Shilah took off running, but she didn’t linger to watch him enjoy his treat. Instead she slipped out of the room and sprinted past Rafe’s bedroom to the front door. She pulled on his boots, certain that at any moment, his door would click open down the hallway. She was surprised when it didn’t, and even more shocked when she pulled open the front door and slipped outside without eliciting any barking or activity from any of the cabin’s occupants. A frigid blast of wind stole her breath and large flurries landed wetly on her face, but Katie had never been so relieved to be out in the cold.
She was free.
In the guest room, her plan had been to carefully survey the landscape and identify where the snow-covered road began. But that wasn’t how it went down. The noise of the cabin door closing behind her triggered a fearful, primitive reaction. She ran for her life.
Or at least she tried. Thigh-deep snow sent her toppling forward when her lower body didn’t move as fast as she expected. Cursing under her breath, she picked herself up and brushed off the front of her coat. This was going to be a difficult walk.
Rafe’s truck was parked to her right, trapped in snow that had piled up over the bottom of the tires. She could only assume that he’d parked in the driveway, and that he’d driven straight in. There was a clearing in the trees behind the truck, probably a road. She trudged in that direction, clumsy in Rafe’s oversized boots, and concentrated on walking in a straight line. It didn’t take long before she had trouble seeing where the road ended and dirt and trees began. Panic kept her walking forward even when she grew less confident that she was going in the right direction. By the time she lost sight of the cabin behind her, she had no idea where she was. She’d somehow wandered off the clear path through the trees, and when she pivoted in place after finally stopping short in confusion, she realized that she had absolutely no idea which direction to go.
Oh, God. This was a bad idea.
“No,” Katie whispered under her breath. “No, this was my only choice.”
But was it? Maybe she had misjudged Rafe. Maybe he’d only humored a crazy neighbor, played along with his delusion. It was possible. She looked back over her shoulder, in the direction she thought the cabin might be. No longer in motion, the cold settled into her bones and she shivered. Maybe she should go back.
“Don’t be stupid.” She swiped at her face when her eyes teared up, partially from the cold, but also from frustration. Life had placed her in an impossible situation and she’d made a choice. Now she just had to make the best of it. She exhaled, watched her breath drift out into the night, and agonized over what to do next. Rafe could be awake by now. He could even be looking for her.
That’s when she remembered the two-way radio in her pocket. She pulled it out with trembling, glove-covered hands and turned it on. The beep sounded startlingly loud in the middle of the peaceful woods and the display glowed like a giant, neon-green beacon. Paranoid, she glanced around, then squinted at the controls frantically. It took her only seconds to realize that she had no idea how to work the device. She pushed a couple of buttons and watched names flash across the display. Cooper. Dale. Alpha. She frowned, not exactly relishing the idea of calling up one of Rafe’s buddies. She already knew what the friend who’d stopped by earlier thought Rafe should’ve done with her. He wasn’t going to help her if she called him up.
Cooper. Dale. Alpha. Which one sounded the least threatening? She decided on Cooper, for no other reason than the face she conjured up for that name seemed kinder than the others. She pushed a couple more buttons, cringing at every beep. “Hello? Is anyone there?” She scanned the trees around her as she waited for an answer, half expecting Rafe to burst onto the scene. Engaging the talk button again, she whispered, “Please, I need help.”
She was about to twist the dial to call ‘Dale’ when a familiar voice came over the radio. “Does Rafe know you’re calling me, little girl?”
Katie gasped and dropped the handset. An eerie green light emanated from the snow where it landed, transforming the dark woods into a