Page 10 of Zeke
"I'm good," he growled. "Let me up."
They released him cautiously, ready to pin him again if his control slipped. But the moment had passed. The rage settled into something colder. His breathing evened out, his muscles coiling tight with a focused purpose. I’ll kill the ferals who hurt her. I’ll tear them apart, piece by piece, until they beg for the sweet release of death. I’ll?—
"Trail continues north," Raaze said, walking around the clearing. "But there are more tracks now. Definitely a pack."
Zeke pushed to his feet, brushing dirt from his knees. “Let’s go.”
They left the clearing, easily following the tracks of the feral pack. The terrain grew rougher as they climbed, rocky outcroppings forcing them to pick their way carefully between boulders and twisted trees.
Kraath glanced up at the darkening sky as thunder rolled overhead. "Storm's getting closer.”
The trail led them through a narrow canyon where a stream cut across their path. The water ran clear and cold, but the mud of the banks was churned up with footprints. Zeke knelt beside them, taking a deep breath.
The scent of Michelle's blood was stronger here.
"They stopped here," he said, his voice a rough gravel. He brushed his fingertips over a flat boulder beside the stream where Michelle's scent was strongest. "Rested. Gave her water."
"That's good," Kraath said. "Means they want her alive."
But Raaze was studying the feral tracks with growing concern. "Look at this." He pointed to overlapping prints in the mud. "These aren't from her captors. The gait is different, and the claw structure doesn't match." His voice was grim. "Others have been here. After Michelle's group. More recently."
Zeke's blood went cold as he sorted through the scent markers around the stream. She was hurt and getting worse, and now more ferals were following her?
"How many others?" he asked, his jaw clenched.
Raaze crouched beside the water, studying the tracks in the churned mud.
"At least six more. Maybe eight. There’s a big one with them as well. A brute. The others are giving it a wide berth by the looks of the tracks." He stood, wiping his hands on his pants. "Your female's become the center of attention."
Thunder cracked overhead and rain slammed down on them without warning, turning from scattered drops to a torrential downpour in seconds. The stream beside them doubled in size before their eyes.
"This whole canyon's a wash!" Kraath shouted over the roar of the water. "We've got minutes before it floods."
"This way!" Raaze yelled, pointing toward a narrow gap where the canyon opened into the valley beyond. Already, debris swept past them in the rising current.
Zeke didn't hesitate. Michelle was somewhere ahead in that maze of valleys and rising water. "Move!"
Something was wrong with her leg, like really fucking wrong. It had been playing up since Scarface decided he didn’t want to carry her anymore, and the ferals had made her walk in the middle of them.
Michelle took another step and felt the splint shift. At the same time, the ends of the broken bone ground against each other and pain slammed up through her leg, sharp and immediate.
Shit.
The careful dressing Zeke had put on her leg back at the garrison had finally given way. Her kidnapper had damaged it when he'd snatched her, but she'd thought it would hold. Yeah… no.That wasn't going to happen. The constant walking through rough terrain had finished the job, and now a broken piece of the splint jabbed into her calf like her own personal nemesis.
She kept walking. The three ferals were already on edge, their massive forms slinking through the forest like poachers who didn’t want to be caught. The last thing she needed was to give them a reason to think she was slowing them down.
Fire shot through her ankle as the splint shifted again. Biting back a curse, she forced herself to keep up even as her mind raced. I'm an engineer. I can fix this shit. She just needed the right equipment.
In this case… a straight bit of wood. Any straight bit of wood. In a forest where every fucking tree was twisted.
Her eyes swept the forest floor as they walked. The forest had thickened, and ancient trees towered overhead, their canopy so dense that only scattered beams of pale light filtered through to the undergrowth. The air smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves. Moss-covered rocks jutted up through the undergrowth like broken teeth, and fallen logs created a maze that made every step treacherous.
Then she spotted it, just off the path… a fallen branch about the right length and thickness. Hardwood, from the look of it, with a natural curve that would work perfectly.
"Hey," she called out, letting herself stumble. The lead feral—she'd been calling him Scarface in her head because of the jagged scar across his jaw—turned back. His red eyes narrowed, and his lips pulled back to show teeth. "I need something to lean on,” she said. “This terrain is killing me."
"Hurry up," Scarface growled, his voice low and threatening, but she was already limping toward the branch. She made a show of testing her weight against it, leaning heavily and wincing.
