It’s now day five, and we need to get Brady out of that cell. Time for his first walk.

Anders, Dalton, and I lead Brady into the forest through the station back door. I’ve removed his gag, and he’s trudging along, gaze down, docile and quiet. We make it three steps before he spots a woman by the forest’s edge and raises his bound hands.

“Help me,” he says. “Please. This is a mistake. They’re going to—”

“Yeah,” Nicole says. “You definitely want to keep that gag on.”

She walks to Brady. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I look like a gullible passerby? There aren’t any of those here. You know what is here? People who’ll take one look at scum like you and—”

He snaps forward to crack heads with her, but Nicole pulls back and their foreheads barely graze. Then she plows her fist into Brady’s stomach, and he staggers, gasping in pain.

“Like I said,” she says. “Don’t bother.”

She continues past him. Moving out of his field of vision so he doesn’t see her flushed face and quickened breathing. I resisted bringing her on this walk. She’s militia, which means she’s trained for it, but she became militia after her ordeal. I understand her need to get past that, toughen up and move forward. I also know the dangers of doing it too fast, and that quickened breathing tells me that as badass as the encounter looked, she’s quaking inside.

While Dalton replaces Brady’s gag, I look over and Nicole mouths, Please. I know she means please let her come. I nod.

We’ve barely taken three steps when Dalton hears something, and we see a trio of residents, who just happen to have decided to stroll along the town border. Brady turns their way, his head bowed, bound hands lowered. He makes no move to get their attention, but he does, of course. He looks as pathetic as he had for Nicole.

Please help me.

They’ve made a mistake. You see that, don’t you?

He says something against the gag, and I don’t even think it’s words. It’s not meant to be. He’s just drawing their attention to his situation.

This is the dilemma we face. Remove the gag, and Brady can plead his case. Leave it on, and the very gag pleads it for him.

Look at me.

Look what they’re doing to me.

“You done gawking?” Dalton says to the trio. “Come over and take a closer look. See if Nicki has a bruise yet, from where he head-butted her.”

Of course, there isn’t a mark, but that’s enough to make them decide to head back into town.

We set out. As we walk, Anders glances at me, as if feeling the urge to make small talk. I’m not sure that’s wise, though. It feels too easy to let something slip, something that might suggest Brady isn’t in Alaska.

Except that’s not all he knows. He has seen faces. Heard names, even if they’re fake. We are making an enemy here, one who does not seem like a stupid man. One who is not going to forget us.

I’m only beginning to realize the full extent of the danger the council has put us in.

We’re a couple of kilometers into the forest when I turn to Brady and say, “Enough exercise?,” and he looks around, as if he’s considering, but it’s more than that. He’s processing his surroundings, and when he shakes his head, I know it’s not that he wants more exercise—he wants to see more.

“We can go back and come out again,” Nicole says.

“Nah,” Dalton says. “We’ll walk as far as he wants. He’s enjoying the scenery. Plenty of it out here.”

Endless scenery, that’s what he means. Endless trails that go nowhere Brady will want to go. They lead to mountains and caves for us to explore. Lakes and streams for fish and fowl. Hunting blinds. Overnight campsites. Berry patches. Yes, one of those paths might hook up with a trail used by miners or trappers, which could ultimately get you to the nearest village. But Brady would still need to survive the trek with no weapons or skills.

As we continue, Nicole asks if anyone has seen our resident man-eating cougar recently. It’s a heavy-handed attempt to tell Brady what he’d face out here, but Dalton goes along with it, mostly for conversation. The silence is starting to smell of fear, as if we’re too shaken by Brady to talk around him.

They’re discussing the big cat when I see a figure around the next bend. My left arm flies up, stopping Brady. My right goes for my gun.

“It’s just me,” Jacob calls as he breaks into a jog. “I was about ready to give up on you guys. I thought we said noon . . .”

Jacob slows as he rounds the bend and sees us. His gaze travels over Brady, and I’m waiting for a What the fuck? Except he won’t say those exact words. Dalton’s younger brother does not share his propensity for profanity.

Instead, he just says to Dalton, “You forgot about me, huh?”

Now we get the “Fuck,” from Dalton, and, “Yeah, sorry.”

We’re close to the spot where Dalton and his brother trade, and I’m guessing that’s what they had scheduled for today.

I wave at Brady. “We had a situation.”

“I see that. I heard Eric and Nicki talking, and I thought maybe she’d come along to help him carry supplies.”

“Or to visit,” Nicole says. “I hope I’d be more than a pack mule in that scenario.”

“Course,” Jacob says, his cheeks flushing over his beard, which I do not fail to notice has been trimmed short. His hair is tied back neatly, and he’s dressed in the new jeans and new tee he’d requested at their last trade. Which isn’t to say that Jacob normally looks like he’s just crawled from a cave after a winter’s hibernation. But he does live out here, without access to showers and department stores.

This extra effort was in hopes Nicole would accompany Dalton, as she often does, part of the slow dance between Jacob and her. They’ve been circling each other, not unlike a couple of fifteen-year-olds, trying to figure out if the other is interested before making any embarrassing moves.

“Eric did forget,” Nicole says. “Otherwise, I’d have expected an invitation. But, yes, as you can see . . .” She nods at the man beside me. “We have a situation.”

Jacob nods.

“You’re not even going ask why we’re walking a bound and gagged man through the forest, are you?”

Jacob shrugs. “Figure he pissed Eric off.”

Nicole laughs at that.

Jacob looks at his brother. “You want me to store the game?”

“Nah, we’ll take it off your hands.”

We walk around the bend to the spot where Jacob left his trade goods—a brace of rabbits, one of ducks, and one of pheasants.

“Good hunting,” Dalton says.

“ ’Tis the season, as Dad used to say.”

Dalton nods, expressionless, as he always is when his brother mentions their parents. When Dalton was nine, the former sheriff of Rockton “rescued” him from the forest. And by “rescued,” I mean kidnapped. So Dalton went from one loving set of parents to another. And the first set never came after him, while the second never realized that what they’d done was wrong. It’s an impossible situation to reconcile, and Dalton refuses to even discuss it.

After Jacob mentions their dad, Dalton just bends to examine the game and discuss the price. If there’s any haggling involved, it’s Dalton trying to get Jacob to take more. Another impossible situation—Dalton wants to help his brother, and Jacob sees that help as charity.

Dalton has tried to get Jacob to come to Rockton. Jacob refuses. I wonder sometimes how much of that is choice and how much is fear that he won’t fit in, that he will be seen as a freak. Dalton already feels that about himself. But if I presume Jacob chooses the forest out of fear, then am I any different from the women who presumed Dalton stayed in Rockton out of fear he wouldn’t fit in down south?

Those women meant well, but in their way, they were no different from Dalton’s adoptive parents. The Daltons found a boy living in the forest and decided no one could voluntarily want that life, so they rescued him. When Dalton and I look at Jacob’s life and wish for better, we fall into that same trap of thinking what we have is clearly superior.

When Dalton and Jacob finally agree on a price for the game, Jacob says, “You can get me your stuff next week. If the weather holds, I want to head north for a few days. Got a spot up there that’s all-I-can-haul hunting.”

“Or all-two-can-haul,” Nicole says. “Someone agreed to take me on a hunting trip once the weather improved.”

When Jacob doesn’t answer, Nicole quickly says, “Oh, I’m kidding. Maybe another trip.”

Jacob shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. “No, this might be a good time. I could use the help. Let me check a few things. If it’ll work, I’ll leave a message in two days.”

One might think it’d be easier for Jacob to just pop into Rockton, but very few residents know he exists, and while I’m uncomfortable adding Brady to that list, there’s nothing to be done about it now.

Dalton says he’ll check for the note. As they talk, Anders subtly directs my attention to our left, where I see another figure in the forest. My hand goes to my gun again, but slower this time. With Jacob, I could clearly see a human shape on the path. This is a big shape in a tree about fifty feet away. The only creature that size you’d find treed up here is the one we were just talking about. The cougar.

Anders’s gaze shifts to Dalton, asking if we should tell him. I shake my head and take a step off the path, trying to see past a tree that partially blocks my view.

For the most dangerous creature in these woods, humans win hands down. But after that, the runner-up is a matter of debate. Grizzly or cougar? Pick your poison. One is seven hundred pounds of brute force. You’ll see it coming. Question is whether you can stop it. The other? About my size. Much easier to kill. The problem is getting that chance—before it silently drops onto your back and snaps your neck.

Yet in this particular situation, a grizzly would worry me more. If this is a cougar, we see it, and that’s really all we need. The question is whether it’s the big cat we’re looking for. She was the only one around—we’re north of their usual territory—but we’ve seen signs that her cubs may have stayed. If it’s the mother, I don’t want to miss the chance to kill her. She’s a man-eater, which makes her an indisputable threat. But her offspring?

Here is the question we face, not unlike our dilemma with Brady. If we see one of the younger cougars, do we exterminate it, just in case? That isn’t our way. But if we let it live, and it kills someone, we have to take responsibility for that death . . . and then deal with a proven threat.

I edge around the tree. The figure is still too hard to make out, between the distance and blooming tree buds. All I can say for sure is that it’s the right size for a cougar or a human, and it’s lying on a branch watching us, which fits for either, too.

I glance at Anders. He gives a helpless shrug. We don’t have binoculars—we were so distracted by Brady that we didn’t grab our hiking pack. I survey that shape on the tree, and I know we can’t walk away without seeing what it is. But we’ll need to send at least two of us in for a closer look, and that leaves only two with Brady. No, wait, there’s also Jacob. That’ll work. Jacob and Dalton can go—

The figure moves and sunlight glints off—

“Down!” Anders shouts. “Everyone down!”