Page 127 of Her Wolf

Shadow heart

As soon as dawn broke, Lars, Finn, Bailey, Kane and Ana split up to begin searching Zachary’s property. Lars had tied Neo to the rocking chair on the porch, despite the man’s protests.

Grass crunched under Lars’s boots as he headed away from the farm house. Kane had come up with a way for them to cover as much of the farmhouse’s grounds as possible between the five of them; each heading straight out to the furthest points, and then circling back in at an angle. Like the spokes of a wheel, and then a mandala slowly winding inward to its center. Well, that’s how he’d explained it.

For some reason, it sounded almost logical. Lars put it down to the fact that, in the last twenty-four hours, he’d been drugged, lied to, and deprived of food…and that he’d done all of that without a single nap.

A rohypnol induced semi-coma didn’t count, because it just fucking didn’t. And despite his body begging him for sleep, he hadn’t been able to get any shut eye, not even when he’d gone to lay down in the back of the SUV.

It might have had something to do with the dead body Milo had taken to show him. That was the last time he called bullshit on anything Milo said.

Zachary’s property was surprisingly serene. Birds sang from the branches of the many trees dotting the land, and larger mammals moved just out of sight— either gearing up for the day ahead or moving back to their burrows to wait for night.

The air smelled crisp and clean. But, about twenty minutes into his walk, he reached a crooked chain link fence that he assumed was the property’s boundary. And, five minutes after that as he headed back toward the farmhouse at an angle, a light breeze wafted the smell of char to him.

Whatever had burned, it had been big. His boots stirred smog where it lay like thin cotton wool over the ground.

The smell intensified to a sweet miasma of burned wood, damp ash, and…?

Lars slowed, but didn’t stop walking. His hand went to his pocket. Ahead, the trees cleared out and a large, squat building appeared.

Well, its shell.

Smoke curled up from what remained of the stone walls—those that hadn’t toppled.

Lars dialled Milo.

“I was just about to call you,” Milo said. “We found a tunnel.”

Lars crunched over grass that had turned to spiky charcoal. It seemed the fire hadn’t been adequately contained by the building.

Fires were hungry things, after all.

“My burned down building beats your tunnel,” Lars said, but he could hear how strained his voice was.

“Your…what?”

“I think you should get over here.”

“You should get over here,” Milo said sternly. “This tunnel goes all the way to fucking Mexico.”

Lars stepped carefully. The stench of smoke turned the air to a soupy stink that seemed to cling to him as he climbed over a fallen beam.

The warm ambience of dawn painted the fire’s remains a sickly hue.

“You know that thing Neo said, about how Zachary’s supposed to have like a lot of staff?”

“Yes, but what does that—?”

“I just found them,” Lars said. “All of them.”

Then he turned and hurled up everything that was left in his stomach.

. . .

Finn glanced aside at Lars. The man sat shotgun in the SUV, fingers curled against his mouth as he stared out the window. He hadn’t said a word after giving Finn directions to the staff quarters. They’d found him sitting on a rickety chair that had somehow escaped the carnage, watching dawn break over the horizon.

More than anything, Finn would always be grateful for Lars’s warning, his last words before he’d hung up.

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