Finally the girl broke eye contact and went for the food.
Ellie had never seen anything like it. The two looked more like litter mates over a kill than anything else. The girl kept tearing off chunks of chicken and stuffing them in her mouth.
Ellie reached slowly behind her and gathered up her net.
Please God. Let this work. She didn’t have a clue what Plan B was.
In a perfect cheerleader turn, Ellie pulled out the net and tossed it toward the girl. It settled over the child and the wolf pup and hit the ground. When they realized they’d been caught, all hell broke loose.
The girl went crazy. She threw herself to the ground and rolled to get free, her grimy fingers clawing at the nylon net. The more she struggled to be free, the tighter she was bound.
The wolf pup snarled. When the red dart hissed into his side, he let out a surprised yelp, then staggered and fell over.
The girl howled. It was a terrible, harrowing sound.
“It’s okay, honey,” Ellie said, finally moving toward them. “Don’t be afraid. He’s not hurt. I’m going to send him to a nice, safe place.”
The girl pulled the sleeping pup into her lap and stroked him furiously, trying to waken him. At her failure, she howled again, another desperate, keening wail of pain that cut through the quiet and sent a flock of crows into the darkening sky.
Ellie inched around behind the child. As she approached, she noticed the smell. Dying black leaves and fecund, overripe earth; beneath it all was the ammonia scent of urine.
She swallowed hard and let the hypodermic slip down from its hiding place in her sleeve. Carefully, she stabbed the girl’s rump and gave her the injection.
The child screamed in pain and twisted around to face her.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “It’s just protective custody. You’ll go to sleep for a minute or two. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
The girl scrambled backward to avoid Ellie’s touch and lost her balance. Another wailing howl came up her throat and then she collapsed. Lying there, coiled around the unconscious pup, the girl looked impossibly frail and young, and more helpless than any person Ellie had ever seen.
In the last few moments of the climb, the pale Pacific sky began to slowly turn from burnished gold to the palest salmon hue.
He paused in his descent, breathing hard, and swung around, dangling from his rope and harness, to take in the view.
From his perch on the granite face, some four hundred vertical feet above the crystalline blue beauty of an unnamed alpine lake, Max Cerrasin could see the world. All around him were the jagged, imposing peaks of the Olympic Mountains. The breathtaking, awe-inspiring landscape felt as far from civilization as anywhere on Earth. For all he knew, he was the first person to climb this jutting, dangerous slab of rock.
That was what he loved about this sport. When you were high above the world, anchored to a bit of stone by a piece of metal and your own courage, there was no outside world. No worries, no stresses, no memories of what you’d lost.
There was only the extreme beauty, the solitude, and the risk. He loved that most of all: the risk.
There was nothing like imminent danger to make a man know he was alive.
Still breathing hard, sweating, he climbed down slowly, finding his way inch by inch, caressing the granite, feeling it for weaknesses and instability.
His foot missed once and he started to fall. The rock crumbled beneath his hand and skittered away, pelting his face.
In the split second that he was free, he felt his stomach clench and his heart kick into overdrive. He reached out, grabbed hold.
And found purchase.
He laughed in relief and rested his forehead on the cool stone as his heartbeat settled back down to normal.
Then he wiped sweat from his brow and kept moving downward. As he got closer to the ground, he moved faster, more sure of himself. He was almost there—less than thirty feet from safety—when his cell phone rang.
He dropped to the ground, fished his phone out of his pack, and flipped it open. He knew before he saw the number that it was an emergency.