42 – Future

Twenty minutes later, the forest began to thin, and Reed knew they were getting close. Her legs and lungs burned from the uphill climb. She ran her hand against the tree trunks that were close enough to the trail to touch, trying desperately to understand the information that was being sent to her, trying to sort out the shapes and images in her head, but so far she was no closer to knowing where or what the spider was or what the image of a crack in her mind meant.

The path opened up onto the bluff, spilling them both out into an open rocky area. To Reed’s untrained eye, it looked like something in a movie, cops everywhere, milling around. There was even a table set up, with men standing around a terrain map, debating. She saw only one woman, tall and slim with sharp features, wearing the same gear as she was, but no gun, just like her.

Another sister?

Trevor pointed to the right of the edge of the bluff, over near the neighboring forest, to a copse of trees that did not look natural. “Troy’s in the middle of that. Can you get him out?”

Reed made a strange motion with her head, not quite a nod, not quite a shake. Maybe a little of both. “I think so.” She hoped so.

Trevor escorted her to it. Most all the people on the bluff stopped what they were doing to look at her. They were all staring at her. Her and Trevor peeled off to the right, away from them. Still they stared.

Reed flexed her fingers. She hadn’t touched a tree in twenty years before today, and she was about to do it one more time. She reached out her hand. The bark was rough and comforting. “Please,” she whispered. “Let him out.”

***

Troy lay on his back in the absolute darkness, bored out of his mind. Everyone was busy, no one would talk to him, and he couldn’t even stand up. It was a good thing he wasn’t scared of being closed in, because he felt like he was in a coffin. He reached up to touch one of the trees, when he imagined he scented peppermint. He tried to sit up and banged his head.

“Ouch,” he whispered, glad no one had seen that, especially not his mate. She was close by. She’d come for him.

The trees around him rustled, the ones closest to him pulling away, most of them retracting into the ground. Another row disappeared, and Troy was able to sit up. A bit of light came through from somewhere. “You’re doing it, Reed,” he whispered. “Get me out of here.”

Another row of trees disappeared, retracting into the ground like tire spikes, some of them making popping sounds as they disappeared. More light spilled in, and Troy could stand. He pushed to his feet, eager to see his female, his Reed.

Another row of trees gone, and then there was only the outer row. One by one, they sucked into the ground. The last tree disappeared, revealing the prettiest female he’d ever seen in SWAT gear, blinking at him, hands held up like she’d just touched something at chest height, then it had disappeared. Behind her, thirty or so police officers stared, open-mouthed, at the spot where the trees had been. Troy blinked in the heavy sunshine and grinned at them all. Check her out, he sent to the group in ruhi. You’re impressed, right?

Troy reached his mate. He took both her hands, placing them around his waist, pulling her in close to him. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“I love you,” she whispered back.

“I know,” he said. He bent his head and kissed her, long and hard, telling her everything that was in his heart.

All around them, wolfen clapped. A few whistled and cheered. Troy gave them a good show, bending his female backwards and kissing her like he meant it. When he set her back on her feet, she was blushing and pawing at his chest. “Troy,” she breathed, her cheeks flushing. He pecked her on the cheek and grinned at her and she smiled back, mollified.

“How come no one ever claps when we kiss?” Mac asked Rogue.

The activity on the bluff swung back into full action, men hauling equipment and discussing plans. Trevor caught his attention from a nearby boulder. “Troy, get your female down to the house,” Trevor called to him. “We’re going to do a full sweep of this forest.” He switched to ruhi. Out of uniform, he said, telling Troy at least half the teams would go out as wolves.

“Are you waiting for me?” Troy asked his brother, holding Reed’s hand, working his mouth carefully around that tricky W, but wanting to speak out loud so his mate could hear. He had the best nose on the police force, shifted or not, so good they would be handicapped without him.

Trevor nodded. “We are.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” Troy told Reed, leading her back to the path that would take them to Remington’s. She seemed distracted, staring at the edge of the bluff.

“Wait,” she said. “Is it safe to walk over there?”

“Trevor,” Troy called. “Is the edge of the bluff clear?”

Trevor was already strategizing the manhunt, but he raised his hand and nodded at Troy. “The north end only.”

Troy followed his female, senses on high alert, scanning the face of the bluff, and the 3-male team in full swat gear, guns out, clearing behind every boulder and in the middle of every thicket.

***

Reed held a hand to her temple, trying to sort out the feelings and images that had entered her mind. She’d finally sorted out that what she was seeing was a spider in a crack or a burrow, jumping out of it and snatching something out of the air, an insect maybe. The spider was awful, and she wouldn’t examine it closely. The image in her mind was zoomed in so close, she could see… she shook her head and refused to see it anymore. Instead she stared out at the bluff, shading her eyes against the sunshine. The SWAT gear was so hot it was stifling.

Men ran down the bluff face in front of her, checking behind rocks and boulders, marking the rocks with cans of spray paint.

“What are they doing?” She asked Troy.

“Clearing the area so we know no bad guys are hiding behind any of those rocks or in any of those cracks.”

Reed stared at one of those cracks, a long one, at least twenty feet long, and eight feet wide at the point of the trail, but narrowing at the top and bottom. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see the inside of it at all, she had no idea how deep it was, just a shallow groove in the terrain? Or did it wind back into a cave somewhere?

“Troy,” someone called from behind them. “Can you come here for a sec?”

“I’ll be right back,” Troy told her, then he kissed her on the cheek and walked away. She nodded and waved a hand at him, distracted by her thoughts.

Something about that big crack made her so uneasy. It looked like a … like a what? Reed took a few more steps, stepping off the edge and finding the trail the men had gone down on the bluff face, trying to get a better vantage point to see that crack in the ground, the one big enough to swallow a man.

The officers who were clearing the bluff face split up. One bent over and scrambling up the face toward the top of the crack, another sliding down the face toward the bottom, and the third heading straight for the middle. The one in the middle jogged, picking up speed. He was going to jump over the crack.

The first officer who got close picked up speed, preparing to jump over it. Reed took another step, then another, and then it all fell into place in her mind and she was running.

“Stop!” Reed screamed at the man about to jump across the spider crack, not even caring if she was wrong and making a fool of herself. She ran that way, finding her footing, racing down the rocky path, knocking large stones over the edge. “Don’t jump it!”

The man faltered at the sound of her voice, but momentum was carrying him forward anyway. He stumbled, fell to the ground and rolled, then skidded toward the path. The two other men had turned around and were racing back toward him. Men yelled and called from above her. Reed only ran toward the crack, praying in her mind that the spider didn’t get him, oh lord, don’t let the spider get him. A flash of inhuman fire belched out of the earth, blackening the man’s boots, which were sliding farther and farther into the crack as the man scrambled for handholds. Reed screamed, unable to help herself.

The officer from above had gone on a sliding dive down the rocks, and as he slid by the man falling in the crack, he grabbed him around the collar, and held tightly, yelling for anyone to come help him before they both tumbled in. The officer coming up from the bottom reached them both and hauled them backwards so hard all three of them tumbled onto their backs, sliding and backwards somersaulting down the cliff.

Reed stopped where she was, staring, praying everyone was ok.

A man flashed into existence right next to her, in the same puff of unholy smoke she’d seen come out of the crack. He grabbed her around both elbows and she felt herself being jerked down the trail, toward the crack, toward the fire that would spew out and eat her. “In you go, missy,” he said, whipping her around.

“Troy!” she screamed, begging for her mate to save her.

***

Troy had made the fatal mistake of leaving his mate’s side, something he would never do again. He whirled when he first heard her cry out, yelling stop! He’d run for her, but she was fast, and had a head start and she was so far away─

Males slid down the cliff face in a heap, Reed stopped running for them. Troy was almost to her─

Rex appeared next to his mate, straight from hell, daring to touch her, to grab her. His mate screamed, and the world stopped. Troy forgot that he couldn’t shift. He forgot his denied fears that if he did shift he’d be stuck that way. The only thing he knew was his primal directive. Save her. He ran for her, hard and strong as a man, but not near fast enough. He wasn’t going to make it─

Troy let loose the hard-won reigns of civility he’d been placing on himself, all at once, with a rising, snarling growl that covered the landscape, shifting into his wolf as he ran, pitching forward, his clothes shredding off of him, paws and claws hitting rough terrain, launching himself between Rex and Reed, clamping down on Rex’s elbow, biting with every bit of strength he had, tearing and ripping and─

***

So close, that damn crack was so close, and this guy was going to throw her into it. Reed fought with every scrap of strength she had, hitting and twisting and biting, and pulling away from him, away from that awful crack in the ground─

A big black wolf attacked from nowhere, passing between them, biting, but not at her. The animal’s momentum spun them around, throwing Reed clear. She landed on her butt hard, clicking her teeth together, pain spreading through her back and legs. She was too close to the crack. She rolled the other way, trying not to slide down the side of the cliff like the officers had. But they weren’t there anymore, instead there were three wolves, and they jumped on top of the wolf that had saved her and the guy who had tried to throw her in the crack, then more wolves streamed in from everywhere, the noise of their growls deafening. Was that a bear? Oh lord, it was a bear. It roared like a lion and wolves fell upon it from every side.

Still on her ass on the ground, Reed pushed away from the melee, hoping she wasn’t screaming but certain she must be─

Again, some guy puffed in from nowhere with fire that smelled like death and grabbed her around the elbow and tried to haul her to her feet and pitch her into the crack. Now Reed knew she was screaming, and pulling and─

This time a white wolf saved her, chewing this guy up pretty good before she couldn’t see him anymore, because there were so many wolves in the way.

“Help me,” Reed cried, pushing backwards, just trying to get away.

One more hand grabbed her around her elbow and Reed screamed again, but it was Rogue. “Quit that,” she said, as she hauled Reed up the side of the bluff face, all the way to the top. They reached the boulders, Reed huffing and puffing, Rogue looking as cool as could be. She slapped a knife in Reed’s hand. “Or would you rather have a gun?” she asked, her eyes scanning the tree line.

Reed shook her head, wanting to drop the knife, not wanting either, but then she remembered the two men trying to pitch her into that crack. She would keep the knife.

Rogue backed her up next to boulder. “You watch this way, over and around this rock, I’ve got the north and east tree line. If anyone comes towards us before that fight is over down there, they aren’t one of the good guys.”

“Ok,” Reed, said, trying to keep the shaking out of her voice.

“Hey,” Rogue said. “Relax. It’ll be over soon. Those foxen have no chance outside of the Pravus, marked or not, unless Khain himself shows up.”

Reed watched her positions and wondered if any of that was supposed to make her feel better, especially since she didn’t know what half of that meant.

She didn’t dare look away long enough to try to pick Troy out of the snarling, growling fight, but he was all she thought about.