Page 133 of Swept for Forever
I climbed closer, reached up, and pried it loose. The thing was heavy and crusted in mud. Her stainless-steel water bottle still hung from the side, punctured clean through, with entry and exit holes.
A vision of that bullet tearing into her flesh sent a wave of darkness through me, but I gathered myself.
I dropped to my knees, brushing moss and grit from the bag until the bullet hole came into view. I unzipped it, trying to trace the path.
“Come on,” I muttered, digging deeper.
The round had punched through a protein bar wrapper,dented the edge of a camping stove, and buried itself somewhere in the sleeping bag. My fingers caught on something at the corner seam.
Noah handed me a knife.
“Bag’s got the bullet,” I said, slicing through the fabric.
He raised his brows. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head and held it out. His face said everything mine couldn’t.
“Gotta thank your lucky star,” he muttered. “Or your silver coin, huh?”
“It’s not here, though.”
He grinned. “I told you, we had other luck.”
“I’m not superstitious, so you know,” I said.
We packed everything up, double-checking the terrain to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Once secured, we began the climb back up the rope we’d anchored above the ledge.
By the time we reached the top and rejoined the trail, the light had begun to thin into that early-evening color—still bright, but somehow colder.
“Well done, Dom. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Man could find loopholes in a haystack,” Noah teased.
“Loopholes are easy. Try finding intent in a pile of dirt,” I said, then nudged him. “Let’s head back and regroup.”
“Got a plan?”
“Always, buddy.”
We pushed on, ducking under branches and stepping over roots.
A few steps more, and I threw an arm out to stop Noah.
“Hold up,” I muttered.
It was a footprint. Not one of ours.
It wasn’t boots either. Sneakers, maybe. The kind that city people wore when they pretended to hike.
Noah spotted them too. “These weren’t here before.”
“No,” I said, crouching down. The tread was light, the steps uneven, like whoever made them wasn’t sure where they were going.
We followed the trail until it spilled onto a patch of grass, just past where the path split. That’s where our tracks vanished. There was no clear sign of which way we’d gone. Nothing a follower could latch on to.
“Someone was trying to trail us but got lost,” I said flatly.
“Shit.”
We moved faster, urgency nipping at our heels.
