If she could hit it hard enough, she could knock it out, maybe, or make it leave.

Then again, the canines the hunters were related to had incredibly hard skulls. She wasn't surprised when the knock stunned it but didn't take it down. Thinking as fast as she could, she stood on one leg, taking a chance. With one booted foot, she shoved her heel into the open wound her brother had created.

It yelped and jumped away. Joule saw Cage get to his feet and only a little farther away, Carrie swung the snowshoe she’d been handed. Another night hunter came at her from behind, getting in between Cage and Carrie.

Joule watched in stunned horror as the night hunters tried to separate them.

89

“Don’t let them get between us!” his sister yelled as Cage stood up, feeling momentarily stunned.

He had new cuts. He could feel them, and he hoped that didn't mean that they were so much worse than what he imagined. But there was no time to take stock. Joule gave him instructions. Pointing over his shoulder, she directed him even as she turned and rushed at one of the other night hunters herself. It wasn't even attacking, but his sister was no longer waiting.

He swung in the direction she’d pointed, but saw that Carrie had a night hunter at her front and another coming at her from behind. It stepped slowly, as if making a decision. That was bad.

Though he knew the throat wasn't vulnerable—not like a human’s—he remembered what Dr. Brett had taught him. He used it now, bringing the shovel down across the animal’s neck, slicing the side open. While it bled profusely, he knew it wasn't a fatal cut. Canines had systems that would reroute their blood if their jugulars were damaged.

His goal was to make the animal angry enough to turn away from Carrie. That, at least, seemed to work. What he wanted was the belly, which meant getting the animal up on its hind legs.

He feinted with the shovel several times, and the fucking creature had the nerve to simply pace back and forth in front of him. It didn’t take the bait, while Cage expended what little fuel his body might have left making useless gestures.

So maybe, he thought, maybe if he played stupid . . .

His sister had one, Carrie had one, one was dead, and one faced him. One was entirely unaccounted for, and he couldn't see it. But the only thing he could think of was to get this animal up. Everything vulnerable he needed was underneath. He couldn't shoot. Everything was moving too fast. It was too close, and Cage realized the gun would be for ending things, but not for starting them.

He took a step back and dropped the shovel to his side. He looked dead into the dark brown eyes of the pale creature—an enemy he'd never seen before, but one that he hoped he knew.

He stared at it and raised his right hand, gesturing it forward. “Come and get me.”

90

“Cage!” he heard his sister scream. “Gun!”

The hunter he beckoned hadn't leapt at him, not yet, and he saw that his sister had her night hunter down. Her foot pushed into the open wound, the snowshoe ground at its neck, not damaging it, but holding it still. She needed him to shoot it.

This was when a shot could end one of them.

Still looking at the one that stared him down, he wondered if he should shoot the gun or hand it to his sister. She was using both hands and a leg holding the creature down, and as he watched, it found a second wind and started to struggle. Luckily, Joule wasn't having it. She ground her heel into the wound, and somewhere in the back of his brain he processed the yelp that produced.

He hoped he was close enough. He hoped he'd eaten enough to keep his hand steady. He hoped he could aim and shoot where she needed while keeping his eyes on the one coming at him. But he couldn't quite. His sister was standing over it.

He couldn't afford to miss, so Cage turned as fast as he could, assessing the situation, looking for the most vulnerable shot, and firing the gun. He put three bullets into the hunter his sister held down and hoped that was enough.

He had no idea how many bullets Gladys had left for him.

But with his attention distracted, the other hunter took the opportunity. It jumped, claws out, slashing at him. The shovel was still down at his side, and the gun in his other hand.

He had to drop one to use the other. But which one?

91

Joule watched as her brother dropped low, the gun tumbling from his grasp. Was that on purpose?

Though the hunter was fast, Cage managed to get the shovel up, and only then did she see he was trying to disembowel his opponent. She wished him luck, but feared the shovel wasn't sharp enough. It worked with speed, not sharp edges, if it worked at all.

The gun was close by, but she didn't want to drop low to get it. That would be too vulnerable, even for a second. On the other side of their clusterfuck, Carrie grunted, swinging the snowshoe.

Both of them were in mortal danger. Two hunters were down, but three were still out, and all the humans were now wounded. But Joule remembered what Carrie said: their brains were their best asset.

She dove for the gun, deciding it was worth the risk to grab it.

The hunter, despite Cage burying his shovel in its belly, still managed to knock him over. He had some control with the shovel, but she could see the creature was too heavy, and Cage couldn't hold it aloft. He clearly decided it was better to take the loss than to let the weight of the creature push the shovel into his own gut.

He swung it sideways, seeming to want to try to cut through the best he could. She saw now her brother was bloody from head to toe. She could only hope that most of it wasn't his.

But the creature was distracted. Carrie was on the other side of Cage still struggling.

Fuck. If she made the wrong decision, someone could die. Hell, they could die anyway.

She moved around her brother, getting close enough to push the gun up to the creature’s thrashing head, hoping she made the shot.

She didn't.

It moved at the last moment, and she just missed.

Mouth open, long, sharp teeth dripping, it dove for her brother—for his head, for his throat. She didn't know, but the sudden shock of deathly fear pushed her to pull the trigger again. This time the bullet hit.

She pulled a second time, just for good measure, but the click of the empty chamber froze everything in her.

92

Cage watched as his sister pulled the trigger. Maybe he heard the empty click, or maybe he just saw it on her face and imagined he did.

Still looking out for the other night hunters, he saw one coming at him. His thoughts flew a thousand different directions trying to find a way out.

How many more were there? He'd lost count. Had this pack been limited to five? Could he find the backup magazine and get it to her? Could she get the gun reloaded in time?

But Joule was already moving. She tossed the gun to the side, and he tried to make note of where it fell as he turned, aiming for the other night hunter approaching.

Now there were two coming at him, and somehow that number didn't feel right.

The ones staring at him seemed to be the largest of the pack and the least injured. No matter their dead friends, they hadn't left yet.

From the corner of his eye, he saw his sister turn to help Carrie. At first, she raised a foot, as if she was going to attempt to kick the large beast off their friend, but then she clearly changed her mind. Shifting her grip on the snowshoe, she reached for the back of it and brought it down directly over the night hunter's head.

But as he watched, it broke.

The straps, the plastic center piece, the support, all shattered. He wanted to go and help. What would his sister do since her plan had failed?

But the night hunter staring at him started to walk slowly forward. The creatures no longer outnumbered them—he hoped—but they were in better shape than the humans and hungry enough that it was still obviously worth trying.

Next to him, his sister didn't seem to have any problems with the broken snowshoe. Instead, she pushed down on it and then yanked up, trapping and controlling the night hunter's head so that it couldn't get to Carrie. Had that been her plan?

Underneath the creature, he saw as Carrie jabbed repeatedly, and it wasn't until the beast slowly rolled away—as Joule controlled it again, with the snowshoe still around its neck, pushing it to the side—that he realized Carrie had used her trusty screwdriver.

Four down.

He tried to count them off in his head, but the last one turned to face him. Carrie and Joule were up on their feet moving in to flank him.

This time when they formed a line, they outnumbered it, though Cage was concerned about the sheer weight of the thing and the clearly dogged determination.

Then he heard something he had heard before. An absolutely inhuman scream.

93

“Un-fucking-believable.” Joule’s hands stayed useless at her sides.

The scream had come from somewhere on the right, and she didn't have time to process it before the large cat bounded into view.

With the night hunter’s attention on them, it didn’t see the cat coming. It barely had time to turn its head at the sound of the war cry. The cat leapt on top of it, claws and teeth gnashing at the back of its neck. The Hunter tried to shake it off, but the cat was clearly hungry or angry or both.

Joule remembered the prints that had circled the trapped animal. The night hunters had made it clear they were waiting for the cat to not fight back too hard. But the cat wasn't stuck anymore.

“Go cat!” Cage breathed out in awe.

On her other side, Carrie seemed frozen, mouth open, then her head turned toward the twins. “You know this cat?”

“I think we actually do,” Joule replied. Was she awful for enjoying watching the cat get its revenge?

“Let's get out of here.” Carrie motioned them with one hand down at her side.

It was an excellent idea. They couldn’t hang around to become part of the fight again, even if Joule wanted to see the cat win. The three of them turned, but Joule shook her head. “Check for anything we need!”

The gun had been on the ground, and the shovel tossed aside . . . The weapons might be their only hope should they run into more dangers in the future.

The cat made short work of the hunter, screaming at it the entire time they closed ranks and checked around. Slowly, they guarded each other as they gathered their things back. Each of them now had a weapon: Carrie and Joule with a snowshoe each, Cage still with the shovel.

They skirted the edge, and as Joule paid careful attention to how close her feet got, she looked back. God forbid, the cat should come after them. But as the humans disappeared into the trees. The cat looked up, bloody jaws gaping.

“Enjoy your feast,” Joule told it, then they disappeared into the trees, hoping it was enough cover to stay safe.

94

The small trio moved through the woods as quickly as they could, Cage bringing up the rear. He constantly checked back over his shoulder for anything following them.

He was stunned and grateful that they had found Carrie. Stunned and grateful that they were all still alive. And not surprised when his sister pointed out from the middle of the little line, “We are all walking bait. We are covered in blood. We have to be smelling pretty good to these animals.”

She said all of it with her phone held up over her head and a scowl at the continuing lack of signal.

“I had a sat phone,” Carrie sighed heavily.

“Where is it?” Cage asked her, thinking it would be worth going back for it.

“Somewhere down the river. It's a real river now, right?”

“I guess,” Joule agreed. Then his sister pushed, “What happened to you?”

“The water just grabbed me! It tossed me around, and then it actually tossed me against the rock. I felt something under my feet, and I managed to hold on. Then I crawled sideways until I got to a little cave.”

“Wow!” Cage replied. “Have you seen anyone? Did you get any signal sent?”

“When would I have gotten a signal sent?” Carrie asked. “I was inside a little cave, and luckily nothing else was. Then this morning, the water started coming into the cave, and I realized I had to get out of there.”

It had been wishful thinking that she’d managed to send up a flare.

“I had only just gotten to the top when those sons of bitches showed up.” She motioned back behind them with one hand, the other still held tightly to the snowshoe. “I’m really grateful you two showed up. That would have ended differently.”

What could he say? No problem? So instead, he asked, “Did you climb the rock wall?”

“Yep.”

“So did we, but we had each other.”

Turning to face him, Carrie put a hand into her pocket. This time when she produced the orange screwdriver, it was covered in splotches of deep red—hopefully none of it her own. “I had these. I’ve never climbed anything in my life except a playground. But I guess you can do a lot with determination and a couple sturdy screwdrivers. I jammed them into every crevice I could find until I had a firm hold and just hauled my ass up.”

“That's pretty impressive,” Joule said.

For a moment, Cage wished he had had a screwdriver to hold on to. His fingers were bashed from the climb, but he hadn't been willing to say anything given the way his sister had slipped.

“I banged my knees and my elbows,” Carrie said as she led the way forward, keeping a brutal pace.

Like the twins, she probably wanted to put as much distance between them and the creatures behind them as possible. Hopefully the carcasses would keep the cat happy, but there were always more.

“We crawled out first thing when the light came up,” Joule told their friend.

“I had hoped to stay where I was.” Carrie shook her head. “Send up a flare once it dried out, let someone find me. I was pretty enclosed. What little body heat I had left held in pretty well.”

When the conversation lagged a little, Cage asked what he truly wanted to know. “Did you see if Dr. Murasawa and Leon and Wilson got away?”

95

“I think we need to stop here,” Carrie said when they made it to the next clearing.

Larger than the first, it too had a ledge along one side.

Of course it did. As Joule got closer and carefully leaned over, she saw the water rushing by underneath. “I don't want to get boxed in again.”

“There's more of them, aren’t there?” Carrie asked.

“There always are,” Joule replied solemnly.

“I still think we’re better if we stay. We can see them coming. I say we build little fires. Do you guys have lighters?”

“We do, though we used them up a lot lighting our little liquid fuel cans.”

“We should be able to get some wood.”

Her brother pointed out the obvious. “Everything's still wet.”

Including them, she thought.

Then he added, “But it’s drier than yesterday. We don't need a lot. We just need to keep feeding it.”

“We all have wounds that need to be bandaged,” she pointed out, reminding them, “We're walking bait.”

“Do you have spare clothes to change into?” It was clear that Carrie didn't.

Joule shook her head. They had jettisoned the sleeping bags and a lot of the clothing. As wonderful as it might be, it wasn't dry and still heavy with excess water. If they were out here long enough to set up camp and dry their clothes, they could go back for it, but not now. Now, the goal was to make it to the trailers.

“I think we set up a little ring of fires,” Carrie declared. “We make our stand and . . .”

Well, that sounded horrible, Joule thought.

“I've got Fritos,” Carrie volunteered with half a smile. “They're all broken, but they light just as easily.”

“And they taste just as salty!” Joule commented, her mouth watering at the thought.

“Exactly.” Carrie repeated her earlier line. “It’s a fire starter and a snack!”

“So you lost your whole pack, but you kept the Fritos?” Cage questioned her.

“They were in my pocket!” Carrie retorted, as if that explained everything, and Joule figured maybe it did.

They gathered wood, lit the fires, and took turns watching the perimeters. They put one person on guard while the second bandaged and cleaned the third.

“That was smart to get water out of the river,” Carrie said as she used one of the bottles they’d brought. “I'm about out, and I've been rationing it heavily.”

Water was not a good thing to ration, Joule knew, and so she was even more surprised by Carrie's performance back on the edge.

When everyone was bandaged and most of the Fritos had been eaten—a few saved aside to light future fires—they split a single granola bar three ways. Carrie had two on her, while Joule and Cage only had one left. At least there was something for the next meal.

Joule could feel the shakes setting in, the adrenaline finally leaving her system. She just let it pass through her. Hopefully it was a good sign. But what wasn’t was watching the sun slowly lower in the sky. It was going to start getting dark soon.

“This has been a really shitty adventure,” Carrie commented into space. She was sitting cross legged on the ground. They'd managed to get out the thin, insulated blankets to sit on, so at least they didn't get their butts even more wet.

“I’m pretty sure I've got a blister on my heel,” Cage added.

“You know, I thought I was getting one too, but almost dying made me forget about it,” Joule added, and Carrie laughed softly.

As the daylight began to fade, nobody said anything about it, but Joule wondered if the three of them would have to sleep in the one tent they had brought.

“I guess we should start setting up.” Carrie was the first to cave. “Do we have anything to set up?”

Joule and Cage began pulling things out of the pack and showing her. This was where they would be overnight, but three of them to take turns sleeping was better than two. Reluctantly, Joule pulled out the tent, but it felt like giving up.

She was handing a piece to Carrie when her friend froze, her hand out to stop them. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Joule asked.

“That!” Carrie pointed up into the sky. “Get the flashlights. We didn't reload the flare gun. Shit!”

She scrambled looking for the gun, but Joule heard it then. The distant rhythmic chop of a helicopter rotor.

96

Joule sat next to Cage on the couch. The electric blanket they had draped across it warmed her from underneath and behind.

Kayla and Ivy sat on either side of them, though Kayla was not willing to touch even the edge of the blanket. “That's uncomfortable!” she said.

But Kayla hadn't spent the night out in the cold.

Their new moms had fed the twins homemade chili, and never once commented on their abrupt job resignations. It had been three days, and Joule was finally feeling like she was home. Like she was safe.

They were eating at TV trays—the dining room table was still covered with the weapons from their last adventure. Joule had commented to her brother once that it looked like nothing had been touched. That was a good sign, but Kayla and Ivy hadn’t been willing to put it away.

They ate in the rec room and, in the background, a favorite kids show played as something soothing and familiar. But they kept talking over it, so no one was really watching.

“There are night hunters in Colorado?” Kayla asked. It was the first time they’d broached the subject.

Each time the twins offered up something concerning, the conversation generally wound down quickly, as if it was too much to handle all at once.

“They're pale, not quite white, but on the light side of gray,” Cage told them. “And they have brown eyes, not blue.”

Nobody questioned the twins, nobody asked if it was definitely not wolves or coyotes. Joule wondered if maybe Gladys wasn't right: if the two of them might be the world's leading experts on the night hunters. They'd contacted Dr. Banza and Nikkiki about what they’d seen. She’d heard back that Nikkiki was about to receive her PhD and Joule had smiled at the news, glad to be part of the extraordinary woman’s data collection.

The twins had apologized for not getting a sample, though neither woman seemed to be that concerned. They were more pleased that the twins had stayed alive.

Joule still had the stitches she’d been given in the Colorado hospital. She and Cage had called Ivy and Kayla and told them not to come. They could get home faster if they just got a flight. But they’d been in the hospital for a bit.

She’d had to get sewn up in several places on her arm. Luckily, she’d remembered what Dr. Brett had taught them: that if a dog was coming at you and aggressively biting, the dog had power if it could pull or tear. But if you could push, you would get injured, but you might keep the arm. And you would keep better control of the dog. It might not go perfectly, but it was the best chance. She’d taken it.

She would have a few more scars probably, despite the fact that the doctor assured her they had done their smallest stitches and it should heal nicely. Her brother had been bandaged up in several places, too. But mostly, she’d felt good to not be bloody, to be fed, to be warm and dry.

Carrie, apparently, did not like helicopters, but she'd suffered the ride out. It had helped that the chopper was stuffed full with the others who’d not been pulled into the water. They were safe.

The twins had not gone back to the trailers, though they had heard the entire operation was being shut down. In large part because Dr. Murasawa complained they'd lost too many employees out in the snow for too long. They’d also actually lost Barry.

The job was also getting shut down because of the arson and the nearby drug dealers. Barry’s death made it clear that the sting operation hadn’t cleared the area. It wasn’t safe for the workers.

So far, the search for Ezra had yielded nothing.

Joule wanted to feel sorry for him, but she figured he was the maker of his own end. The only good thing she could say was that his first mishap had taught them what to do with the cat.

The twins had also been visited in the hospital by Aliyah and Sarah. Aliyah had escaped Barry’s killers—she thought they were Ethan’s associates—as they took him. She had run to a safe place and Sarah had found her there, just after the last check-in call by the twins’ group. She was okay. Like the others, she was banged up and ready to quit. The operation couldn’t go on.

For some reason, knowing it was shut down—that it wasn’t just her—had helped Joule sleep through the night. Last night had finally felt like her first good rest. This morning, she’d poured herself a bowl of cereal and ate it as she watched Anning run around the backyard. She was grateful for the large staffy.

“If you decide to go to grad school nearby, or you’re staying home for a while anyway . . .” Ivy commented oddly and looked sideways at Kayla. She’d let the sentence trail off.

Something was coming. They’d discussed possibilities with their new moms, but no one had pushed for any plans yet. So Joule looked at her brother, who shrugged, not knowing anything more than she did.

“We were thinking about getting puppies, so Anning doesn't have to be the only dog,” Ivy announced.

“At one point I had four huge dogs,” Kayla said with a smile. “I miss them.”

“You don't need our permission to get puppies,” Joule told them.

“No, but puppies are babies, and this is your house, too. We also figured it might be nice to do it while all four of us are here to be hands-on.”

It would certainly take her mind off things, Joule thought. “I’m game,” she told them, knowing her brother would be, too. “Puppies sound like fun, but how many?”

“Two!” Ivy and Kayla said at the same time, as clearly it was a plan they'd formulated.

“Are puppies even in season now?” Joule asked, frowning.

“Puppies are always in season,” Cage and Kayla replied in unplanned unison.

She laughed out loud. The first real laugh she'd had in who-knew-how-long. It felt good. She was warm. She had a TV and a remote control. The twins had pulled the trigger on monetizing their online accounts. It wasn't anywhere near as much as they were earning in their jobs, but it was something.

“Do we get to help pick out names for the puppies?” Cage asked as he finished the last of his chili.

“If you suggest good names,” Kayla replied, as if that were obvious.

“Oh!” Ivy reached out as though she was going to touch somebody on the back of their hand to start a conversation. But it was already clearly started. Joule looked to her, wondering what was coming.

“I looked over that email you gave me.”

“It’s stupid, right?” But it was the second one they had sent her. She’d forwarded it to Ivy, trying not to be hopeful.

“Not stupid,” Ivy said with a grin. “I got online, and I checked it out. It's a real production company. I think they're actually offering the two of you a TV show.”

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Sin needs revenge. So does Lee, but he’s going to get them both killed if she doesn’t stop him first.

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Vengeance

Chapter 1

The thick smell of blood wasn’t a shock. He was used to it. What startled Lee was the woman.

She was sitting at the dining room table, seemingly oblivious to the carnage mounted on the wall behind her. She was working over something, like she was writing, and was deep in her efforts where she didn’t acknowledge him.

A large red bow, the kind you would put on a three-foot Christmas present, stole his attention sitting there on the table beside her. She wrote with precision, her head bent low, her rich chestnut hair worked into braids and wound round her head in a style that called to mind The Sound of Music.

Lee suppressed the boiling anger in him down to something in the range of a solid simmer and took a step toward her, wondering if she was in shock. Her right hand came up sharply, one leather gloved finger telling him to wait a minute, but the rigid control he saw in her told him she intended for him to wait as long as she wanted.

In that moment he saw what he had previously missed. She wore leather, in several shades of shadow, from her fingertips to her toes. The braids weren’t cute, they were cop hair‒the kind you couldn’t get a hold on and use to yank a person around.

“There.” Surprisingly, given the growing stench of death emanating from what Lee was now pretty certain was her handiwork, her voice was musical and held a low note of pride. She stood and turned to face him, holding the bow and what was apparently a large gift tag. And she smiled at him.

As the smile reached her large chocolate eyes, Lee felt the blood drain out the soles of his feet. She was insane. Clinically insane. There was no other reason a person would be truly happy here. Add in that she was armed to the teeth‒a short dagger was sheathed at her waist, a pair of matched sais were slid into long, thin pockets down each thigh, strange wood and metal sickles slipped gracefully through lined up loops so they didn’t jangle when she walked‒and the sweetness he had initially perceived fled like dandelion tufts.

She looked at him like she would a small puppy sitting at the edge of her living room, like he was cute and non-threatening. Lee’s hand inched under his jacket to his hip, fondling the warm butt of the 9mm there. Given everything else, he wouldn’t put it past her to be fast.

But she didn’t say anything, just went about fastening the bow to the body and plumping it a little, like she was Martha Stewart off to a birthday party. The body was held to the wall behind it by serviceable, unadorned throwing knives. At least he was pretty certain they were unadorned, only the last inch of the handle was visible on each of the six blades that had crucified the man to the wall.

Lee thought he had seen lethal in his time, but this looked like the body had been alive when it had been pinned there, and the buried knives were sunk into wall studs. It was the only way that the heft of the large, muscular man wouldn’t have come forward, bringing drywall down with him. That took planning.

The face of the man on the wall sagged, eyes and mouth open, blood running in thin rivulets from the edges of each. He had suffered a thousand punctures and surface slices in his final moments, and the woman carried exactly the implements to do it. Although she must have cleaned them thoroughly before sliding them into their leather homes along her lean legs.

Stepping back she admired the tag. And Lee, for the first time, read it.

In payment for murder, rape, and the destruction of families.

One by one, she used claw-like throwing stars to pin obituaries, newspaper articles, and pieces of police reports to dead flesh. After a moment Lee no longer cared what she was tacking to the corpse, he just wondered where in hell the stars were coming from. She would simply produce another and another, like a sick magician.

She turned to smile at him again, and his breath hitched. A wailing started deep at the back of his head.

He’d been wrong. She was just a girl.

The whine grew stronger, and he recognized it for what it was‒sirens, more than one. If the girl knew what was coming, she gave no indication, just tipped her head and walked out the back. She moved with a precision that made her look inhuman; he wouldn’t have batted an eyelash had she simply climbed the walls or even passed through them. And, though he watched her use the door, Lee heard none of the usual sounds of human movement.

She went down the back steps and flitted away into the woods, an evil sprite or a minion of a vengeful god. Lee wasn’t sure.

Beyond the walls, tires squealed and car doors slammed. They didn’t call out, but he could hear them out there, gathering steam and numbers. The cops had an idea that something had gone down here. But he was certain they hadn’t been expecting this.

His irritation was flaring again, and that was a bad sign. There was no room for emotion in this job. So with a sigh, he pushed the back door open with his elbow, and headed straight for the woods. As much as he would have liked to follow her, his priority was getting out of here.

He walked through foliage he knew too well‒deeper and deeper, following the path he had worn over the past week, his focus on the walk, on removing himself from the situation‒until he finally emerged. No matter what evidence they found, the boys in blue would know it wasn’t his work.

He unlocked the old sedan that was nearly mangled on the outside, but purred like a hot kitten. Climbing in, he slammed his fists against the leather wrapped steering wheel.

Damnit, the bitch had stolen his kill.

Owen Dunham had everything, and every goddamned little bit of it was sitting at the dinner table with him. His wife looked at him funny, her Russian, tilted eyes knew from the look on his face, even as she passed the buttered corn. Somehow she always knew. Charlotte was painfully oblivious, and he would have to either break her heart or leave it to Annika to foot that bill.

He reminded himself that he loved his job, and that he did good work, and that he could sleep well at night. Other people slept well at night because of him, too. So he reached down into his pocket to fetch the vibrating phone.

Charlotte saw the movement, her bright eyes clouding as the story of having her work held up as an example of some of the best third grade writing the teacher had ever seen faded on her lips. For a moment Owen wondered if Charlotte’s ‘fiction’ had included this.

He offered a repressed I’m-so-sorry-baby-but-I-have-to-get-this smile to his daughter. There was nothing to give to his wife. So he stood and flipped the phone open as he went into his office in his own little version of the separation of church and state. “Dunham.”

“Phoenix.” It was a voice he knew all too well, even though he’d only once shook hands with the man and saw a face to put to the sound. Randolph just did dispatch. Just spent his time interrupting Owen’s family dinners and school plays. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

Owen rubbed the back of his neck and wondered what the hell had gone wrong this time, because that’s all that this could mean. “My kid got an award at school today, she was just telling me about it. This had better be good.”

There was a smile in Randolph’s voice. “Oh, this is real fucked-up good. Your grudge ninja’s back.”

“Shit.” The ninja had laid low for almost six months. Nothing they could pin on the guy. Sure there were a few things that might have been his work. “Are they sure? Before I leave my family-”

“I’ve seen some preliminary photos. Open your e-file. If this isn’t your ninja I’ll eat your socks at the end of the trip.”

That was a serious bet, Owen knew. He tucked the cell phone handily against his shoulder, knowing it gave away his age. The move never should have been attempted with a phone this small, certainly not while hacking into his encrypted computer files. The stance was a throwback to a day when the phones had been large enough to cradle in the crook of your neck, back to when he’d first become familiar with the gadgets and had still thought they were pretty cool. Before he’d grown to hate the things.

The photo opened on his screen. As usual, he did a quick once over around the office to be sure that no small eyes had snuck in behind him, that Annika wasn’t there looking over his shoulder. His desk faced the door and was back against a solid wall for exactly this reason, but he’d never forgive himself if Charlotte ever saw what he did.

“Oh.” His stomach rolled a little at first, just like always. But, God, if that wasn’t signature work all over that body. “When’s my flight?”

“Half an hour ago.”

Knowing and not caring that the dispatcher couldn’t see it, Owen nodded at Randolph’s standard line. The plane was waiting. He didn’t need to pack, because he packed a new bag at the end of each trip, but he did need a few minutes to tell Annika and Charlotte goodbye. It wasn’t like the body was going anywhere. “Bye, ‘Dolph.”

The line disconnected as Owen tried to figure out how the man had been so neatly thumb-tacked to the wall. He should have fallen over and taken the plaster with him. At least the trip would be interesting.

Owen reminded himself of that fifteen hours later.

He scrubbed a hand over his face as his logical brain got away from him. He tried not to calculate how long he’d been awake. But his alarm had gone off at five-thirty the previous morning, putting him at roughly twenty-nine hours up.

He tried to forget the number instantly, and slugged back another cup of coffee. It was too thin. The coffee he was given everywhere was always different, but always equally bad‒it was just part of the badge. Cops everywhere hated him, thinking that he tread on their turf, when really it was they who had tread all over his murder scene, so they gave him bad cop coffee. And since good cop coffee was an oxy moron . . . Owen tossed back another shot of it, thinking that if it went straight to the back of his throat it might not linger on his tongue like the socks Randolph wasn’t going to have to eat.

Reminding himself that he was nowhere near his record for hours awake, he decided to check out the lab work on their body and their ninja.

In the middle of the night, while still on the scene, he had sent close-up photos of the tag to the handwriting analyst who had opened the file and declared the writing identical to the other tags without even waking up.

The body bore marks of piercings with a long slender awl. Slash marks were cut no more than an inch deep in a handful of non-vital places. Owen had studied the ninja’s work before and decided that the knives that held the body had been thrown, the piercings were from sais, and the slashes were the work of kamas. Kamas weren’t pretty or flashy. Curved metal knives, mounted sickle-style at the end of wooden, hammer-sized handles, they were all but unheard of beyond the martial arts world. They hadn’t hit the movie circuit yet. Given the expert weaponry and use thereof, Owen was certain they had a pro on their hands. He had sighed at this body the same way he had at all the others. The ninja definitely got the job done.

So he had stood in front of the body with the sais he had picked up to match the holes after the last corpse the ninja had left, and this time he mocked poking at it while it still hung on the wall. The cops in the last town had moved the body before he got to play, changing every piece of evidence from certain to possible, and pissing him off no end. He’d been no good to Charlotte and Annika for a full week after that one.

Owen then inserted long metal wires into the many punctures the body bore and he saw something very interesting. Every single one was sticking out a good six inches below his comfort zone in his own natural grip. Blinking, he pulled out a wire and stuck in a sai. Then he replaced the wire and did the same at each hole. Even the angle of the stabs down into the shoulder matched. Owen had smiled.

He smiled again now as he and Blankenship stared down at the body on the slab, still with the long wires sticking out of it as well as the ninja’s metal knives. They were overly utilitarian, looking like they’d been cut with a welder from a sheet of thick metal. “Our ninja’s about five foot six. Not too tall.”

Blankenship snorted. “Of course. Ninjas are little Japanese guys.”

There was no comment. Owen had never been sure how Ron Blankenship had gotten into the FBI in the first place. Just as he had never been sure if being the man’s senior partner was a blessing or a curse.

Just then, one of the lab guys burst in. Special Agent Nguyen was clothed head to toe in white paper-drape clothing that was catching the sick burning of the fluorescent rays and bouncing them off in all directions. His lips were pressed together as he confronted Dunham. “I got this niggling last time about the hairs we got from the ninja.”

“And?”

“I pulled the old samples. They all match.” He was clearly upset.

Owen failed to see the issue with that. The hair was about the only evidence they had on the guy. There were no clothing fibers, no fingerprints that could be trailed from scene to scene, and no blood. It seemed no one ever got a wounding hit on the little bastard.

“They match too well.”

“Is that even possible?” What the hell was too well?

But he was about to find out.

“This hair,” Nguyen held a strand up, shaking it, “is old. It is, in fact, the same age as all the other hair we found. The only thing I’ll bet on now is that this hair did not come off the head of our ninja.”

“What?” They had tested it extensively. It was at every scene. But Owen knew. It had been too easy.

Nguyen shook his head. “The scene was salted.”

Lee was happy‒fate had paid him back for that missed kill. But like all things fate had thrown his way, there was some shit in this one, too. He was going to have to move out.

He’d been staying in a shack in the mountains just north of Atlanta, but that was over now. He’d gotten too close to the city, not that it was really ‘city’ out this far from the heart, but there were people. And apparently he wasn’t suited to be around people anymore. It had been an experiment, and now he was packing the few bags he had.

Tugging his ball cap lower on his face, he lamented that he’d only gotten half his morning jog in today, but figured the adrenaline pumping through his system more than made up for the missed exercise. How many people ever stumbled upon a car accident? Or a robbery in progress? It just didn’t happen. But his feet had pounded through the trees on the old trail and so had someone else’s‒small delicate feet, popping past on bouncy white sneakers. The blonde ponytail reminded him of Samantha. But Sam would never have been stupid enough to be out in the woods oblivious to all but the music piping into her ears. Lee bet this woman wouldn’t be that stupid again either.

The man had been wearing jeans and a snarl beneath a heavy beard. Out of nowhere, he chased down the woman while Lee was still too busy staying out of sight to be close enough to do anything. The bastard was almost on top of her before she realized what was happening, and he had her down before Lee was in range.

She’d suffered a few hooks to the face to quell her urge to fight back, and Lee saw then that she was nothing like Samantha, except for being battered. The 9mm Heckler & Koch had come from under his running shirt in a smooth motion. Before his arm had stopped moving he had fired a shot into a tree just over the patch of sunlight-dappled ground where the two were tangled. Both of them had stilled instantly, faces turning to him.

Shit. He turned his head before either could get a good look and motioned with the nose of the gun while he talked. “Lady, roll over and put your face in the dirt.”

She shook, but did what he said, even lacing her hands behind her neck like a tornado was coming or she was a police hostage. Grateful for the ball cap serving its purpose, Lee made sure he couldn’t see the man’s face, and knew from hours at the mirror that the attacker couldn’t see his either. The idiot still lunged at him, gun and all.

Lee pointed and took out a kneecap. Out of the side of his eyes he watched the woman jump like popcorn but stay face down. The man screamed and hit the ground on his back.

Fuck. If there was anyone within three miles of this they’d come running at these high-pitched wails that put the woman’s own I’ve-been-attacked yells to shame. Knowing he only had a minute to get the job done, the fact that the man was writhing around holding his knee only made his goal harder.

Lee grinned. Nothing like a challenge. And after a few thwarted attempts he shot the man’s balls off with a slick curve gracing his lips.

The bastard had stood as best he could and run at a broken hobble into the woods.

“Ma’am, you’re safe now. Best get home.”

Lee ran off to his own home, the stupid smile plastered on his face even as he packed up all the incriminating evidence. He had a duffle for rifles, another for guns and ammo and all his spare clips. A smaller one held a thin set of sheets and his clothes, and a fourth had the clothes he wore when he was hunting. All the bags were green camouflage, bought at separate army supply stores, and he had on one occasion had to throw the duffle out into the trees and pray no one found it. The camo had done its job and the clothes had been where he’d tossed them when he came back three days later.

Lee rifled through the cabinets, packed what he could carry, and tossed all the perishable food as far from the shack as he could. Bears and raccoons would destroy that evidence in a matter of hours. Leaving the cans for whomever might find them, he tipped furniture, broke one chair, threw one out into the woods and bowled over the table. He left one cabinet door open and the water pump dripping, not able to completely ruin the cabin for the next person, before lacing the straps of the heaviest duffels across his chest. The other two he carried in his left hand, leaving the right free, just in case.

The half-mile hike to the car wasn’t usually made with this much load, but in the past three years he’d bulked up to take it. This didn’t wind him though he kept a pace many would be hard pressed to keep up with, even if they were unencumbered. He was at the car in just under six minutes. Although anyone who didn’t physically stumble directly onto the object likely wouldn’t have known the car was there.

The dull brown color and subsequent rust spots were their own camouflage. When you factored in the tree and branch ‘garage’ he had built for it, the vehicle became very hard to find. Now he dismantled all his handiwork, scattering the pieces in all directions, and loaded the bags into the backseat. He turned the key and listened to the low hum of a job well done before pulling back a few lengths and getting out. There were tire ruts and a small oil leak, and the slightly worn tracks up to the spot. A shovel from the trunk made short work of the oil-soaked patch of ground, and churned the tire tracks, as well as a few other random pieces of earth, just for effect. Lee tossed the last branches onto the ground, satisfied.

He’d broken a sweat this time. But unless someone stood in the middle of it and knew exactly what they were looking for, they wouldn’t find his spot. Twenty minutes after he arrived, Lee started the engine for the second time. Pausing only long enough to slap peanut butter onto wheat bread and pass a thought for Bethany, he waited until the winding two lane road was empty before pulling up onto it, careful to go slowly and not leave tire tracks.

This time he knew where he was going . . . deeper into the Appalachians. He’d go back to where he’d first gone to ground, when only those with crime connections were after him. There was less population and more cover there than anywhere else in America. He’d last longer there, and so that’s where he headed.

He linked into I-75 heading north along with the slew of cars who had no idea he was in their midst. The ratty car was camouflaged on the road, too. Utterly unremarkable, no one looked twice at it, or at the man in the t-shirt and plain ball cap.

Five hours, some beef jerky, dried fruit, and a forgettable Big Mac later, he turned off 75. Smaller roads led him deep into the woods, the asphalt becoming broken under the wheels of his car. Poor pavement gave way to gravel and finally no surface at all.

It was only mid afternoon and he was in the middle of nowhere. But he knew exactly where he was. Not wanting to leave the car exposed, he cut branches that would be usable later, and draped them across the sagging roof. It was only partially obscured, but he didn’t want to have to do a full break-down if he had to exit quickly. He didn’t want to waste the work if someone was here, claiming their twenty acres and no mule.

He pulled the black gun from the side holster, not having noticed it for the whole trip. The metal and plastic were warm from his body heat and he’d carried it so much that it felt like an extension of him‒as though he could feel his fingers on the butt from inside the pistol. From the space between the seat and the emergency brake he pulled a silencer and fit it to the muzzle. He then opened his bag and pulled a second Heckler, fitting it with an illegal sixteen round clip, before grabbing a third clip and sliding it between his belt and the waistband on his pants.

Lee felt better with all the heat on him. Just in case.

He pushed aside memories of days where ‘just in case’ hadn’t been anything he worried about, and walked slowly to the cabin he had abandoned nine months ago. It looked empty enough from a distance. It had been here so long that the trees had grown right up to it and over the top, obscuring it from the air and most every side. He sat at the periphery, watching, until the sun went down.

He fetched himself a handful of pretzels when he went back to cover the car more thoroughly. He made another sandwich, this time with honey, and grabbed a small tin can of peaches and a plastic spoon. His cargo pants were full as he made the almost two mile trek to the cabin again. He sat the whole night outside, in various positions around the perimeter, and entered only just before dawn.

Someone had been here.

But from the dust, which he knew from his own experience was hard to replicate, it looked like the visitor had left at least a few months ago. He went through the house, beating anything that would take it‒old curtains, the mattress, a sofa that had been much newer and less plague infested the first time he’d arrived. A few mice and spiders scattered at his ministrations, and he locked himself into the back room and slept.

He waited three full days before he emerged and set up shop.

“Whatcha got Dunham? Blankenship?”

Owen wanted to snort, Blankenship didn’t have anything. He was like a pinkie toe: people told you it was there for balance, but did you believe them? Unfortunately, the whimsical thought about Blankenship was as far as his humor went. He liked Bean, his agent in charge, which was a good thing for him. Most days.

“We got crap. And we found out that half of what we thought we had was actually crap, too.”

“Uhhh.” Bean had a way of looking as wounded as you felt. He also looked like the kind of man you expected to pour himself a shot of whiskey or Pepto at any moment. The rounding gut and balding head made you wonder what he’d done to get promoted. But unlike Blankenship, Bean was good where he was. “Better tell me about it.”

“The grudge ninja’s short.” Blankenship offered.

Bean smiled like one would at a retarded child, and turned his attention back to Owen.

“It’s true. Cops left the body tacked to the wall this time-”

“Tacked to the wall?”

Owen fought the smile. “It was brilliant, sir.” He explained how the knives looked to be thrown to the appropriate points then the victim held in place while they were pounded through. “Into the wall studs, sir. So the body would stay up.”

“While the vic was alive?” Bean’s eyes were wide.

“Yeah. And given the puncture wounds, and the height discrepancy, the vic had maybe fifty pounds on the perp.”

“Son of a bitch.” Bean was the only person Owen knew who enunciated every word when he swore. “And?”

“Same as last. Punctures, likely with sais, and slices with kamas.” He slid photos across the desk. Bean had other agents to follow and hadn’t yet seen the grudge ninja’s art this time.

Blankenship put in his two cents. “Looks like the perp took a bat to the vic’s nut sack again.”

Only Blankenship didn’t wince.

Bean tapped a finger on the photo of the victim still on the wall at the crime scene. “The articles?”

“All legit. Even the police reports, from several different precincts around the country. The grudge ninja’s good.”

“He’s also a god damned serial killer.” Bean perused the photos again. “Evidence?”

“That’s where it gets shoddy sir.” Owen explained Nguyen’s mad rampage, and how the hairs they had found didn’t have consistent curling. When looked at all together, from the four scenes they’d pulled, the hair had all fallen off the head at the same time.

Bean rubbed his eyes, again looking like Owen felt. “So they weren’t shed at the scene.”

“No sir. The bends and kinks in the hair make it look pretty damn likely that the hair was wound into a brush at one time.” His breath escaped him. “It’s pretty smart, sir. It got the roots, and Nguyen swears he can tell when it’s been yanked. The grudge ninja fooled him up ‘til this one. The only thing we are certain now is that the hair doesn’t belong to the ninja. He used it to salt the scene.”

“Fibers?”

Owen and Blankenship both shook their heads.

“Blood?”

“Just the victim’s.”

“Anything?” Bean’s voice was softer.

“Footprints.” Blankenship grinned.

But Owen quelled that when Bean looked to him again. “The same shoes. Men’s Skechers, size 10, we know the three designs that use that tread. I’m guessing he only wears them at the scene, because these look identical‒identical‒to the last scene. There’s not even any wear on the treads, which would be expected given the length of time since he last struck.”

“What else?”

“Jack shit.”

Bean nodded and scooted the photos across his desk as though they offended his sensibilities. Still on his feet, Owen just reached out and gathered them.

Bean’s hands went down his face, and that meant a truly terrible thought had just passed beneath them, “So we’ve got a brilliant, ballsy, serial killer on our hands. Crap, this is another Dahmer.”

“No sir.” Owen had to step up at that. “I’m getting the stats on the victim, and my money says he was as dirty as the last one.”

“Doesn’t matter. When this goes national news–and sooner or later it will–we are all in deep shit.”

It was four months before Lee saw her again.

The Appalachian cabin was serving him well. There was no one within shooting distance. That meant no visitors, which was a good thing. It also meant no roads and no services, which was a good thing, too, if you just looked at it the right way. Lee did.

He’d taken down a crack house he read about at the edge of Nashville. He’d driven the clunker/kitty out to the place and camped out in motels that had way too many roach residents that weren’t paying for the room. But no maid service meant no one found the rifles or scopes, or the lead weight of ammo and guns. It also meant no driver’s license was required for entry. Lee hadn’t had his for about three years. The last thing he wanted was to be identified.

He staked out the house, and watched and waited. Then, when the place was as full as it could be, and the head guy had pulled up in a car that shouted ‘I’m in charge and too stupid to keep it to myself,’ Lee put his eye to the scope and started picking people off.

He didn’t get the women. Didn’t really have the heart for it. But he had no issues taking out Mr. White Pimp Jacket, who had kindly worn that bright shoot-me-here clothing. Lee obliged, and enjoyed the red stain that ruined the material as well as the wearer. The others looked up, and a few got away, but a handful lay dead, holes in the sides of their heads. One lucky guy took one right between the eyes. His intelligence at finding Lee’s location had only earned him the best looking death wound.

When the outside was silent, Lee left the rifle and pulled out the Hecklers. He went in firing. There were screams and blood, and none of it his. He was badder ass than any of these two-bit crime lords. Some were too high to get their guns lifted before he took them out. Most of the sober people had been outside and stupid.

He fired three rounds into a woman who came around a corner with a rifle trained on him and a scream like a banshee. But the scream warned him she was coming, which was the first bad move on her part. The second was being too uptight or scared, and missing him with the one shot she got off.

He did not hit the woman who cowered in the corner. Nor the man who put his hands up in the air at the first shot, the Magnum still clutched in his right hand. Lee had never considered himself stupid, and he made the guy kick the gun over before he turned his back. The second guy he did that to sat down too docilely and thus, a second after Lee had turned away, he took a quick second look and put a shot dead center in the man’s chest. It was a good shot since the dead hands were holding a 9mm almost directly in front of the target. It was aimed at Lee, but like most things it didn’t get to him.

In the back room he found a ratty looking girl and a baby. He couldn’t pick them up. That would be the end of him. But a beckoning hand made the girl jump up, grab at the half naked and dirty infant who was too scared to cry, and follow him.

If he’d had a heart that might have broken it – that the baby stayed quiet. To be that young and already know that crying did you no good. Or worse.

He gathered guns as he left the house. Weighted down to the point where he could feel it, he pushed back at the hate and despair in him. He was leaving with more ammo on him than he came in with. And that was just the leftovers in the guns. Jesus, he could start a militia with what he was carrying. But he knew better than to leave it for the few he’d left behind to get any stupid bright ideas.

The girl followed him up to his vantage point on the hill, baby expertly balanced on one hip. Lee guessed life was bad when following the gunman looked like a good idea. He pointed to an ear-safe distance and watched as the girl hunkered down and managed to cover both her own ears and the baby’s. He didn’t look at them again, knowing he wouldn’t like what he learned.

Instead he trained his focus on the doors to the house. He planted bullets at the feet of anyone who tried to leave. When he saw the sirens in the distance he started gathering his things, but stayed put until car doors were opening up and bullhorns were put to use.

His hand gestured to the girl to follow him again, and she obeyed, even as he tugged the plain ball cap a little lower. It wouldn’t do for her to see his face. He knew what the tale from the house would be. All they’d be able to accurately give was the average mouth and square jaw. His eyes would be described as everything from savior blue to silver to gleaming red. In some descriptions he would quote the bible and in others he’d have horns. Every hair color imaginable would be conveyed and some would say ponytail while others would swear he was bald. Few would get the color of the nondescript ball cap right, or even if he was wearing it.

But if the girl got a good look she could give him away. So he walked ahead and kept the bill low. He thought about packing them into the car, but the car was a piece of work and he couldn’t afford to ditch it. Which meant he couldn’t afford to put them in it. And he didn’t have car seats anyway.

That thought almost made him laugh out loud. Car seats were from another world. Certainly one this girl and the baby hadn’t lived in. He led them through trees and along back streets, leaving them at a park. Without making eye contact, he told the girl to wait an hour, pointing out the clock on the bank, then to go into the church across the street and tell them about her and the baby. He told her to ask for sanctuary. Even though she didn’t know what it meant, she needed it.

Two months later he had done his research and was in Chicago to take out one of the people who was in the ring responsible for him. Only rarely did he allow himself luxuries, and today he got one. He stood in front of the lot where the house had stood. It was, of all things, a daycare now. No one would move into the house he’d left behind. And no one wanted to put their own home on that site. There was an Indian burial ground feel to the place, he knew.

Regardless, the new daycare buildings denied him the simple moment of looking at the front steps and imagining Sam and Bethy climbing up them, groceries in hand . . . he didn’t get any further than that.

He had walked away, thinking that he had gotten a little better, a little further from the pain, or maybe just a little colder.

But now he pushed out the back window of the house he himself had just violated, as close to happy as he got. This last guy hadn’t died of gunshot wounds per se. Lee had found a better method, thanks to a nice handful of anatomy books hidden in the cabin in the Appalachians. The first three rounds, fired through the silencer and purposefully sunk into the plaster walls, had effectively corralled the guy and made him scared. But the fourth and fifth, the only two intended for the victim, had punctured lungs.

Lee felt lighter just thinking about it. The man hadn’t bled to death, although he had bled more than Lee had expected. He was still pooling in his own living room, having asphyxiated because the bullets had punctured the chest wall. From his reading, Lee had learned that lungs collapsed without an intact chest cavity. If it were only one side, then there was simply a lot of pain and terror, and the lung could be re-inflated at the hospital.

He had enjoyed watching this man who had given the orders, or at least rubber-stamped the massacre of his wife and daughter, suffer the inability to breathe air. Lee hadn’t been able to watch as long as he would have liked, because the wheezing and kneeling and chest grasping‒the look that life was denied to his victim‒hit a little too close to home. He remembered doing just those things himself when he’d found the broken bodies and the blood that had splattered so many directions that everything was red. The cops had later said they couldn’t tell what had been his wife’s and what had been his daughter’s. So, very quickly, Lee had shot out the other lung and watched this asshole smother in open air.

While it had been brutal to relive those moments, it seemed perversely fitting. If he could steel himself a little he might just keep using this method. He hopped to the ground, leaving bent grass beneath his feet. He considered a nice gut shot before deflating the lungs next time. It would require more reading.

Knowing full well that he was leaving blatant evidence of his entrance and exit, Lee continued. What did he care if they knew who he was? They’d have a hard time finding him. He didn’t exist. Hadn’t since the day he’d found his wife and kid. Well, technically his brother had propped him up long enough to collect the life insurance policies. He’d drunk several thousand of the dollars away, before ‘they’ had showed up demanding his cooperation.

He’d been smaller then. And he’d agreed. Although the urge to laugh at them had been overwhelming‒what else was there for them to threaten? But he’d held it together even though he smelled like a brewery and felt like the mouse in the vat. Then he’d gone to the bar to look drunk while he planned. He cashed out his account about five minutes before he drove his car off a bridge and disappeared. Looking back, it had been a pretty amateur job he’d done of ‘killing’ himself.

He was much better at these things now.

Which was why it was such a shock to look up and find out he’d run into her. With eyebrows raised, she was standing right in front of him in the dark back alley. He’d spent too much effort thinking and not enough acting.

The houses here were too far apart, trees had been planted along these back roads offering plenty of cover that would only be broken if a car came through with headlights blazing.

The girl was glaring daggers at him and, having seen her work, he wondered if actual metal just might come out of her eyes.

Lee took a moment to look her over. He’d been so startled the last time he’d seen her that he hadn’t really seen. She was slim and dressed in her leather shadows again. Her skin was slightly olive and her eyes dark. Even God had made her for blending into the night. He might have called her pretty, but she was much too young. She was actually ‘cute’. And that alone was scarier than any demons he could think up.

She was also about six inches shorter than him, which he guessed put her at five-six, five-seven. And she had her little hands clenched on her hips, her body rigid. “Did you kill him?”

Lee let himself look a little taken aback at the demand. “Yes, honey, I did.”

“I am not your honey.”

He hmphed. “Maybe not, but you owe me one.”

She shrugged back into a blue quilted jacket, and slung a red standard high school backpack over her shoulder. “I don’t owe you shit.” She turned to walk away, but Lee hadn’t heard enough.

The Heckler came out from his back and he shot a silenced round into the tree next to her.

She stopped even as the bark still flew, then slowly turned. He had to hand it too her, she didn’t look intimidated. Even people with guns were often intimidated by him. He was big, brawny, and bad ass. And he didn’t care what anyone did to him. He’d just keep coming ‘til he was dead. But this girl looked almost bored with him.

“What the hell do you want? You ruined my evening.” The light from the moon filtered through the trees and barely bounced off her. He might have looked past her if he hadn’t almost run smack into her.

“Your name.” He held the gun trained only a few lethal inches from her.

“Sin.”

He laughed. That was perfect for her.

Laughing was a mistake.

She was near enough to take advantage of his momentary change of focus. With swift movements, she grabbed his hand in both of hers so softly that he didn’t even realize what she was doing. But she put pressure on the pulse point at his wrist and against the back of his hand, easily turning the gun away from her and almost around to him.

He felt himself jerk with surprise, and in that moment she yanked the Heckler from his grasp.

A quick bite to his tongue was all that kept him from yelling out “Shit!”

With the haughty air of a sheriff punishing a delinquent, she slipped the ammo from the gun, tucking the clip into her pocket before handing the gun back to him with a look that said she thought he ought to be a little more careful with it in the future.

Two could play at that.

With a sigh, he moved his hand along the front of his belt and pulled another clip loose. He casually slid it into the gun and re-aimed it at her.

She should have at least kept the gun, he had three more on him and had been reaching for another even as she had popped the clip out of the one she’d taken. At least then it would have been a fair fight.

She flung her hands out to the side. “Fine then, shoot me already.”

She wasn’t afraid. Not of him, or his gun, or the fact that the two together could easily remove her from this life.

She looked like a high-schooler‒with her backpack and her hair hanging down in French braids this time. There was every possibility that she didn’t just look like a school-girl but was one.

She was also an artist. She’d gotten in his face, although a good part of that was his own fault. But she’d gotten his gun off him, which had never happened before.

The first thing he’d learned about guns was that you never aimed at anything you didn’t intend to kill. So Lee lowered the gun.

He couldn’t shoot Sin.

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