Calm down, son!”
Mark dropped his hands and looked into Alec’s eyes, which were hard and gray in the low light of dawn, but also filled with genuine concern. “I’m sorry. I’m just … I’m freaking out, here. What’re we going to do?”
“We’re going to keep our wits about us and we’re going to stay calm and we’re going to think. And then we’re going to go out there and find Lana and the others.”
“They have a little girl with them,” Mark said quietly. “What if somehow those people who attacked us got here first? Took them?”
“Then we’ll get them back. But I need you to pull yourself together or that’ll never happen. You got it?”
Mark closed his eyes and nodded, did his best to slow his racing heart and dampen the panic that flared in him. Alec would figure things out. He always did.
Mark finally looked at the soldier again. “Okay. I’m okay. Sorry.”
“Good. That’s better.” Alec took a step back and studied the ground. “It’s getting light enough now. We need to find any sign of what path they took—broken branches, footprints, cleared undergrowth, whatever. Start searching.”
Mark did, desperate to get his mind occupied with something other than imagining every horrible scenario possible. The sounds of the fire and the occasional scream or laugh still floated through the air, but they seemed distant. At least for the moment.
He swept the area, carefully studying every spot before he dared take another step, his head swiveling up and down, side to side, like some kind of robotic scavenger unit. All they needed was one major clue and then they could probably pick up the trail more easily. Mark felt an almost competitive vibe take over him—he wanted to be the one to find something first. He had to, to make himself feel better, to feel like they’d been set on a path to relieve his panicked thoughts.
He couldn’t lose Trina. Not now.
Alec was working about twenty feet farther outside the camp, actually on his hands and knees and literally sniffing along like a dog. He looked ridiculous, but there was something about it that touched Mark. The old grizzly bear rarely showed the slightest hint of emotion—unless he was yelling or screaming or pounding on something … or someone—but he often showed how much he genuinely cared. Mark had no doubt the man would give his life today if it meant saving one of their three missing friends. Could Mark say the same about himself?
Both Mark and Alec came across obvious signs of passage—broken twigs, shoe impressions in the dirt, shifted branches on trees or bushes—but each time they concluded that they’d been the ones who’d caused it. After a half hour or so, this made Mark realize that they were combing the area between the camp and the direction they’d gone last night. He stopped and stood up straight.
“Hey, Alec,” he said.
The man was on his hands and knees, leaning his face into the middle of a bush; he grunted something that kind of sounded like a “Yeah?”
“Why are we spending so much time on this side of where we left them?”
Alec pulled himself out of the bush and looked back at him. “Seemed logical. I’d think they either followed us out of here to find us, or they were taken by the same yahoos who attacked us. Or … maybe they went to investigate the fire.”
Mark thought that was all barking up the wrong tree. “Or they ran away from the fire. Not every person on earth is as wacky-brained as you, good sir. Most people see a huge roaring inferno coming at them? They decide to cut and run. Just saying.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Alec had shifted all his weight to his knees, stretching his back. “Lana’s not a coward. She wouldn’t save herself and leave us to die.”
Mark was shaking his head before the soldier even finished. “You’ve gotta think this through. Lana has the same worship complex of you that you have of her. She’ll think you are safe and taking care of yourself just fine and dandy. She’d also consider the circumstances top to bottom and decide the best course of action to take. Am I right or am I right?”
Alec shrugged, then glared at him. “So you think after all that, Lana would leave us to die at the hands of some crazies and run for her life?”
“She didn’t know we were in the hands of people like that. We told her we