Uh-oh.
The bear swung one huge paw, knocked the tree branch away from her and tore into her hand, right near the thumb. She spun away, pain exploding through her hand and arm, bracing herself for the next blow. Gabe, shoot! But maybe she was in the way. Maybe he didn’t have a clear shot.
One of the cubs wailed. The bear froze.
Renee blinked to clear the tears out of her eyes and blew her whistle some more. Daz and Gabe closed ranks around her.
Please don’t make us kill you, Renee pleaded silently at the bear.
The bear remained motionless for what seemed like days but what really must have been seconds.
And then, just like that, she turned and lumbered over to her cubs. They rambled out of the underbrush, rubbed their noses to hers, and then the family disappeared into the woods. Had it been the whistle? Or the calls of the cubs? It didn’t matter.
“Motherfucking son of a bitch,” Daz said.
Renee fell to her knees, holding her hand up to stop the bleeding. The blood trickled past her wrist, staining the cuffs of her sweatshirt.
“Crap,” she said.
“Damn, what the hell were you thinking?” Daz asked as he dropped down next to her. “That thing could have killed you.”
“I had to save my dog.”
Gabe knelt at her other side and helped her keep the hand up. Through a haze of pain, she saw Daz run back to the middle of the clearing, retrieve his gun, and rush back.
“Sorry, the damn thing ran right over me when I stepped into the clearing and knocked it right out of my grip,” Daz gasped out the words. “Gabe, why didn’t you fire when it came after you?”
“She was kinda in the way, Lieutenant.”
Daz slipped off his backpack. “Fuck. You always take on bears with sticks, Wonder Woman?”
“First time.” She gritted her teeth, intent on not showing weakness in front of these two. “I’m okay. Look at Thor. He’s bleeding.”
“We’ll look at him too.” Daz pulled the med kit out of his backpack. He curled his hand around her wrist. “Renee, let’s keep this up.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know you are,” Daz said.
“Thor. Help my dog. Please.”
“We’ll do you both at once. Gabe will take Thor, I’ll take you.” He tossed a pack of bandages to Gabe. “Can you get him over here?”
“Sure.” With a feeble wave, she signaled Thor to come. She put her head, suddenly heavy, between her knees. No fainting. That was only shock. This wasn’t that bad, it only needed to be bandaged up.
Thor needed her.
Her dog settled against her, with Loki on the other side. Gabe poked through the fur on Thor’s back. Her puppy whined, as he hadn’t since he was little.
“Easy, babe. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. You did good.”
She scratched his ears with her good hand. He trembled. Dammit, if she’d made the wrong choice to search for the plane and it cost Thor his life…
Loki crept over and licked his brother’s muzzle.
“There, see, Gabe, there’s a long scratch on the right side,” she said.
“Got it.” Gabe parted Thor’s fur to reveal the wound. She craned her neck but couldn’t see how bad it was.
She very deliberately didn’t look at her own hand, where Daz was doing something to the injury. Breathe, she thought. Breathe. Long, even breaths. That was the ticket.
She raised her head, her vision clear.
“Good news,” Gabe said. “It’s a long scratch but shallow and it’s stopped bleeding already. Looks worse than it is because the blood splashed all over. I’d bandage a person but how do you do that for a dog?”
“With great difficulty, especially over fur.” She hugged Thor. He stopped shivering. “Without a cone, he’ll bite at a bandage. Do what you can to clean the wound and slather on the antibiotic. He’s had all his shots, at least.”
“Okay.” Gabe grunted. He looked over at Daz. “How you doing?”
“Well, my good news is that the bear didn’t tear your hand off, Renee,” Daz said.
“What’s the bad news?”
“You’re going to need stitches.” He paused. “I could try the wound closure glue but that doesn’t work with well with hands. Every time you moved your fingers, the cut would pull open. And stitches will hurt, even with the cream we have to numb the pain.”
How could it hurt more than it already did? “Just do what you need to do. It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not, but if we want to go on and find the crash site, that’s what I have to do. Our other option is to head back and have you treated at the relief camp.”
“No.” Admit failure? No. “If Thor’s mostly okay, we go on.”
“He’s taking me cleaning out the wound well,” Gabe said.
“What a brave puppy you are,” she said to Thor.
“He sure was,” Daz said. “Saved my life by getting between me and the bear after it ran me over.”
“Will he stand for it if I use hydrogen peroxide to clean the cut?” Gabe asked.
“He’ll be fine with me here,” Renee said.
Gabe poured out the peroxide and dabbed the scratch with it. Thor cuddled closer to her. She needed the comfort as much as he did. Agony sliced through her hand, threatening to make her curl into a little fetal ball of pain.
After the peroxide, Gabe spread antibiotic cream over Thor’s cut. “Looks good.”
“Which is more than I can say for your hand,” Daz said. “Renee, if we’re going on, it needs stitching up right now.”
She closed her eyes. “Go ahead.”
“Right. Gabe’s got a steadier hand, so I’ll sit behind you and hold you steady, and he’ll do the stitching. Just hold tight.”
“Pretty sure I can do that.” Pretty sure, though she was seeing spots and put her head between her knees as she had earlier. Neither of the men said anything about it and she silently blessed them for that. She swallowed back bile and ran her tongue over her teeth. Getting sick wasn’t going to help, just make her feel rotten and useless.
Daz slipped behind her, pulling her against his chest. His strong arms went around her stomach and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. Gabe took hold of her injured hand. She turned her head away, into Daz’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Through the haze of pain, she noticed how solid he was.
The dogs arranged themselves at her feet.
“Here we go. Hold steady,” Gabe said.
“Sure,” she said.
Cold liquid splashed over her hand. The peroxide, she decided. It burned. She clenched her other hand into a fist.
“So, Renee,” Daz said. “How did you get into SAR work in the first place? You said something earlier about not being able to sit back and do nothing? Got some tragic backstory from childhood?”
His light teasing distracted her as he’d no doubt planned. “No, no tragedy. A triumph of sorts, I guess. When I was eight, one of my friends from school disappeared into the woods when we were on a Girl Scout trip.”
“Always knew Girl Scouts were trouble,” Daz said.
Cold cream, then a nasty stab into her hand. She gritted her teeth. “Yeah, some of those Girl Scouts can be awful.” Another stab. She sucked a breath in and out through her teeth.
“You’re doing great,” Gabe said.
Daz stroked her hair. Her stomach settled.
“Anyway, it turned out the other scout became lost after walking in circles and then sprained her ankle. I was the one who found her. She was scared and crying. I helped her walk and brought her back to the group.”
“And she was forever grateful and now you’re BFFs?” Daz asked.
“Not so much. She was a brat and used to pick on me. But she was nicer to me after that.” Her hand throbbed,
a constant dull roar of pain. “But rescuing her felt better than anything else I’d ever done.”
“And that’s how you got started?” Daz said.
“Yep. I’d always had dogs growing up and as a teenager, I helped my mom raise and train a seeing-eye dog. Search-and-rescue dogs seemed a natural progression.”
“You’re good at it,” Daz said.
“Hah. Not when I get one of my dogs hurt on what’s probably a wild goose chase.”
“Not such a wild goose chase. If I thought this hike was such a long shot, I wouldn’t have decided to help,” Daz said. “Don’t give up hope now, babe.”
“Since when did I graduate to babe?” She buried her head deeper into his shoulder.
“Oh, since all the PDA,” Daz said.
“PDA?”
“Public display of affection.”
“It’s all very sexy, you holding me while I whine and bleed all over you.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Hang in there. Almost done.”
The hands clamped around her wrist abruptly released it.
“You can look now. All the stiches are done and you’re bandaged up,” Gabe said.
She opened her eyes. As Gabe promised, the entire back of her hand was bandaged and it all wrapped around her thumb to keep it in place. “All stitches? Just how many is ‘all’?”
“Five.”
She held up her hand before her eyes. The moisture of the antibiotic cream mingled with the tickle of the gauze pad and a constant throb of hurt. But her hand was still all there and likely to remain so.
“Thank you.” She tried to flex her fingers and instead of a dull ache, the pain turned into a sharp spike. “Ouch. Remind me not to do that again for a while.”
“I will.”
She craned her neck around to Daz, even more aware of his arms still wrapped around her. “And thank you too.”
“Sure. The least I could do with Thor saving my life. You and him probably need antibiotics to prevent infection, but hopefully we’ll be back at camp soon to get them.”
Gabe packed up the medical supplies. She concentrated on breathing so when she stood, she wouldn’t fall over. Daz stroked her hair again.
“Ready to get up, babe?” Daz asked.
“Let’s go for it.”
He stood first. A light wind teased the back of her shirt, chilling her where their sweat had mingled. He’d left something of himself on her. She shifted to her knees to stand up and hugged Thor and Loki. Thor licked her face and nudged her. That meant he was happy. He must be feeling better.
“Good boys.” She spotted some blood on the ground next to her. Ick. Her stomach flipped over. “Daz, could you take my hand and help me up. I’m a little lightheaded still.”
“Absolutely.”
He wrapped his hand around her arm at the elbow. She rose to her feet with his support. Once standing, she blinked to clear her eyes of tears. The sun was high in the sky, signaling midday. They’d have light for a few hours to continue the search.
Daz handed over a full water bottle. She drank it down in one solid gulp.
“That was something, you facing the bear with just a tree branch,” Daz said.
“I wanted to protect Thor.”
“One mama bear facing another to protect her own.” Daz smiled. “I’d say she got the better of you.”
“Yeah, she was a bit out of my weight class. Can you hand me my pack?”
Daz scooped it up. “I’ll carry it for now. Which way, Gabe?”
Gabe pointed at the woods on the other end of the clearing. “And let’s stick together for now, okay?”
“Damn fine idea,” Daz agreed. “Especially since with the noise we’ve made here. If there’s someone watching, they’re already aware. We’re better off together.”
“Someone could already have spotted us? You’re just full of comforting words, Daz,” she said.
“I aim to please.”
Maybe it was her feeling faint but she went weak in the knees at his smile. Well, why not. They’d been through a lot in the last hour. She tossed Thor and Loki treats with her good hand to gain time to regain her equilibrium.
Admit it. She liked Daz, more than she’d liked anyone in a long time.
Chapter Seven
Because Daz never went to sleep, he was the one the dogs pestered to let them out to do their business in the morning. Apparently, they’d decided he wasn’t an interloper, though the smaller Shepherd, Loki, seemed to be giving him dirty looks.
Or maybe that was his imagination.
He glanced over at Renee and Charlie to make certain they were still sleeping, slipped on his boots and coat, and took the dogs out through the garage.
Bright sunlight blinded him for a minute and he had to put up his hand to block it. Once his eyes focused, all he could do was stare.
“Whoa,” he whispered, echoing Charlie from last night. This looked like a disaster zone. Hell, it was a disaster zone. The best that could be said was that the six inches of snow had added some pretty covering to it all.
Renee’s carefully kept yard had vanished and replaced by a tangle of branches, trees and snow. He picked his way carefully through the mess to check out the side and back yards. Charlie’s swing set was so covered by fallen branches that Daz couldn’t tell if it had sustained any damage. The deck hadn’t been so lucky. That loud thunk from last night had been the top of a falling tree taking out one of the side railings. If that tree had been just two feet taller, it was have taken down a chunk of the roof right over Charlie’s bedroom. There was no sign of Charlie’s sandbox at the corner of the yard. The forest beyond looked impassable.
Thor and Loki picked their way through the yard, apparently intrigued by all the mess.
“Holy shit,” he said to the dogs as they wandered back to him, their noses on the ground. He wondered if the roads looked anything like the yard, with downed trees blocking everything.
He walked back to the driveway to look over his smashed truck. By some quirk of fate, only that tree and the van debris blocked the driveway. He could hike down to the bottom and see what it was like where it met the road.
First, he should check on Alec and the Institute. He thought they’d be okay in the storm but he wanted to be certain. Daz’s phone starting blaring text alerts the minute he turned it on. Alec had called three times, once last night, once a few hours ago, at the break of dawn, and once ten minutes ago.
Firefly couldn’t wait to get out and look around. At least, Daz hoped that was all it was. Rasputin had an agent out there somewhere. Daz called him back.
“You okay?” Alec asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. Looks like we had a close call with a couple of trees and we’re blocked in but otherwise we’re fine. How about near the Institute?”
“No big trees on the inner grounds of the Institute, so we’re good. Hell, we’re not even touched. We lost power from the grid but we kicked on our own instead. Lansing built this place to withstand a siege. A storm isn’t even an inconvenience.”
“Lansing was a paranoid bastard, but he was damn prepared for anything.”
“Yeah,” Alec said.
A pause while Daz was again reminded of the dubious merits of Lansing, the late head of the Phoenix Institute, though the place had been known as the Resource then. Lansing had given Daz the job that brought him closer to Charlie. Lansing had also been insane. Daz should’ve seen that part of the man sooner.
“I’m on my way to you,” Alec said.
“Now? Why? We’re okay.” He wanted Beth to evaluate Charlie, but that could wait a day or two. He needed to take this quiet time to work on things with Renee. Who knew when he’d get another chance for that.
“Maybe I’m being paranoid but I’m worried. Drake is still following that lead on one of Raspu
tin’s men. He says the man stayed in New Jersey and he’s tracing to where he might have picked up a false ID. Drake, paranoid that he is, is thinking that this man might use the storm as cover to move on us.”
“That is paranoid. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
“That was my thinking. Drake’s with his wife and son. I figured I’d come get you.”
“Okay.” It was necessary but crap, he’d wanted to ease Renee into the psychic powers thing and Alec tended to be very open about his telekinetic and firestarting abilities. How much time did he have to clue Renee in before Alec arrived? “How close are you?”
“GPS says I’m only about two miles away.”
“That close?” Dammit.
“I was worried about you. Why, is there some problem?”
“No, it’ll be good to have the driveway clear.” Dammit. How did he come up with words to explain Alec in only a minute or two?
After he hung up, Daz went back into the mudroom while dogs bounded into the house, rehearsing the words to tell Renee that the impossible was actually possible. If he asked, Alec would keep his abilities hidden but that meant lying to Renee. And Daz didn’t want to do that.
Charlie confronted him in the kitchen. Daz focused on his son, looking for any signs of distress. “Hey, kid, you okay?”
“Where’d you go, Dad?” Charlie put his hands on his hips.
“Outside to let the dogs out to do their business. Where’s your mom?”
“Asleep. She must be really tired because she always hears me when I get up in the morning.”
“Yesterday was a long day for her,” Daz said.
One of the dogs head-butted Charlie. “I’ll feed them.” He filled their bowls with food.
Daz watched his son deal with the dogs. There was absolutely no sign of the kid who’d thrown that fit last night. This was the Charlie he knew. But now that he realized that his son could melt down like that, he stayed on high alert for the first sign of a problem. Renee must be on alert twenty-four/seven. Day after day. No breaks, if the school kept calling her like she said.
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