Page 52 of Following Their Heart

I just talked to Scrap at the summit and Grim in the shelter with Cora. That means everyone but Jud is accounted for and unharmed.

“You see any sign of Jud? Over.”

“No. He said something about the tower gun being jammed,” Shep says. “He went outside with a grenade launcher. We lost sight of him with all the birds. Over.”

“Yeah, me too.” I let the radio dangle between my legs while I think. It’s not like Jud to go AWOL.

“We saw the chopper land,” Shep goes on. “But there were too many birds. Did you see from the tanks? Did anyone get out? Over.”

Shaking my head, I lift the radio to my lips. “Dunno. I was blind at the time—tanks were dead. No cams, no guns, no nothin’.” I study the monitor. “Right now, it’s a ghost town out here. Nothing but dead and dying birds. If anyone got out, they’re hiding in the trees and well out of range of the thermal tech. Over.”

That might be their strategy, now that I think about it. Drop off some ground troops under cover of those birds, then fly the chopper away, making us think they’re gone. It would be a good way to ambush us and scour the camp for Cora.

Good thing she’s safe in the shelter with Grim. That’s makes two of us I don’t have to worry about.

Maybe Jud is stalking someone out in the woods and has his radio off.

Yeah. That must be what happened.

“Negative.” Doc’s talking over the radio now. “I didn’t have a direct line of sight to that chopper when it landed, but I could see the area between the chopper and the trees. No one crossed that patch. If anyone got out, they didn’t move into the forest. Over.”

“All right. Good,” I say. “Brawn, Doc. Do a search of Cora’s cabin and the storage sheds.” If no one from Raptor’s team ran into the forest, those are the only other places they might have gone. “I’ll do the shop and barn then meet you back at base. See you in a few.”

Doc acknowledges my transmission, and I clip the radio to my belt. Eyeing the handle on the portal above my head, I steel myself to tangle with it again. My shoulder still smarts from last time.

“All right, you fucker. I’m opening you up come hell or highwater.” I lay my hands on the wheel and give it a good, sharp spin. It gives so easily I almost fall over. “Son of a bitch.” It works perfectly. Of course. Because Raptor and his cronies are either shot down or gone.

Jamming things is a damn irritating Gift. I hope whoever was responsible for it was in that downed chopper. But no matter. There’s a lot to coordinate.

“Getting old sucks,” I mutter as I climb out of the tank. My shoulder’s barking at me something fierce, but I’ve got too much to do to let it slow me down. Because until Jud shows his face, I’m in charge of this scurvy lot.

My boots slam to the ground as I jump down by the tank treads. There’s dust in the air from the chopper landing. Miniscule grains of it coat the inside of my nostrils as I drag in the scent of the night air.

“Smells like fuckin’ bird shit.” I hock a wad of spit on the ground to clear the dust from my mouth.

I’ve got to head to the shop to search it for any of Raptor’s guys that might have hopped out of that chopper, but I want to inspect the ground where it landed first. It was the last place I saw Jud. Maybe I can spot his tracks and figure out where he went.

Striding across the lot, I whip the flashlight out of my vest pocket and shine it around. The hard-packed dirt is dry and doesn’t give much away. Sweeping the beam back and forth, all I see is smooth dirt that looks recently disturbed by high winds. The turbulence from the spinning blades has erased anything useful.

Shame. I might have been able to tell if anyone jumped out of the chopper and if Jud followed them. No such luck.

I’m about to give up when something winks in my flashlight beam. Stepping closer, I bend down and see something metallic nearly obscured by a dead crow. Using my toe, I nudge the crow out of the way. Its head lolls.

“Sorry, friend.” Damn shame. Raptor must have hijacked every feathered thing in the area to cause this much carnage. Something tells me that’s not what the Working had in mind when it handed out Gifts. They’re meant to help us survive, not give us the power to maim and kill and attack without reason.

I shake my head and finish moving the crow out of the way. As my boot shifts the feathered body, a trail of blood stains the dry earth. With the bird moved, the metallic object is fully visible at the start of the blood trail.

I recognize it with a sinking in my stomach. It’s a hand-forged hunting knife with a leather-wrapped hilt. Jud’s Damascus. His prized possession.

He’s always hated his father, but for some reason, he treasured the knife his old man gave him when Jud was officially initiated into their club. According to Doc, before they left Algona, Jud made sure to get it from the prison deposit. It’s been inside his hunting vest in its fancy leather sheath ever since. Well, except when it was flaying hides from game or skin from the heads of enemies before jamming them on pikes at our borders.

Jud wouldn’t have parted with this knife willingly, and that can only mean one thing.

Raptor’s crew took him.

Cora

The three of us jostlein our seats as Grim steers the Jeep off the access road and into camp. We’ve just made our way down from the summit. Grim heads for the lodge, but Scrap stops him.

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