Page 53 of Secrets and Ruin

“Dirk, I want you to wake yourself a bit more and shake that off,” I ordered. “We don’t know where he is. We haven’t seen him or Niko. We have to get this door down or open and get you out of here. The moment it’s open, we’re moving. We can’t lose any more time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “While you figure it out, can I ask why it took you two so long?”

“I love you, but it’s been less than a week. We moved as fast as we could on what little information we had,” Landon said in confusion, matching my own feelings.

“Less than a week?” Dirk asked softly.

Horror filled me as I heard his questioning. There was something terrifying about listening to Dirk question, not just some facts, but his entire reality. He didn’t believe us. Or he did and had to come to terms with how different it was from his own.

I scrambled, not wanting to think about the possible magical reasons he would think it had been longer than a few days. We learned of what might be happening on Sunday and left for Germany. Atmost, he was missing for a couple of days before we left. At most, he was in these woods for only four or five days. I was certain of this. I knew Landon was certain of this.

So, I gave him a more reasonable explanation.

“You’re under a lot of stress, going in and out of consciousness. With the silver in your system, you must feel miserable, and it probably feels like it’s been forever since you’ve felt okay. We’re going to help you.”

“Yeah, that must be it,” Dirk said, calmly accepting my reassurance, his words exhausted but relieved by my explanation. “Must be.”

“Jacky, I don’t know what to do about this door,” Landon said, leaning on the stone.

I heard his anxiety. His need to get through the last obstacle between him and Dirk was clear, and it was against something neither of us could solve, not with force. Magic was definitely the answer, but we couldn’t wield it.

“I have an idea, but it’s a bad one,” I said, hating that it crossed my mind. “I would rather we continue to fight against the door, but….”

“We should wait for him to come back and take Dirk out? Same,” Landon said with a nod. “Dirk, will you rest up before then?”

“Don’t get eaten by anything,” Dirk said.

Catching the first smile in his words since we had gotten here, I wished I could hug him and tell him everything would be okay.

“I don’t get eaten,” Landon replied with a vicious smile only I could see.

“Maybe in the rest of the world, but you’re in the forest of the Big Bad Wolf, and he eats everything. You’re off the path…a fatal mistake, Niko liked to tell me growing up.”

“Then I’ll be the hunter,” I said with a growl as Landon frowned at Dirk’s words.

Landon’s eyes went wide as he finally caught the reference.

“I fucking hate this place,” Landon finally muttered. He quickly shook off his feelings and looked at the door. “We’re going to make ourselves a safe place to watch and wait. We won’t be far, Dirk. You hear me? We’ll be in range. We’re not leaving you here.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks for coming.”

“Always,” I promised.

Landon nodded, then closed his eyes. Touching the door, he leaned in and put his forehead on it.

“Love you,” he whispered.

22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Landon and I retreated quickly, heading into the trees but never out of sight of the shack that held Dirk.

“He’ll smell us, but he’s insane, not stupid. He’ll smell us so I have an idea,” Landon said, pointing up. “Let’s make a ring of our scent around the clearing so he can’t stop at the end of the trail. Then we’ll climb up and try to stay out of sight.”

“I like it. Let’s not waste time.”

We got to it, moving fast to make our scents surround the clearing as much as we could, leaving no tree or bush within ten feet of the clearing untouched. There were no paths in or out of the clearing. The emphasis of staying on them made the lack of them more disturbing here than I would have thought in my territory. We caught scents of all sorts, from fae to natural beast. I could smell Niko’s investigation of the clearing, creeping around the edges like we were. Nowhere did I smell Fenris or any werewolf. If it wasn’t for Dirk telling me he had been shoved in there by Fenris, I wouldn’t have guessed either of them ever came by this way.

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