The cat is drawing her into its territory, its comfort zone. Cougars are death from above. The silent plunge from a tree or a rocky overhang. A dead-weight thump on your back. Powerful jaws clamping around your neck. Spinal cord severed, you’re dead before you hit the ground.
This cougar is luring Storm in. It will make one incredible leap onto a rock—a leap that requires feline hindquarters—and will leave the canine scrambling at the base. Then it will pounce. And that will be my chance. I’ll see it spring onto that rock where Storm cannot follow, and when the big cat turns around, I will shoot. I will empty my goddamned gun if I have to.
We’re scrambling up the mountainside. The cougar looks back a couple of times, obviously shocked that such a massive canine is keeping up. Storm is big, but she’s young and agile, not yet the lumbering Newfoundland she’ll become.
The cat veers suddenly. I see where it’s going—the perfect overhang. But it has miscalculated. That rock is at least twenty feet above the path. The cougar can’t possibly make the leap. Yet it intends to try. Still running, it hunkers low, gaze fixed on that spot. It slows, and Storm is gaining and oh, shit, no. Storm is gaining, and the cat will realize it can’t make that jump. Storm will leap and—
The cougar jumps. I see it crouch, see its hind muscles bunch, see it spring, and as terrified as I am for Storm, I cannot help but mentally freeze-frame the sight, awed by the beauty and perfection of that huge cat in flight.
It lands squarely on the ledge. The shock of that freezes me again. Then the cat disappears, turning around, and I jolt from my surprise to remember my shot.
I raise the gun and look down the sights. The moment the cat appears, I will fire.
At the base of the overhang, Storm barks, jumping and twisting, as if she can reach it.
The cat’s ears appear first. Tawny black-rimmed ears. Then the top of its head, dark line down the middle, perpendicular dark slash over each eye. When the pink nose emerges, I start to squeeze the trigger. A chest shot would be better, but any shot at all should spook it, and if it runs the other way instead of pouncing, Storm will be safe, stuck below—
Storm gives one last bark . . . and tears off. I glance away from the gun just in time to see her racing along the rock. Looking for another way up.
Damn it. This is one time when I really wish I had a dumber dog.
“Storm!” I call. She has to hear me now. The cougar does. Its gaze swings my way, and I’m close enough to see those amber irises. Close enough to make eye contact and feel a stab of regret and a hope that my bullet will miss, and the big cat will be frightened off—
Another bark. The sound of paws scrabbling on rocky ground. The sound of paws finding purchase, finding a path, pounding up the mountainside . . .
Shit!
The cougar’s head disappears. I fire anyway. Fire and hope the sound will send it running. But I only take that one shot, and then I’m running, tearing in the direction Storm went. I can see her, black against the gray rock, making her way up the mountainside, determined to win this game of catch-me.
“Storm!” I call as I run.
She hears me then. Looks back and gives a happy bark. Mom’s playing, too, this is awesome!
“Storm, come—”
I stop myself. Focus. Breathe. I’m cold with panic. Literally icy with it, cold sweat dripping down my face as I shiver, each breath scorching my lungs, my heart pounding so hard my vision clouds. This is terror. Like seeing that sniper in the tree, Dalton lunging, Dalton falling—but that was a mere second of panic, the thin space between seeing him fall and seeing him alive and breathing. This seems to go on forever.
When I saw what Storm was chasing, I knew she could die. I realized death was a very real possibility and maybe even a probability, and it was all my fault. She trusted me, and I should have known better, and who the fuck—who the fuck—was I to think I could protect anything. I have never in my life been able to do that. I’ve spent years barely able to keep myself moving forward.
Don’t rely on me. Just don’t. I will do what I can, everything I can, but please do not rely on me. Do not give me that responsibility. I will fail.
I am about to fail.
Stop. Focus. I have one last chance. Storm can hear me, and any moment now, that cougar will appear and leap from a rock I can’t even see down here.
“Storm? Stop.”
I don’t shout it. I say it. Loud. Firm. Angry even. Let her know I’m angry. That is the key here. She doesn’t understand fear. She doesn’t understand shrieking panic. That is not the language I have taught her.
“Storm. Stop.”
She skids to a halt and glances over her shoulder and in her eyes, I see confusion. Hurt and confusion.
“Storm. Stay. Storm? Bad girl.”
Her ears droop at that, muzzle dipping. She knows she has misbehaved. Knows she has run from me. I must use that.
“Storm? Come.”
I’m still walking, as I extend my hand, reaching for her, my gaze on the rocks above. She’s almost to me when I see a flash of tawny fur. That’s all I see—a blur, as the cougar leaps and shit, oh, shit, no, the big cat is in flight, dropping toward Storm, who is making her way slowly to me, her head and tail down.
I fire. Shot after shot, I fire as the cougar is in flight. The big cat jerks, bullets ripping through its underside in a burst of blood. But it is still falling. Still on trajectory to hit Storm.
“Storm!” I yell, and that only confuses her, and she slows, her head lifting.
The cougar lands square on Storm’s back, and I’m flying forward. A voice in my head shouts for me to stop, just stop. It’s Dalton’s voice, not mine. Mine is silent, accepting, and I’m sailing at the cougar, gun dropped, hands out as if I can physically wrench the big cat off Storm.
The dog bucks, her eyes rolling in terror. The cougar’s jaws open. I hit it, both hands slamming into its side. One massive fang slices into Storm’s shoulder. Slices in and rips as the big cat falls. I’m on it then, and a memory flashes, Cypher telling me he wanted me to teach him aikido so he could take down the man-eating cougar out here. I remember rolling my eyes at that. He was joking. Had to be joking. No one would attempt anything so stupid.
I’m falling, my hands wrapped in brown fur. Fur slick with blood, blood pumping from multiple shots in the cougar’s white underbelly. We go down, and I’m atop the big cat, and all I can think is What the hell are you going to do? Wrestle it to death? I grab for my knife. I’m still pulling it out as we roll, and I rear up, knife raised.
The cougar stays on the ground.
I’m poised there, adrenaline pounding. The big cat lies on its side, flanks heaving, blood pumping from the bullet wounds. The cat’s mouth opens, and it is breathing hard. Its eye rolls to look at me, and in it, I see a look I know well, from Storm when she is injured.
I don’t understand.
I hurt, and I don’t understand.
Storm moves up beside me. Blood seeps from her shoulder, but she’s walking fine. She sniffs the cat’s injured belly and whines. Then she lowers herself at my side and lays her big muzzle on my foot as she watches the cat.
I tentatively reach out and place my hand on the cougar’s shoulder. That amber eye meets mine, but the cat just keeps breathing hard, gasping for air.
Dying.
When I shot Blaine, I saw him die. It took only a moment, but I had to watch it—the outrage, the anger, the disbelief. While he had not deserved what I did, he was not blameless. The punishment simply did not fit the magnitude of his crimes.
This cougar is blameless. It ran from a predator. It tried to stop a threat. It did what it needed to survive. And I shot it. Emptied my gun into it.
It’s a young cougar. I see that now. A male, the size of Storm, which means it isn’t more than a couple of years old. One of the man-eater’s cubs. A beautiful creature, covered in blood, dying and confused.
Storm whimpers, and I know I have to tend to her, but I can’t leave the cat to die alone. Maybe that’s overly sentimental, but I feel I owe it something.