Page 27 of The Last Sanctuary
For a long moment, the hybrid wolves stared at her. She, in turn, stared back at them with equal parts awe and fear.
Abruptly, Luna’s ears flattened against her skull. Her eyes slitted. Her jowls pulled back to reveal a row of sharp white teeth.
Shadow moved to stand beside her. His hackles were raised, his tail stiff behind him.
The hairs on Raven’s arms stood on end. Instinctively, she stepped back. Anxiety crackled through her. Logically, she knew there was a double fence between them, that she was safe. Still, alarm bells jangled through her mind, her primitive lizard brain screaming that two enormous predators were intent on devouring her.
“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help.”
The wolves growled. They snapped their jaws, backs arched, hackles bristling.
Raven took another step back. She raised her hands in supplication. “Easy now. Calm down for a second and let me?—”
Then she heard it, too.
The rumble of motorcycles.
Chapter Eleven
The unmuffled roar of the motorcycles grew louder, closer.
Raven stilled, rooted in place. Her mind whirred with terrible possibility after terrible possibility, each one worse than the last. They could be looters or vandals, criminals or serial killers.
But she knew who they were—the bikers from the pharmacy in Forsyth.
What the hell were they doing here? And how had they followed her? She’d been careful, so careful.
It didn’t matter how. They were here, or would be in the next few minutes. She fought off the panic that was closing her throat. What should she do? Standing out here like a sitting duck was a monumentally bad idea. She needed to hide.
Maybe she could hide in the crawl space beneath the lodge, wait it out until they left. She couldn’t make a run for the car; the electric battery was dead. The bikers were too close, anyway. If they heard the engine, they’d be on her in a hot second.
She should make a run for it. Her backpack with her supplies was in her bedroom in the lodge. She needed the supplies inthat pack to survive alone for days in the woods. Plus, the pack contained the map with directions to the hunting cabin.
She couldn’t run away without it. And she couldn’t leave it behind for these thugs to find, either.
The evening sky deepened to indigo. Bats soared and dove over her head, chasing mosquitoes. There was still enough light to see by. The engine sounds grew louder. They’d turn on the road to the refuge any second.
She had to get herself out of sight, right freaking now.
Raven dropped the bucket of meat and broke into a run. She sprinted left, abandoning the exposed flagstone path for a worn-in trail through the weeds and bric-a-brac behind the exhibits.
From the back end of the park, she raced past the wolf enclosures, the bears, the ostrich pen, then the porcupine, eagle, and otter exhibits, the bonobos’ house, and finally the reptile house. She reached the storage buildings nestled behind a screen of poplar trees, out of the public’s sight.
The motorcycles grew louder. She couldn’t see them. They were still obscured by the trees. A five-mile gravel road brought visitors through the forest to the front entrance, which was gated and locked.
At best, the locked gate would only slow down intruders. Though electrified top wires were strung along the perimeter, the fence was intended to keep dangerous things in, rather than offering protection from threats outside the walls.
If they wanted to get inside, the gate wouldn’t deter them for long.
Luckily, the many trees and lush foliage obscured her presence as she raced between the storage buildings, headed for the lodge.
The motorcycles roared into the parking lot. The engines switched off. Loud, raucous voices filled the air with shouts and jeers and curses.
Darting between two bushes, she reached the back of the lodge and pressed herself against the rear wall. Her pulse thudded against her throat.Run.She needed to grab her gear and escape to the woods.
Her window was located on the west side of the building, directly in the line of sight of the bikers. The ground sloped downward along the rear of the lodge, making the back windows—a bathroom, her father’s room, and a guest bedroom—ten feet above the ground. There were no nearby trees to climb, no way to reach the windows.
She needed a plan B, whatever that was.
