Page 62

CHAPTER 61

THE CHIEF TAKES another step toward Wendy. And that’s when Beast charges.

“No,” I scream, as the big alpha female launches herself at his chest. She hits him dead on, all eighty-five pounds of her, and the chief goes flying backward, arms spinning helplessly. He lands hard, flat on his back, with a gasp. Beast stands over him, paws on his shoulders and lips pulled back in a terrifying snarl.

Hardy raises his gun again, a grim smile on his face. There’s never been a better reason to kill a wolf.

Wendy yells, “Beast, go !”

Beast doesn’t listen. So Wendy rushes forward, slamming into her side and knocking the mother wolf off the chief. Then Wendy reaches down to the chief’s belt and grabs the pistol. She spins around and points it at Hardy.

“Shoot my wolf and you die,” she says.

The two of them stare at each other, eyes full of hatred. The chief scrambles to his feet, white with shock. All the breath’s been knocked out of him, but he moves quicker than anyone’s expecting. He grabs Wendy’s right arm and twists it hard behind her back. She gives a cry of pain and drops the gun to the ground.

“ Do not move, ” he says viciously, even as Wendy’s spinning around to face him.

“Wendy!” I scream. “Do what he says!”

She looks up at me, and I see all the fight drain out of her eyes. Her shoulders slump. Her arms hang loose at her sides. She’s surrendered.

Hardy snorts and spits a wad of phlegm into the dirt.

The chief’s voice shakes as he puts the cuffs around Wendy’s thin wrists. “You’re under arrest for suspicion of kidnapping, for trespassing, for maintaining an illegal structure on National Forest System lands, and for threatening the life of an officer of the law.”

“Wendy didn’t make Beast attack!” I cry. “You don’t have to arrest her!”

Holo runs to me and buries his face in my neck. I can feel his tears, hot against my skin. “Don’t let him,” he gasps. “He can’t.”

The chief ignores my words. Ignores Holo’s tears. He says, “Kai, I need you to tell us the fastest way back to town.”

What? Does he honestly think I’m going to help him put the woman who raised me into a jail cell? A roaring fills my ears. It’s getting louder by the second. It drowns out whatever the chief is trying to say to me next.

I shake my head to clear the noise. I didn’t know despair could have a sound.

Then I see that Holo’s covering his ears.

And that the branches on the trees are swaying. Dirt and leaves go flying into the air, pulled by a powerful updraft. The men duck down, covering their heads. Wendy’s hair is a tangled cloud around her face.

A giant black helicopter passes low and deafening overhead. It skims the top of the thrashing pines, heading west. Then it lands in the meadow a hundred yards away.

“Run!” Wendy screams.