“I got it,” she said.
When she knew they were coming close to the top of the ravine that looked out over No-Man’s-Land, Maggie couldn’t help but pick up the pace. If they were to make it there and back again before nightfall, she had no choice except to push on.
Heidi had opened her coat, her body overheating as they climbed the last few yards to the top. Maggie’s thighs were starting to burn, but after a few more steps they were there. She stopped and turned to Heidi.
“You okay?” she asked, concerned about the hugging and puffing her friend was doing.
“Flippin’ fantastic.”
Maggie frowned. She had pushed Heidi too far. Exhaustion was etched on her features and she appeared as if she would just collapse where she stood. So much for the idea of them going out on the long path in the morning.
“You might want to sit down for a couple minutes and catch your breath.”
Heidi shook her head. “No, I’m good.”
“Are you sure? You’re all red and look like you might pass out.”
The breeze caught Heidi’s hair, whipping the shoulder length brown strands into her face. She spat out a piece and said, “I feel like I might pass out.”
“Sit down.”
“Yeah, that might be a good idea.” Heidi plopped down where she stood with visible relief. Maggie had pushed her too far on her first day out.
She readjusted the shotgun and pulled a bottle of water from the bag, thrusting it in Heidi’s face. “Drink.”
Maggie watched as Heidi gulped down the bottle of water, rivulets escaping out of the side of her mouth as she drained the contents. She let the empty plastic bottle drop to her lap and pulled out her cell phone, holding it up in front of her.
“It’s not going to work out here. You’d need a satellite phone.”
“I need a satellite phone.”
“No, you don’t,” Maggie said as she crouched down in front of her. “You can stand to be away from technology for a few days.
“Tell that to my Twitter followers.”
There was nothing Maggie wished for more at that moment than for Heidi to just give up the technology and enjoy being where they were. She wanted her friend to enjoy being outdoors as much as she did, but she saw at that moment that Heidi and nature didn’t mix very well.
“I’m sure all ten of them will understand. They can deal without you re-tweeting grumpy cat pictures for a few days, I’m sure.”
When the wind picked up again and blew Heidi’s hair back into her face, Maggie tucked the strands behind her ear. Heidi’s face was warm, but she no longer looked as if she were near collapse. Perhaps after a couple days she would adjust enough to enjoy herself. Maggie didn’t want to go back early because her friend couldn’t handle a week away from civilization. She had wished for Heidi to enjoy this experience.
“Funny.”
Maggie gave her a weak smile and climbed back to her feet with a sigh. She finally was where she had craved to be. At the top of the ravine looking out into No-Man’s-Land. The trees were still bare but, in another week or two, spring would make the place come to life. She hoped they were still there when the woods awoke from their long winter’s sleep.
She heard Heidi rustling behind her, and a few seconds later her friend was standing next to her, surveying the wilderness in front of them.
“It’s beautiful out there,” Heidi commented, and Maggie felt herself relax. She prayed Heidi could learn to enjoy the area. With everything her friend had going on at home, the one thing she lacked was the ability to get away from it all. The ability to breathe and clear her mind.
“Isn’t it beautiful? My dad brought me out here a few times over the years, mostly when I was little,” Maggie said, trying not to think of the day she and Jonah had also come here. The day they’d entered No-Man’s-Land to explore a cave as children. “He called it No-Man’s-Land.”
Heidi narrowed her eyes. “Ever hike down there?”
She and her father had never entered No-Man’s-Land. He never really cared where she went but for some reason every time they’d go out hiking or hunting together, he’d never take them this way. And the last thing she wanted was to talk about Jonah, so she pretended as if their excursion into No-Man’s-Land together never happened.
“No, we never went further than right here. We’d always hike toward the east or the south on our longer treks.”
“Why?”
Maggie shrugged. She had no idea why her father had never taken her down there before. The only time she’d entered No-Man’s-Land had been with Jonah. Surely the hunting would’ve been just as good down there as anywhere else.
“I guess it’s just an area he knows better. I wouldn’t want to get lost down there. There’s over a hundred miles of forest and nothing from here to Canada. You could walk forever and never find your way back to civilization.”
“I’d hardly call New Freedom ‘civilization’.”
Maggie gave Heidi a light elbow in her side when she saw the traces of a smile on her face. Perhaps she wasn’t having a horrible time after all. Heidi’s face seemed to be glowing in the evening sunlight.
“Smile, sugar plum. Just because there’s no internet cafe doesn’t mean that New Freedom doesn’t have anything to offer.” Maggie could think of one person in particular she’d never be able to find anywhere else in this world.
“There’s no theater, no library, and one restaurant. I’d hardly call this place civilized.”
“These people like to live off the land.”
Most of the homes in the area were just as secluded as the cabin apart from the few people who lived in town like Mr. Martin. She wondered if Jonah chose to live in town or if he valued the seclusion of the woods just as much as she did. The more she thought about it, remembered the way he had leaped from the rocks when he was younger, the more she was convinced he’d never choose to live within the town limits.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? It seemed the more she let her mind wander away from him, the quicker she returned to thinking about him again. Ever since she saw him earlier that day…
She’d thought she had moved past the heartache, but it felt as if the wound had just been ripped open yesterday. It was raw, even now.
“I’d rather go to Walmart.”
“That’s your prerogative.”
All Maggie needed was the woods. She’d be happy to never leave this place, just as she had been as a girl. No matter how long she stayed away from New Freedom, she’d always loved it. It felt more like home to her than Cantor ever did. Perhaps quitting her job was the first step she had needed to take to get back where she wanted to be. Maybe she’d taken the wrong path in her life.
She contemplated this thought for a while. If she chose to stay in New Freedom, she’d need to find a job which she doubted they had in excess. She’d need to find housing. While she had contemplated living in the cabin years before, it was different now that she was older and really learned she loved hot showers and heat.
It seemed that no matter how much she wanted to stay, she would have no choice. She’d have to go back to Cantor. She’d never be able to afford to stay in New Freedom without finding a job and that was highly unlikely.
Not to mention she’d have to see Jonah on a regular basis. And she didn’t know if she was ready to handle that. No, she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle that.
“Ready to head back? It’ll be dark within the hour and I don’t want us to be too far away from the cabin when there’s no light left.” Maggie turned away from the edge of the ravine and started to head back toward the tree line.
“I’m ready,” she heard Heidi say behind her.
She wasn’t more than a few feet away from Heidi was she heard her yelp. Spinning on her heels, she saw her waving her hands at a bee that was buzzing directly in her face. The fact that Heidi was allergic to bees was no secret and she cursed that she hadn’t brought an Epi-Pen out into the woods with them. If sh
e got stung…
“Heidi, calm down,” she barked at her. Heidi either hadn’t heard her or wasn’t listening. The more she swatted at the bee, the more aggressive it became.
When Heidi took a dangerous step toward the edge of the ravine, Maggie stopped worrying about the bee. “Heidi!” she screamed, racing forward.
She didn’t make it in time. A single misstep and Heidi fell back, her body falling off the edge.
Maggie screamed as she watched her friend fall, helpless to do anything to stop it. She heard Heidi’s body hitting the trees below, but when she peered over the side of the cliff, she saw nothing except for the birds that erupted from the branches.
“Heidi!” she screamed again, desperate for an answer. She listened for a response and when she got none, she cried her name again. And again.
She had no choice but to go down there and get her, but she knew she needed help. There was no way if Heidi was unconscious or seriously injured that she’d be able to get her out of there by herself. Going down there to check on her first would take an even longer amount of time. Time neither of them could afford to waste.
6
“Goodnight, Dana,” Jonah said as the middle-aged woman got up from the desk.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” She hoisted her bright red purse onto her shoulder and turned off the computer monitor.
He went back into his office as he heard the bell chime over the door. As small as their town was, he was one of only two police officers. He was also the local forest ranger and the one the community turned to in order to keep their small haven safe. They’d occasionally get tourists in the area and they were the ones he had the most problems with. Either hunting without a license or drunk driving.
Luckily, he had very few problems out of the local community. If anyone did start to act up, whether it was a domestic disturbance or someone driving recklessly, they were turned over to the Elders. It was the Elders who truly kept the peace with Jonah acting as their enforcer and as the human liaison. He took his orders directly from them which was why he was elected sheriff along with Travis Bosco, who was the acting deputy.
He had announced his plans to run five years before when his father retired and took over one of the three Elder positions after a hunting accident had left Vaughn Haberlin in a wheelchair. Jonah had run unopposed and was elected with the Elders’, including Vaughn’s, blessing.
It was a position he enjoyed. He had the freedom to work the hours he chose although he and Travis were always on call. Tourist season picked up during hunting season, but even then, he rarely had to put in any more than ten hours a day.
The town worked together well to keep their secret under wraps from the humans and any person who entered the town would never know they had entered Shifter territory. They were protected from both the human population and from Slayers. It was the fae who posed the only threat to their existence.
Since the establishment of the town the century before, the fae had caused problems. It wasn’t until the few years before that the bloodshed began. The fae had demanded control of No-Man’s-Land, which the Shifters had denied them based upon their agreement at the establishment of the town. The agreement said that piece of land would remain uninhabited by both to provide both species with enough distance to keep them out of each other’s way. The fae would remain on their side and the Shifters on theirs. When the dragon Mordecai McIntyre and his nephew, Liam, move onto the third side of the triangle two decades before, the need for having and keeping No-Man’s-Land in place grew.
The Dragons rarely socialized with the Shifters, although since Mordecai’s death, Liam ventured into New Freedom to restock on supplies about once a month. It was at Martin’s General Store that Jonah and Liam met again since he and Maggie had unwittingly entered the dragons’ cave. After a human hunter got lost in the dragon’s territory, it had been Jonah who had gone in search of him. Liam had been gracious enough to help him look for the human, although Jonah was sure the only reason why Liam participated was that he didn’t want a human on his land in the first place.
Regardless, Liam and Jonah had spent enough time together that they had struck up a friendship which remained to that day. Occasionally Jonah would go out to visit Liam or Liam would stop by to see Jonah when he was in town. The town’s fear of the dragons lessened the more time he spent with Liam and the more he convinced them that their neighbor was no threat to them. They tolerated the dragon well, although no one except Jonah had any real relationship with him and many remained suspicious.
It seemed that Martin’s General Store was where he crossed paths with many people. Maggie Alfieri, after years, had walked in there that afternoon with a smile on her face and Jonah’s jaw had dropped to the floor. She was the last person he had thought would walk through the door.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about her, even after so many years. Not long after she and her father had left town, he had debated driving to Cantor to find her. To beg her to come back to him. But he didn't dare to face her. Even if she forgave him for leaving like he had, everything her father had said was still there. Duncan Alfieri had been right.
He had stayed in New Freedom. He had worked and saved up enough money to start building a house of his own and moved out of his parents’ house. He had won the position as sheriff. He had lived his life as much as he could, even though she wasn’t in it.
The few dates he’d gone on since had been mediocre at best. No one compared to Maggie. No one ever could and so he had given up dating, content to live the rest of his life without claiming a mate, much to his mother’s chagrin.
That worked well for him until today. Until she had walked into Mr. Martin’s store and back into his life. It was as if nothing had changed. All the feelings he had for her which had laid dormant for so long roared to life. When he heard he tell Mr. Martin that she was still single, he couldn’t help the hope that started to build inside him.
He was shutting down his own computer, getting ready to head back to his house for the night when the bell chimed over the door. At first, he thought that it was Dana returning for something she’d forgotten, but when he heard Maggie’s voice he went out into the small lobby.
“Hello?” she yelled, panic in her voice.
“What is it?” he asked when he saw her. She was wearing the same khaki pants she had on earlier, but now they were covered in mud. Her boots were caked in it and she was wringing her hands in front of her.
“It’s Heidi. We were hiking, and she fell from the top of the ravine into No-Man’s-Land. When I called to her, she didn’t answer,” she rushed out.
He knew where she was talking about. That ravine was steep. Could a human even survive that fall?
“How long ago?” he asked her.
“A little less than an hour? I ran back to the cabin and drove straight here.”
The sun had set. Finding the girl would be difficult, but not impossible. Especially not for him. He grabbed the keys to his patrol car and ushered her out of the building in front of him, grabbing his jacket on the way.
He started his vehicle and picked up the radio while he waited for her to get her things out of her car.
“Travis, come in,” he spoke through the static.
Maggie opened the back door and tossed in a backpack and a shotgun. He looked at her out of the corner of her eyes, wondering why she was carrying the shotgun, but dismissed it. With all the fae activity in the area lately, her taking the weapon was probably a good thing. Perhaps she wasn’t as ignorant to the activities around New Freedom as he had thought.
“What is it?” Travis’s voice came on over the radio just as Maggie was getting into the passenger seat. Jonah put the SUV in gear and pulled out onto the road that would lead them to the cabin.
“There’s been an accident out by the Alfieri cabin. I’m headed out there now with Maggie. She says that a woman has fallen on the side of a ravine.”
“Which?”
“Into No-Man’s
-Land.”
There was nothing but static on the other end as Jonah turned to Maggie. She hadn’t put on her seatbelt and was sitting on the edge of the seat. “What’s your friend’s full name?”
“Heidi. Heidi Corrigan.”
“What does she look like? Describe her.”
Maggie shook her head. “I…I don’t know. She’s short? Like five three and she has brown hair. It’s not long, just to her shoulders. And her eyes are…they’re hazel.”
“What was she wearing?”
Everything Maggie told him, he relayed to Travis.
“Do you want me out there? Or do you want me to send Medical out?” Travis asked.
When they got to Heidi, Jonah worried Medical wouldn’t be necessary. “Yes,” he said, “send Medical.”
“Ten-four.”
He had to slow down when the road turned from pavement to gravel. The vehicle bounced over the narrow road and he glanced over at Maggie, who was clinging to the bar above the passenger side door. Her body rocked as she tried to steady herself.
“Do you think she’s alright?” Maggie asked, her voice low.
He couldn’t give her false hope. He didn’t know what they’d find at the bottom of the ravine but them finding the girl without injury was almost impossible. He wasn’t about to voice the probability that her friend was dead. There were plenty of things for her to hit her head on, or to break her neck on, or even the force of the impact itself. A human girl surviving a fall off any of the ravines or cliff faces around there would be miraculous.
He kept his focus on the road and kept his mouth shut. As the gravel faded into dirt, small drops of rain began to fall on the windshield. He turned on the wipers, cursing to himself. Thunderstorms had been expected to roll in that evening, but he had hoped they would have some time to be out before the rain started.
He parked in front of the cabin and jumped out of the car. Maggie followed close behind, getting her bag and shotgun out of the backseat while he opened the rear hatch of the SUV. He pulled out the bag he always kept packed just in case he had to spend some time out in the woods either looking for someone or checking hunting licenses. He checked the chamber of his rifle, confirmed it was loaded and made sure he had extra ammunition in his pack.
When Sparks Fly (Netherworld Series Book 3) Page 8
