by Layla Nash
He glanced at Cooper as they climbed over a massive rotting log. "How did you guys get here so fast, anyway?"
"Ran," he said. "Simon got a bad feeling last night, so we drove out early this morning and started heading for where you'd marked your halfway point. When the beacon went off, we weren't more than a couple miles away. So we ran."
Ethan ran a hand through his hair. "Thanks, man."
"Thank Tate," Coop said. "He's the one who stayed back with Finn and Zoe to deal with the tourists. We're full up this week, man."
"Great." Ethan paused to check his GPS. Everything looked somewhat familiar but he didn't want to waste any time wandering in the woods. He nodded to Cooper. "This way. We'll get Kira's stuff and head back. The other guy is on his own tonight. He can run and get help if he wants. I want to get back to the river."
Cooper raised an eyebrow at him. "Good thing we brought the two-person tent. You know. Just in case."
Ethan refused to dignify Cooper's juvenile assumption with a response. Instead, he hauled himself up the hill toward the cave, exhaling in relief when he saw the shrubs that concealed the entrance. He turned to tell Cooper they were there and he'd get Kira's pack but froze as his ankle hit something low on the ground. A rope.
Ethan frowned down at the rope, strung between two trees, then up at the cave. And a giant pile of rocks that slid and tumbled. A trap.
He had just enough time to curse that fucking miner before the first rocks slammed into his chest and launched him into the air.
Kira
Kira sat next to the fire with Simon while the other guy watched the miners, all of them tied to separate trees. She had a bad feeling, a weight compressing her chest, and it grew worse with every passing second that Ethan hadn't returned. She shoved to her feet to pace, staring off towards the part of the forest where the cave and her pack waited. She'd left two weapons there. Maybe the miner who escaped got his shotgun back and set an ambush. Maybe he'd already shot Ethan.
The jaguar made a pained noise and Kira's fists clenched at her sides.
Simon eased to his feet and approached. "Something wrong?"
"Yes." Kira shook her head. "But I don't know what. Something isn't —"
She cut off as a low rumble filled the air, making the earth tremble, and her heart jumped to her throat. Then someone yelled — desperate, hurt.
Kira ran. She didn't care that her feet were still bare and she wore only sweats, or that the forest was totally dark with only a slight glow from the moon to guide her path. She knew that voice. Ethan. Ethan was in trouble. He'd been hurt. He needed her.
Behind her, Simon cursed and someone else shouted, and the bearded man gave directions to the other men, but it faded from her awareness as she hit the tree-line and focused on what waited ahead. Ethan. Ethan needed help.
It took forever to reach the source of the rumbling noise. She relied on the jaguar's senses to lead her back to the cave, and a cat's angry yowl escaped her throat as she hit the trail where Ethan's scent lingered. Her chest ached from where she'd been shot, but it didn't matter. Not when Ethan might be hurt.
Her heart sank as she hauled herself over a fallen log and came to an abrupt stop. A rock slide or avalanche or something terrible had happened — most of the cave collapsed and fell down the hill, and... She cried out when she saw Ethan's pack sticking up out of the rocks.
Ethan. Buried in rocks.
Her vision blurred as she stared at the mass of stone. The cave and the surrounding land hadn't been unstable when they slept there. Kira's hands shook as she started pulling rocks away from the pile, though she was afraid to climb too high in case she shifted the rocks and crushed him even more. She whispered his name, over and over, and prayed he was still alive. She wouldn't survive it if he wasn't.
Kira almost made a dent in some of the rock pile, shouting for Ethan to give her a sign he was okay, when someone grabbed her from behind. She tried to shrug off the restraining hands, thinking Simon tried to pull her away, but then something cold pressed to the back of her neck and a low voice sent shivers down her spine. "Stand up, back away with me. We'll see if your boyfriend survived that little trap."
Her throat closed even as the jaguar had had enough. The musty breath of the last miner made her skin prickle, but she did as he said, her eyes still on the pile of rocks. Ethan was under there. He'd hear her. She couldn't shift fast enough to escape a bullet to the head, and definitely not a shot-gun blast to her spine — and the miner pressed the barrel of the shotgun directly to her neck.
Kira tried to sound confident and unafraid. "Our friends are here. They'll be here and you'll be —"
"Be rich, since you assholes have tied up all my partners. Guess that means I don't have to split the gold with them now." He laughed, his free hand a little too free as he tried to pat her down for weapons. The miner leaned close to inhale from her hair, right behind her ear, and whispered, "Just found a nugget this morning, darlin'. Want to run away with me? I'm a wealthy man now."
A growl escaped and Kira tried to elbow him away. "You son of a bitch, there's no —"
"Then I guess you're going to die in a rock-slide, like your boyfriend." He jammed the shotgun into her back with more force, almost throwing her off balance, and the miner pointed up the hill. "March."
She took two steps before she ducked, kicked at his knee, and threw herself to the side so she would have enough room to shift. The shotgun went off in a deafening blast, making her ears ring, and as Kira stumbled back and fell over more of the rocks, the miner stood over her and pumped the shotgun. His expression contorted in rage. "You bitch —"
Whatever else he was going to say disappeared as the rock pile moved. Heaved. Flew apart. Kira jumped up and shoved the miner as he lost his balance, struggling to get the shotgun away from him, and a ground-shaking roar sent them both to the ground. A grizzly bear shook and rocks flew as he rose up out of the rock pile. Kira’s heart leapt. Ethan.
He was bloody and broken, limping, but he roared again and lurched at the miner as he held the shotgun up. Kira screamed a warning just as the shotgun went off, tackling the miner, but the bear's claws got there first and ripped his chest open. The miner coughed once or twice, staggering backwards, then fell. The shotgun dropped from his lifeless hands.
Kira didn't care. She turned to the bear and almost sobbed. "Ethan. Ethan. Are you okay?"
The bear groaned and staggered, falling to his side in the dirt, and she crouched over the enormous grizzly. She stroked the fur on his face, trying to swallow her tears back. "Baby. Please be okay."
She didn't look up as Simon and another man crashed through the trees. Simon cursed, real fear in his eyes as he crouched next to Ethan and her. "What the fuck, man? Where's Cooper?"
Another groan rose from the rocks, and the other man started digging, throwing rocks every which way. Simon took a deep breath and fumbled with a fancy radio. He started speaking in some kind of code, though it sounded perfectly efficient and almost like English, then he helped his friend try to dig out the other man.
Kira tried to help Ethan but didn't know what else to do while he remained a bear. If he couldn't shift back, they'd never be able to carry him out of the forest to medical aid. She couldn't speak, choking on tears, and squeezed her eyes shut as his breath rasped in his chest.
Simon and the other guy, Finn, cursed and grunted, but suddenly pulled something out of the rocks. Cooper. It was Cooper, bloody and broken and still human. He groaned and spat blood as the two men carried him out of the pile, and Cooper managed to gasp, "Trap. Ethan hit the rope and the rocks just... fell."
"We got the bastard," Simon said under his breath. He slid and struggled to climb the pile of rocks, hauling Ethan's pack free so he could tear through it. He pulled out a first aid kit and threw it to Finn, then appeared at Kira's side. "Where's your pack?"
She stared at him, trying to process what was going on. It felt like everything was moving too fast. His words flew right past her ears and she almos
t couldn't decipher them. Simon took a deep breath and caught her shoulders, forcing her to face him as he spoke again, enunciating each word as if he spoke to someone who was hard of hearing or didn't speak English. "Where. Is. Your. Pack?"
Kira stared at him, and flinched as the bear groaned again. She managed to whisper, "In the cave. It was in the cave."
Simon cursed as he shoved to his feet. He climbed the pile of rocks up to where the cave had been, and tried to shift the rocks without dropping them down on her or Finn and Cooper. Kira touched Ethan's face, over and over, and tried to lift the heavy bear paw, as big as her head, so she could see more of his injuries. Ethan took a rattling breath and then shivered. The bear's fur trembled and then he shifted, naked and covered in deep purple bruises.
Simon slid back down the rock pile, dragging her pack, and tore through it until he came up with the first aid kit. He gently eased Kira out of the way, until she sat near Ethan's head, and started to examine the damage done to his friend by the rocks. He didn't even glance at the body of the miner, flung into the woods beyond them. "Distract him for me, Kira."
She focused on Ethan as his eyes fluttered and she caught a glimpse of the steel blue, surrounded by red. She touched his cheeks, smoothing the beard, and tried not to cry as Simon started taking inventory of Ethan's wounds. Broken legs. Broken ribs. Crushed collarbone. Maybe a punctured lung. He moved with calm efficiency, at least, and periodically called over to Finn to check on Cooper's condition. Kira concentrated only on Ethan, on keeping that spark of light in his blue eyes as he struggled to breathe and Simon did horrible things to his chest to make it easier.
She rested her forehead against Ethan's and closed her eyes. "I need you to get better," she said, soft so only he would hear. "I need you to be okay."
Ethan groaned and tried to move, his good arm rotating until he caught her knee and squeezed it. "Okay."
"Okay," she said, and squeezed his hand back. She hoped he meant it.
Ethan
Ethan felt himself suffocating. The rocks settled and everything went dark and he couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Felt the end coming to him. It was an almost familiar feeling, almost comforting. He'd had some close calls in the Legion, and knew what it was like to stare death in the face.
And then he heard Kira scream. Felt her close by. Everything shorted out in his brain. She needed him. She was hurt and she needed help. The bear raged free and then he could taste fresh air, could see through the dusty darkness to the man who held a shotgun on Kira.
Time skipped and blinked. One moment he killed the man trying to hurt Kira, then he was on the ground and Kira sat next to him, then he was human and Simon yanked his broken legs straight again.
Ethan wanted to sleep. He wanted to close his eyes and drift. Even shifter healing couldn't help him out of this one. But Kira kissed his forehead and her green eyes caught and held his gaze. "I need you."
That was all he heard. All he needed to hear. She needed him. Wanted him. It was enough.
So Ethan tried to live, even though Simon put him through hell and the bear snarled and tried to break free. He blinked and there were more voices, lights, things moving around. He still hurt. Everything hurt. He breathed a little easier, but the strange pressure in his chest remained.
He floated and bounced and jostled for an eternity, and the only thing that kept him anchored was Kira's voice, the smooth warmth of her hand in his. She said something about them carrying him out, but Ethan lost time and woke up in the bed of a truck as it hit a pothole and everything jostled into bright flashes of pain. Someone cursed and Ethan recognized Simon's voice, then everything faded out again.
The next time he woke, white surrounded him. Just white. He blinked and tried to focus, eyes swimming in the dim light. A hospital room somewhere, no doubt. White bandages covered nearly every inch of him, and a white sheet covered the rest. White walls, white floor, white everything. Ethan struggled to lift his head, though it felt like gravity pinned him down and the room swam around him in strange swirls. He kept one eye open but squeezed the other shut, trying to focus. He could be on painkillers. That might explain why he felt pretty good, all things considered.
Something moved in the room and he swung his head around, trying to process. Then a smile broke through the stiff muscles in his face. "Kira."
She cried in great big gulps, fat tears streaming down her cheeks, and she lurched forward to try and hug him in the bed. Ethan didn't mind for a second. He tried to hug her back but tubes and needles and shit kept his arms from going too far. "What's wrong?"
Kira straightened and wiped at her cheeks, perching on the edge of the hospital bed next to his hip. "I thought you were dead. I thought you wouldn't make it."
"Takes more than a couple of rocks to kill me," he said, still trying to smile. His damn face felt like it would crack in half, and from the look she gave him, he wasn't succeeding at anything resembling a smile.
"A couple of rocks?" Kira touched his face, his chest, his arm. Anywhere she could find skin instead of bandages. "Half the mountain landed on you."
He remembered. And something else...
Ethan sat up, wires and tubes coming loose and alarms going off, and tried to get out of bed. "Cooper. Where's Cooper?"
"He's fine," she said, trying to push him back to lay in the bed. "Simon dug him out. He's next door. There's a bunch of people with him."
Ethan lay back, still tense. He'd been a complete idiot, walking into that trap and not thinking to check for trip-wires. Stupid rookie mistake. Simon would never let him forget it. The machines kept beeping louder and louder, and he tried to lift his hand to shut off the alarm, but nothing worked.
Kira moved, called for help, and as more people rushed into the room, everything faded away again.
Kira
Kira stared at where Ethan lay in the hospital bed, finally quiet again, and watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. She didn't want to move or even blink. She just watched him breathe and hoped he would pull through. It had been almost a week and he still slept, though Ethan periodically woke up long enough to catch her hand and mutter something she couldn't understand.
Simon came into the hospital room, dark circles under his eyes. "How's he doing?"
"I think he's better," Kira said, even though she knew it was mostly a lie. She couldn't tell if he was getting better or not. Ethan looked the same — bruised and broken, asleep. He grew restless and uneasy as the morphine faded, and quiet when she hit the button that released more into his system. She swallowed a knot in her throat. "He looks better."
"I think you're right," Simon said, and Kira felt even worse that he would lie to make her feel better, too. He sank into the chair on the other side of Ethan's bed, so he didn't loom over both of them. Simon studied his hands, taking a deep breath. "It might be a while, Kira. There was a lot of damage from the rocks, a lot of internal damage. He's trying to heal, but it could take weeks. Months."
"It's fine," she said. Her eyes stung with tears but she wiped them away as quickly as possible. She didn't want Simon to think she was weak. Especially if Ethan wanted her to stay with him in the mountains. It was a pipe dream, something she daydreamed about while watching Ethan's chest rise and fall, but she held on to it with all her strength. She needed something to hope for. "I can wait."
"Reston called me yesterday," he said. He spoke gently for someone so large and intimidating, and he moved carefully to straighten the sheets that covered Ethan's legs. "He wanted to know what happened. He asked about the data and the cameras and everything else. He's worried about you, too. Wanted to know how you're doing."
"I'm fine," she said. Her throat closed in grief. She didn't want to think about the real world just yet. If she had to think about her research, she would have to think about losing her grant and all the work she’d done over the previous three years. All of it down the drain because of some sons of bitches in the wilderness. She'd already missed her deadline to get the
data back to the university, and she hadn't even made it to the third camera. "It's fine. I'll just work more later."
"He said something about grant money." Simon frowned, shaking his head. "He was worried about whether you would make some research deadline. He got an extension for a couple of weeks, but you'd have to head back soon in order to get everything done in time. You should call him."
Kira leaned to rest her chin on the mattress near Ethan's knees, studying his face so she wouldn't see the sympathy in Simon's. "It doesn't matter."
"Kira." Simon sat back, arms folded over his chest. "You worked very hard on that research, from what he said, and you're in a position to make real changes here. To save the wolverines and other species as well. Ethan wouldn't want you to give that up. None of us do."
Her vision blurred. She didn't want to give it up, either. But she couldn't choose between the research and Ethan. She couldn't. It wasn't a choice. Kira cleared her throat to try to sound normal, as if her heart wasn't breaking. "It's okay. I need to stay with Ethan."
"He would want you to finish up your work," Simon said. He took a deep breath, a frown making his eyebrows droop like fuzzy caterpillars. "So you can come back with a clear mind. Or you can come back with more work to do."
Kira looked up. "What are you talking about?"
"Well," he said, rubbing his jaw. "There's a lot of forest out there. A lot of places for cameras to be hidden to track those predators. Reston mentioned a few more grants out there, for longer-term research. My company works with the park service on evaluating migrations, of predators and prey alike, through this area. Reston was interested in expanding what you're looking at to cover the region. We'd be happy to have you."
Hope kindled in her chest. Kira looked at him, trying to find the trap or the misstep that would snatch away the pure joy of what the future held. She could continue her research, and stay with Ethan, and everything would be perfect.
