Making her way to the back corner of the barn beneath the loft, she examined one of the load-bearing beams. She crouched in front of it, running her fingertips over the splintered wood until she found the knot near the bottom. Then, she extended her claws and hooked them into the edges to pry the misshapen cap away from the post.
Once she had it loose, she dropped the jagged piece of wood to the dirt, took a deep breath, and reached into the small hole.
Chapter Twelve
Staying close to the doors, Cade rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension from his back and neck. The discomfort remained.
Nothing existed for miles around them except open fields and steep mountain faces. The landscape provided nowhere for an attacker to hide, nowhere for someone to lie in wait to ambush them.
Still, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and a heaviness pressed down on his shoulders. Even when all the evidence said otherwise, his instincts insisted something didn’t feel right.
He and Mackenna were alone in unfamiliar territory—at least, unfamiliar to him—and they had already been attacked once. Funny how encounters like the one with the pack of Ravagers had become so common now it barely registered as an actual fight. Mackenna had been understandably shaken, but she’d recovered quickly. It kind of amused him that she’d been more concerned about their procreation habits than she had been about the fact that they’d tried to eat her.
Despite the chaotic nature of their encounter, there had been empathy in her voice when she’s spoken about them. He thought he’d even detected an undertone of recognition, an understanding that she could have so easily suffered the same fate. Technically, she still could.
If she’d retained her sanity for this long, it was unlikely that she’d go full Ravager, but it was always a fear among the werewolves. He’d heard Rhys speak of it often, but the wolf had Thea now, a mate to keep him grounded and centered. Cade vowed to be that for Mackenna.
“Damn it!” she snarled from the other side of the barn.
He didn’t have the sight of a werewolf, couldn’t see through the darkness, so he could only assume the secret compartment she’d been excited about hadn’t been such a sure thing after all. While he hadn’t held out much hope, he’d honestly wanted to be proven wrong. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that Jessica had died or that something nefarious had happened to her. He also doubted Mackenna would ever see her friend again.
“Maybe she had to leave quickly and didn’t have time to stash a note.”
The logical parts of his brain demanded he retract that statement immediately. The Christmas tree standing sentinel in the living room had been the first hint that not all was well.
Even if Jessica had been one of those people who kept their decorations up until March, that still meant she had set out from the ranch before the rise of the ARC. She had left before survivors would have known anything about Olympus or how to get there. On her own in an increasingly hostile world, she wouldn’t have made it far.
That, of course, was assuming she had even survived the virus, which didn’t seem likely. In fact, it was more plausible that she’d died in her home and coyotes or some other scavengers had dragged her body off into the desert.
He’d never tell Mackenna that. He’d never paint such a gruesome picture for her, but it wasn’t right to give her false hope, either. Doing so would only make the hurt of losing someone she loved more agonizing in the end. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to take it back, not if he could spare her that pain for just a little while longer.
“Maybe. I just can’t believe she would—” Mackenna jerked her head up and sniffed audibly at the air. A low, rumbling growl rolled off her lips, and her eyes glowed amber from the shadows. “Get away from the door.”
“What is—”
“Get away from the fucking door!” she screamed as she ran toward him.
Reacting more to the panic in her voice than her actual words, he backed away from the door, moving deeper into the barn. Big mistake.
Three Ravagers appeared in the open doorway, big, mean-looking males with dark, matted hair that hung down past their shoulders, and menacing, predatory gazes. Standing shoulder to shoulder, their hulking frames blocked the most accessible exit out of the barn, effectively cutting off their escape.
“Shit,” Mackenna cursed, coming to stand at his back. “Where the hell did they come from?”
His guess would be the mountains. He and Mackenna had only been in the barn for a few minutes, but he also knew how quickly Ravagers could move, especially when they were hunting. They could have easily covered the two or so miles in that time.
“I’m sorry, Cade.”
With the mountains in the east and the wind blowing from the west, there was no way she could have scented them until it was too late. If anyone had to shoulder the blame, it was him. He had known they were too exposed, but he’d let the vastness of the surrounding area lull him into a false sense of security anyway.
Even his gun didn’t offer him a lot of comfort. There might only be three of them, but they weren’t easy to kill. They were fast, strong, and with their supernatural ability to heal, it almost always took multiple bullets to bring them down. Headshots were easy when he was up close and personal like back on the highway. Shooting with the same accuracy from a distance and while under duress rarely allowed for the same results.
“Is there a way out from the loft?”
“Yes, but it’s a twenty-foot drop,” Mackenna argued. “Even if you
