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21

AUbrEY

T he scream belongs to a man, high with terror and pain. Jensen is moving before I can react, unlocking and throwing open the door and rushing outside. I slip on my boots as Cole and Eli stumble down from the loft, hair mussed up, half-asleep and pulling on their coats.

The scene outside is chaos illuminated by the beams of our flashlights. Red is on his knees in the snow, clutching his right arm, blood pouring between his fingers. The horses are in a panic, several of them—including Duke, Red’s mount, and Angus—jumping over the rope and bolting from their makeshift corral disappearing into the darkness. Fear strikes me from all angles.

“What happened?” Jensen demands, dropping to his knees beside Red, his voice shrill. “Where’s Hank?”

“He—he attacked me,” Red gasps, face white with shock. “Fuckin’ bit me! Like an animal! He was like an animal!”

Jensen pulls Red’s hand away from his arm, revealing the torn fabric and the wound beneath. My stomach turns at the sight—chunks of flesh torn away, blood spurting from the wound with each beat of Red’s heart. It’s not a clean bite like from a wild animal. It’s ragged, messy, as if someone had torn at the flesh with dull teeth and brute force.

“Christ Almighty,” Cole whispers beside me, swaying slightly as if he might faint.

“Get him inside,” I order, training kicking in automatically. “Now.”

Jensen and Eli half-carry, half-drag Red toward the hut while I scan the surrounding darkness, searching for any sign of Hank. Nothing moves beyond the pool of light cast by our flashlights, but I can feel eyes watching from the shadows between trees. Fuck, I should have held on to that pistol.

“Hank!” I call, my voice echoing against the mountainside. No response comes but the whisper of wind through the pines.

“Aubrey, get inside!” Jensen says sharply from the doorway.

I back toward the hut, unwilling to turn my back on the darkness until I’m safely across the threshold. Jensen slams the door behind me, throwing the heavy metal bolt into place with a decisive clang.

Inside, Red is laid out on the table, still clutching his mangled arm, blood pooling beneath him. His face is ashen, eyes wide with shock and terror.

“He just—he came at me,” he’s saying, voice trembling. “We were standing there and he just…changed. His eyes…” Red swallows hard. “His eyes were wrong. Blue, like…like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

I strip off my coat, rolling up my sleeves as I move to Red’s side. “We need to stop the bleeding. Cole, find a first aid kit,” I bark at him. “Eli, boil water. Jensen, I need clean cloths, anything we can use for bandages.”

They move to follow my orders, perhaps surprised by my sudden command of the situation but too shocked to question it. I focus on Red, pulling off the rest of his shirts before examining the wound with clinical detachment that belies the horror churning in my gut. It’s that same detachment I feel on the job, it’s the only thing that gets me through my job. I relish it like an old friend.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell him, using the same tone I used when I saw an agent get shot while we were in the field. Calm, authoritative, no room for doubt. “But I need you to stay still and breathe slowly. Can you do that for me?” If anything, I can lean into becoming Meredith Grey, if it helps him.

Red nods jerkily, teeth chattering from shock rather than cold. “What—what was wrong with him? Why did he…?”

“We’ll figure that out later,” I say firmly. “Right now, we need to stop this bleeding.”

Cole returns with a first aid kit, hands shaking as he sets it beside me. I open it, quickly assessing the supplies—bandages, antiseptic, basic medications, but nothing strong enough for the pain Red must be feeling.

“Is there any alcohol?” I ask, meeting Cole’s panicked gaze. “Not for drinking. For sterilizing.”

“I—I don’t know,” he stammers. “I’ll check the supplies.”

As he moves away, I turn my attention back to Red’s wound. The bleeding has slowed somewhat, but it’s still severe. Without proper medical equipment, stemming it completely will be challenging. I need to clean the wound, apply pressure, and hope infection doesn’t set in before we can get him to a hospital.

Eli brings a pot of boiling water, setting it carefully beside me. Jensen returns from the loft with an assortment of clean shirts and bandannas, the best we have for makeshift bandages.

“Hold him steady,” I instruct Jensen, who moves to Red’s shoulders, placing firm hands there. “This is going to hurt,” I warn Red. “But I need to clean the wound before we bandage it.”

Red nods, face contorted with pain and fear. “Just do it. Do what you have to.”

At least he’s not doubting my authority here.

I work methodically, cleaning away blood and dirt with hot water, revealing the true extent of the damage beneath. It’s worse than I initially thought—multiple bite marks, flesh torn away, muscle exposed in places. Whatever—whoever—did this wasn’t just trying to hurt Red.

It’s like they were trying to…feed.

The image of Hank’s eyes turning blue, of his teeth sinking into Red’s arm, sends a violent chill through me.

Hank is one of them now.

One of the hungry ones.

I look around. “Does anyone have any phones that work?”

“I do,” Eli says, pulling his out. “Charger is done and I’ve only got five per cent battery. No signal though.”

“Try pushing the SOS through,” I tell him, a Hail Mary.

“Won’t work,” Jensen tells me. “These mountains are notorious for interfering with the satellites you need to push that signal to the tower. Believe me, I know. You can try but you can’t rely on it.”

“Do it anyway,” I tell Eli.

He nods and taps something on his phone, giving his head a shake. “I don’t think it’s working. 911 isn’t going through.”

“I can’t find any alcohol,” Cole says, returning empty-handed. “I looked everywhere.”

“Check my bag,” I say, nodding toward my pack in the corner. “I have hand sanitizer in the side pocket.”

Cole moves to my duffel bag, pulling it out from under the bunk and rummaging through it with increasing frustration. “I don’t see any?—”

He falls silent suddenly, and when I look up from Red’s wound, I see Cole holding something in his hand. Something that catches the light, metallic and familiar.

A gun.

My fucking gun.

“What is this?” Cole asks, turning it over. “Why do you have a gun in your bag?”

The room goes still, all eyes turning to me. I keep my hands steady on Red’s arm, refusing to show the panic rising in my chest.

Stay cool, stay cool, stay cool.

“Why do you think? For protection,” I say evenly. “Put it back and get me the hand sanitizer.”

But Cole is already digging deeper into my bag, pulling out my wallet. I watch, helpless with my hands covered in Red’s blood, as he flips it open.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yell at him. “That’s my wallet! Put it down and get me the fucking hand sanitizer.”

“Cole,” Jensen practically growls with warning, stalking toward him.

But Cole’s fingers are fast as he examines everything in my wallet. I had the foresight to leave my badge in my glove compartment but when he pulls out a business card that was stuck beneath others and gasps at it, my stomach sinks with dread.

“FBI?” Cole reads my card, disbelief coloring his voice. “Special Agent Aubrey Wells? Sacramento Bureau.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Jensen stares at me, shock and something else—betrayal—written across his features. Eli’s expression is more calculating, as if pieces of a puzzle are suddenly falling into place. And Red, despite his pain, despite being fucking bitten by his friend, looks at me with new wariness.

“You’re a fucking Fed?” Cole demands, anger rising. “A fucking Fed!? You’ve been lying to us this whole time?”

I meet his gaze steadily, refusing to flinch from the accusation. “I’m on leave. This isn’t an official investigation. I came looking for my sister as a private citizen.”

“Bullshit,” Cole spits. “You’ve been watching us, haven’t you? Gathering evidence? What is this, some kind of sting?”

“Cole, that’s enough,” Jensen says, voice tight. “Put it away and bring us the hand sanitizer. We need to focus on helping Red.” He pauses, looking at Red. “We’re running out of time.”

“How can we trust anything she says now?” Cole demands, waving my gun around. “She could have agents waiting to swoop in, arrest us all!”

“For what?” I ask, wishing he would put it down. “I told you, I’m here for my sister. Nothing more. And, you know what, I’d welcome them. We need all the help we can get with Red right now.”

But Cole’s panic has taken on a life of its own, feeding on the shock and terror of what happened to Red, the brutality and absurdity of Hank’s attack. “This is a setup. Has to be. Why else would a Fed be up here with us?”

I look to Jensen, hoping he’ll understand, hoping he’ll see that this changes nothing about why I’m here, about what I need to find. But his expression has closed off, the tentative trust we’d built once again shattered by this new revelation.

“You lied to me,” Jensen says quietly, the words falling between us like stones. “From the beginning.”

“Like you lied to me,” I counter, unwilling to accept his hypocrisy. “About Lainey. About Adam. About what happened three years ago.”

We stare at each other across Red’s bleeding form, the truth of our mutual deception hanging in the air between us. Outside, the wind picks up, howling around the corners of the hut like a hungry creature seeking entry. Somewhere in the darkness, Hank is out there—changed, dangerous, and hunting.

And inside, we’re already fractured by suspicion and fear, the tenuous alliance that brought us to these mountains crumbling just when we need it most.

They may have just discovered I’m an agent.

But I’ve never felt less prepared in my life.