“I still don’t know what the hell you think you’re going to do when we find him,” Ben yells over the roar of his shiny black four-by-four RZR. “If we find him. This might as well be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ashley yells back. “We just have to find him.”
I glance at Matt, sitting next to me in the backseat. He looks somewhere between sick and mind-blown, and I feel the exact same way. Except my painkillers are starting to wear off, so I have the added benefit of cringing in pain with every bump we hit. The RZR is built for speed, not comfort, and Ben is making use of it.
“You said it was a cave?” Ashley asks from the front seat, grabbing for a bar when the RZR dips down a hill.
“Not a cave, exactly, more like a sinkhole or depression. But it had a pool at the bottom,” I answer, watching the ground below us like I’m on a roller coaster.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that place,” Ben says. “We tracked an injured buck there about three or four years ago.” He looks at me from the rearview mirror, and I ignore the stab of guilt. Ben was hiding even more than I was, and he had so many opportunities to tell me.
“Can you find it?” Ashley says impatiently as she is flung around on her seat.
“Probably. It’s not close to any of the trails, so it’ll be a hike if we can’t get the RZR through.”
Branches slap at the bars around us as we whip through the trees. I strain my eyes for any sign of human or Bigfoot, but the forest is too dense here. I’ve been gone from the hospital for four hours now. My parents will likely never let me see the light of day ever again. Ben left his phone at his house so we couldn’t be tracked, but who knows if Sheriff Hanson has any kind of traceable GPS device on this thing. Knowing what I know now, there could very well be one inside my cast. I just don’t understand how he could have kept all this from us.
The brush suddenly clears up as we pass through an open fence, signaling the beginning of the national forest land. Ben jerks the RZR to the left, leaving the trail and tearing across the woods. Ashley squeals as we go over a fallen tree, launching us airborne for a few moments. I can’t stop the grunt of pain when we land. Matt glances over at me, his gaze bordering on frantic. “You should have stayed behind.”
“Not an option.”
“We may never find him.”
“You don’t know—”
I never get a chance to finish. The first rock slams into the hood of the RZR, bouncing up and cracking the plastic windshield. The second splits it apart.
Ben swerves and Ashley screams as chunks of Plexiglas fly everywhere. Matt throws himself across me as much as he can with the harness across his chest. We narrowly avoid slamming into a pine, but Ben overcorrects, and the RZR flips onto its side and slams against another tree. The roll cage is the only thing that keeps us from being crushed.
Ben cuts the motor, and for a moment all is quiet. Then the silence is ripped apart by an unearthly roar from only yards away. My side of the RZR is on the ground, and with some effort and only one good hand, I manage to unbuckle the harness and slide out. I thrust my fractured arm out to break my fall, forgetting about it in the drop, and scream.
“Leah, don’t you dare,” Matt groans as he fumbles with his harness. His weight is pulling against the straps, making it hard for him to snap it loose.
I don’t answer him. I crawl out through the roll cage to check on Ashley and Ben, using my good arm to lift myself up. All I can think is that I hope they aren’t covered in blood. “Ashley? Ben? Are you okay?” I whisper.
No one answers me. At first I think they’re knocked out, but their eyes are wide open and their attention is definitely not on me. They’re looking straight ahead with identical expressions of surprise and terror. I turn, knowing what I’m going to see.
The male stands motionless as he watches us, all eight feet of him poised and ready.
“Leah, what do we do?” Ben asks, afraid for the first time in my memory.
“It’s okay, just don’t move.” I get to my feet slowly, ignoring the pounding pain in my head from the rush.
Ashley reaches for my hand through the bars. “Don’t. Don’t go.”
“He won’t hurt me.” If I say it, maybe I’ll believe it too.
“Leah, the rocks.”
“What?” I try to pull my hand away, distracted by the Sasquatch. He reaches down and grabs a chunk of wood, then swings the heavy stick against the trunk of the nearest pine. The crack echoes through the forest and Ashley jerks her hand away to cover her ears. Within seconds it’s answered. I turn toward the east, where the sound originated from. “Reed.” The Sasquatch turns and walks away, in the opposite direction from where the sound came. In another minute I can’t see him at all.
I start walking, my only goal to reach the source of that answer. “Leah! Where are you going?” Matt yells, still struggling with the harness. “Leah, stop! Dammit, Ben, give me a knife.”
I can hear them grappling with the straps and the cling of metal on metal. My feet are running before I realize it. Ashley screams for me to come back, but I can’t, not when he’s so close now. I run until I can’t hear them anymore.
“Reed!” I scream, knowing he’ll come if he can hear me. Saying his name out loud is shocking, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve lost my mind and we’re all wrong. I mean, I’m calling out the name of a boy we buried ten years ago.
I pick up a stick and start slamming it against a tree until it snaps in half. My good arm burns with the effort, and I throw the rest to the ground and wait.
Unable to stand still any longer, I start to walk, only running when my body can endure it. If I pass out, I wonder if anyone will ever find me out here. I think of the wolf at the grotto and wonder if I would die from the elements or from predators first.
“Leah.”
I gasp, all too aware of how my head and arm are beating painfully in time with my heart. Turning slowly, I find him two steps behind, as still as the forest around me. I open my mouth to speak, but the words won’t come. And there are so many of them. So many things I want to say to him, things that I never imagined I’d get the chance to speak. Now that I have it, I don’t know what to do.
He looks older; I can see it in his eyes, the way he watches me. It’s as if he’s more aware now.
The skin of an animal is draped over his shoulders and wrapped around his body, brownish gray and smooth. It’s familiar, like it might have been on the wolf that tried to eat me recently.
I run my fingers down the fur, just along his shoulder. He tenses, watching my hand in frustration. “You shouldn’t be here.” He frowns, and something in my chest feels like it’s slowly ripping apart. I step back, but he reaches for my hand, pulling me close. “No,” he says harshly. “That’s not . . .” His eyes narrow on my green cast, and then he reaches out to touch the edge of the bandage across my forehead. They had to shave part of my hair to stitch it, which means my trademark ponytail won’t cut it anymore. “You’re crazy, you know that? You should be resting.”
“I’ll go,” I say, remembering why I’m here in the first place. “I just came to warn you. The sheriff knows about you and the Bigfoot. He’s here now, hunting them.”
“Sheriff?”
“You need to leave. Take them away, somewhere safe.” A branch snaps in the distance, but the boy seems unfazed.
“This is our home.”
“I know, but the sheriff will kill them or, worse, capture them and take them away.”
He smiles, like I’ve said a joke. “They can’t be caught.”
“But they can be shot.”
Something flickers in his eyes, and he shakes his head like something’s bothering him. Does he remember something?
“Reed,” I say softly, squeezing his hands. His eyes widen like they did when Ashley called his name. “Don’t you remember? That’s your name. Reed. Reed Hutton. Your sister is Ashley, and we used to live across the street. You were best friends with my brothers, Matt and Sam.” He jerks at Sam’s name, blinking fast. “You went camping with your dad and Sam. And then . . .” I can’t say it. Truthfully, I still don’t know what happened.
I pull the crumpled photo I took from the file out of my pocket, the one of them all smiling in the woods with the distant face of a Sasquatch in the background. “You don’t remember this?”
With trembling hands he takes the picture, leaning over it with a blank stare. I start counting seconds, getting really antsy when I get to forty-five. “Reed?” He doesn’t answer. “Do you—”
“I remember,” he whispers hoarsely.
“What do you remember?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t . . . Just pieces, flashes. My dad . . .” He shoves the picture back at me, eyes full of anguish. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“What do you mean? Your dad’s?” Before he can answer, a deep howl echoes in the distance, sending chills down my arms.
Reed pulls me close and whirls around, standing in front of me as he faces the direction of the noise. “Don’t move.” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him, but I do what he says, staring over his shoulder at whatever is coming.
When the baying of hounds echoes from the same direction, I realize who the danger is from. Not the Sasquatch but the sheriff. “Run,” I say, pushing at him. “You have to protect them.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’ll find my way.”
He spins around, his face inches from mine and full of disbelief. Something snaps in his eyes, and suddenly the words flow from his mouth, like they’ve been pushing against a dam for days, or years.
“Leah. I thought of you and my family until I forgot I was human. Until I forgot there was anything else but them. And then I became them, and I was okay with that. Until I saw you. Then what I was wasn’t good enough anymore. You’ve brought me back. I’m not leaving you again.”
Reed reaches up and runs his hands down my cheeks, then back over my hair. All I can do is shiver when his lips find mine. He’s gentle, hesitant, like it’s taking every ounce of strength he has to make it so. I slide my trembling hand to his shoulder and his lips press harder.
He’s touching me like I’m the last girl on the earth, like his every breath depends on mine. When he breaks away, I hold on to him, fairly certain I’ll drop to the ground if I don’t. He holds my face so carefully, runs a thumb across my bottom lip, eyes full of longing.
“Reed, I don’t know if you want to come back, but if they catch you, you’ll have to.”
“I’d stay here for you.”
“But what about them? What about Bee?”
He’s silent for a moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I have to make sure they’re safe. They . . . they are my family.”
“Where will you take them?”
“There is a place, far from here.” The baying of the hounds is growing closer. If I listen hard enough, I can almost hear voices yelling behind them.
“I wish I could come.” I hold up my cast, trying to smile past the burning in my throat. This could be the last time I see him. What if he decides he’d rather be with them? I’d never be able to find him again.
“I’ll take you home first. We can outrun them.”
My eyes are starting to burn. “I will slow you down.” My voice cracks. “I can’t run like you.”
“No, but she can.” Reed looks over my shoulder with a grin.
I whirl around to see Bee. I will never understand how either of them keeps managing to sneak up on me.
She towers over me, staring down with large doe eyes, and pulls her lips back into a toothy grin.
“Oh.”
When Reed laughs, I’d swear she does too.