might not know Jonquille was tracking him as well. Rubin puzzled it all out in his mind. He liked puzzles. Diego was better in the woods than Rubin. There was no doubt about that. Rubin was good, but Diego was pure animal. He’d been good as a kid, but once Whitney had enhanced him, he’d gotten better. Not just better. Weirdly better.
Diego could track anything through any kind of terrain. He was quiet about it. Never talked about it. Few knew, even on the teams. They had elite trackers on their team, so Diego and Rubin didn’t say much about either of their little-known gifts. It wasn’t necessary and neither preferred the spotlight. They both were the type to fade into the background when at all possible. If they were needed, they came forward, but not until.
Another flash overhead, sizzling and bright, lighting the long series of clouds as if the bolts were igniting one another. The lighted forks were dazzling and then gone, leaving the woods even darker and more threatening.
Rubin didn’t let his guard down because he had spotted Jonquille and knew Diego was close. The elk hadn’t alerted to either of them. Something else was prowling around the stream very close to Rubin. He kept all his senses alert, hoping Jonquille was doing the same and not concentrating solely on him.
The small figure in the tunnel had ceased to move and was curled up in a little ball. His breath caught in his throat as he realized the activity overhead in the thunderclouds had to be a magnet for the electrical charges in her body. The overhead lightning was looking for just one lead stroke to carve a path to earth. She was doing her best to keep from responding. She wasn’t out in the open, which was what had kept her from drawing the lightning to her.
Rubin studied the clouds. The weather was conducive to a thunderstorm, yes, but this one was much stronger than seemed warranted. The clouds rose higher, stringing in rows across the sky as if seeking a target … He turned that over in his mind. Was it possible that Whitney had developed a weapon to track Jonquille? A way to call to the electrical activity in her? Why would he do that? She said the members of the others tracking him had strange weapons that she had never seen before. They were interested in lightning as weapons. They had attended the conferences he had attended. Was it possible they did know about Jonquille?
Something wasn’t right about the clouds of lightning. She was secreted in the small animal tunnel, low to the ground, surrounded by tall trees and dense forest and brush. Those clouds continued to stretch for miles overhead, the lightning forks active, crackling and sizzling with hostile intent. The more he studied them, the more he was certain the lightning was an effort to draw Jonquille out. Eyes in the sky. Looking.
If he could make his way to her without giving away her position, that would stop any possible chance of an attack on her, or success of the threat to her. His presence alone would stop it. On the other hand, just moving might draw the hunter’s attention. He had to know where the threat was coming from.
Jonquille didn’t panic, and she had to know the clouds were a deliberate danger to her. Diego would be a ghost in the woods. Rubin studied the terrain. Where would the hunter most likely be? He thought Jonquille was alone. Why had he thought she might be near the stream? What had tipped him off to her presence?
The elk put one hoof in the stream and splashed through the water, his head up, eyes on a section of trees as he traveled without haste out of sight. The drone of the insects never stopped. An owl several hundred yards from him, in the direction Jonquille had come from, flew toward a tree, circled, talons out as if to land, and then veered off, wings beating hard to get lift again. It flew to a red spruce several yards away and settled in the branches there.
Rubin switched away from the vision he mostly used at night—that of a wolf. He was comfortable with that, but he switched his vision in order to see from an eagle’s vision. The bird could see at night. He wanted to inspect that particular tree the owl had decided not to rest in. It had swerved off for