Chapter 8

For the next stretch of the hike, Natalie took the lead with Carwyn directly behind her. They were depending on his superior sense of smell to find traces of Summer and Daniel even though it had been nearly two weeks since the last time they'd been seen.

"There hasn't been any substantial rain for the past couple of weeks," Natalie said. "That's a huge help. Usually this area gets a lot more, but as you can see from the creeks, it's been a dry year."

"I noticed that." Brigid had been expecting to have to get wet crossing rivers, but so far all the waterways had been low enough for them to cross on rocks or sandbars.

She almost ran into Carwyn when he stopped.

"Carwyn?" Natalie turned. "What is it?"

He was silent and focused, almost in a trance. Brigid grabbed his backpack and dragged it down, reaching for the bagged clothing. She opened Summer's bag and shoved the worn shirt in his face. "Is it Summer?"

He cocked his head but said nothing. "Not Summer."

Brigid reached for the second bag and opened it. She pressed that to Carwyn's face, and the vampire offered nothing more than a short grunt before he began to move.

"He's got Daniel!" Brigid yelled.

Carwyn was already disappearing over a hill with Natalie and Ross on his heels.

Brigid and Jamie followed at a distance, their pace steady. She knew she'd never be able to keep up with the earth vampires over uneven terrain, and Jamie, for all his outdoor expertise, was still human.

"He didn't smell Summer?"

"Don't jump to conclusions," Brigid said. "I don't think that means anything about your girl, Jamie. It just means that Daniel probably sweats more."

He nodded. "Males are usually easier to track."

"Exactly."

The trail they climbed was over a hill and back into the woods, cutting through virgin meadows and scrub brush to reach the edge of the trees.

Brigid could see nothing in the forest, just a black wall of trees butted up to the layer of marine fog. "Carwyn?"

Natalie's voice came out of the darkness. "We're back here, Brig!"

She made her way deeper into the woods, following a narrow animal trail between tall pines and bushy cypress trees. She could hear Carwyn and Natalie ahead of them, but they didn't say a word.

When they finally caught up, Ross and Carwyn were crouched on the ground, their noses inches away from the soil.

Natalie was watching the two men with a grim expression. "Blood," she said. "Carwyn is pretty sure it's Daniel's."

Brigid looked around. "This is nowhere near the trail. Why would they come back here?"

"Good question." Jamie's voice was as grim as Natalie's. "Carwyn, any trace of Summer?"

"There're some faint traces that I think might be her, but I can't even smell Daniel that well—if he hadn't left blood here, we probably wouldn't have found this. The scent profile is degraded."

"I can't smell nothin'," Ross said. "Until Carwyn pointed out the blood, I missed it."

"Probably the marine layer," Natalie said. "Even without rain, there's a lot of moisture." She turned and cocked her head, following something Brigid couldn't see.

"What's that then, Nat?"

"There's a path here," she said, keeping her eyes on the ground. "Worn away."

Brigid followed her until they reached an overgrown stretch of the trail that ran along the ocean. Brigid looked up and then at the sea. "They might have stopped here to wait out the tide. Went inland to make sure they were safe."

"They went pretty far in though." Natalie turned and walked up the path, following the trail through the scrub brush, around Carwyn and Ross, who were still on the ground examining what they thought were bloodstains, and through a pair of trees that seemed to swallow her whole.

"Natalie?" Brigid rushed to follow the vampire into the darkness, only to find herself in the middle of a clearing. "What the hell?"

"Look." Natalie pointed at something in the center. "This is why they came all the way inland. They found this."

The clearing in the middle of nowhere was spooky enough, but the heavy wrought iron and carved stone fireplace in the exact center of the clearing boosted the creep factor far past anything they'd seen so far.

"Who built this?"

"I don't know." Natalie walked in a circle around the fireplace. "It's not made from found materials though. Someone built this to last."

"Backpackers on the trail, do any of them talk about a place like this?" It was the perfect camping spot with a ready-made woodburning stove and a giant room made of trees that would block the sharpest wind from the ocean. The ground beneath her feet was blessedly even and brushed free of limbs, rocks, and debris.

"I never heard of anything like this when I was hiking here," Natalie said. "Then again, that was quite a while ago." She looked around the clearing. "This doesn't make sense. There're no old houses around here. Who's going to build something like this?"

"Agreed. Makes no sense to me either."

Jamie entered the clearing and turned in a circle. "What is this?"

Brigid shook her head. "No idea. Natalie has never heard of it, and there aren't any roads around here. The supplies to build this fireplace would have had to be carried in."

Jamie reached down and picked something up off the ground near the base of one tree. "Summer was here."

"What?" Natalie walked over to him. "Why do you say that? What did you—?"

He held up a broken piece of plastic. "This is from a portable motion sensor I gave her last Christmas."

Brigid's hope plunged. "You're sure?"

"Daniel's blood," Jamie said. "Now this?" He looked around the clearing. "They set up camp here, and someone grabbed 'em. But Summer would have known. She would have had an alert." He turned toward the trail leading to the ocean, where Daniel's blood had been found. "They got away. They were running back to the trail when they shot him. Or threw a knife. Not sure. But they injured him…" He tapped the black piece of plastic in his palm. "Then Summer…"

"She didn't want to leave him," Brigid said. "She might have made it back, but that would have left Daniel alone with whoever attacked them."

Jamie nodded. "She wouldn't have left her partner on his own. Especially not injured."

Carwyn walked into the clearing. "There isn't enough blood for a mortal injury. When they left this place, they were alive."

"But which way did they go?" Natalie adjusted her backpack on her shoulders. "Back out to the trail and you're going to run into all the other hikers, even late in the year like this." She nodded inland. "And this way is nothing but wilderness for miles. There aren't even any trails along here."

"There has to be something," Ross said. "Some track or trail. Maybe enough to get horses or quad bikes down." He pointed at the stone fireplace. "That thing didn't just drop out of the sky."

"I can tell you."

The voice made them all spin around.

Leaning against a tree was the largest man Brigid had ever seen in real life, even taller than her husband, who was more than a little mountain-like.

This man—this vampire—was tall and barrel-chested, his sandy-colored hair was long and brushed smooth, and a beard fell nearly to his waist.

Natalie was blinking. "Oh my God, it's Bigfoot."

No, but clearly he was a source of some of the myths.

"Who are you?" Carwyn subtly stepped between the giant and the rest of them. "We're searching for two hikers, one of whom is a relative of these men from Clan Mackenzie. We're here under the auspices of Ekaterina Grigorieva, vampire lord of this place."

The corner of the man's mouth turned up in what Brigid thought might be a smile. "I know Katya. I can help you if you like. I have an idea where they might have gone."

"Oh!" Natalie suddenly smiled. "Are you—? I mean…"

"I'm Grigor Petrovich," the giant said. "I'm Katya's father."

Summer sat on the log again, watching the distant brush. She'd been listening and watching for days now, planning her and Dani's escape. Once she realized that humans were disappearing from the camp, she knew she and Dani had no other choice. They didn't have time to wait for a rescue. She'd seen the vampire keeping an eye on Dani as he worked in the kitchen the night before, heard him asking one of the humans who did the cooking how his health was progressing.

The vampire wasn't interested in seeing Dani well; he wanted to know when he'd be recovered enough for… whatever their plan was.

It was hard to tell who'd gone missing—she didn't see every one of the captives on a daily basis—but there was a couple similar to her and Dani who'd been working in one of the drying rooms. Summer had guessed they were also hikers based on their clothes, and they were in their early twenties. She hadn't seen them in days.

She'd been watching their surroundings during daylight and noticed the reflections glinting in the brush beyond the cookhouse. Fishhooks on clear line if she had to guess. Maybe razor blades. She wondered if they had bear traps out here. There could be pit traps too. She hadn't seen any dogs, but that didn't mean there weren't any.

Summer knew what to watch for. Hell, the patriarch of her clan, Logan Mackenzie, had made his money in bootlegging during Prohibition. He was legitimate now, but Summer had grown up on tales of all the booby traps her people had set up around illegal stills.

Dani came out and sat beside her. "What are you planning?"

"Who says I'm planning?"

He tucked a curl of hair behind her ear. "I know your planning face."

"Keep your voice low."

He nodded silently.

"In a couple of nights, there's gonna be a full moon."

"Summer—"

"We need the light. We don't have any flashlights or headlamps. And the ones here… The light isn't going to matter to them one way or another, but we need it. I tried to figure out a way that we could get out during the day, but they watch us too closely. Night is the only time the human guards ease up even a little."

Probably because they were counting on the vampire. Fucking vampire. She was crazy to do this at night, but there wasn't a moment during the day they weren't watched, and so far she'd only seen the one vampire running the camp. She was hoping he might be busy.

"Summer, you can't be serious. I know my family, and I know they'll be—"

"We don't have time." She turned to him. "We'll wait until a couple of hours before dawn when the guards are sleepy." And a vampire would be less likely to leave his lair. "I stole a knife and stashed it, but it's short, not enough to cut through the brush, which means we're going to have to keep close to the trail, and that means booby traps."

Dani looked at her like she was crazy. "Booby traps?"

"I know what to look for, and I should be able to lead us through them if we're careful. My dad and Uncle Ross taught me. But we're out of time."

"And where are we going to go?" He leaned closer to her. "We don't have any idea where we are."

"They're going to expect us to head to the road, but I think the creek is safer. We can follow it down to—"

"To what?" He looked around. "In all your time going from field to field, have you seen or heard anyone, Summer? We are in the wilderness."

"The wild doesn't scare me. These guys do." She swallowed hard. "I can keep us alive in the wild, especially if we're near water. I can keep us alive until we get out of this, but Dani, I need you to trust me."

He looked up at the heavens, but Summer knew he'd follow her. He still felt guilty about leading them to that campsite where they were taken no matter how many times Summer reassured him that she didn't blame him for their captivity.

"Summer, if we do this and they catch us—"

"They'll kill us." She nodded. "Probably. But we have to ask ourselves a real question: Is there any way they're going to let us go? We've seen their faces. They even use their names around us."

"I heard the Russian guy speaking in Spanish to someone and he mentioned a cartel." Dani put his hands in his hair and gripped it hard.

"People go missing every year up here. Lots." She swallowed hard. "Eventually, the rescue teams, they have to give up."

Dani said nothing. His head was hanging and his hands were still gripped in his hair.

Summer's heart split in half. "I'm so sorry I brought you here." She swallowed down the urge to cry. "I thought if we stuck to the trail we'd be fine, you know? It's well-traveled and—"

"And I led us off it," Dani muttered.

"Hey." She pulled his hands out of his hair and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I don't blame you for that if you don't blame me for planning this dumb trip. You wanted to go to Ibiza."

"It's not your fault." He took a deep breath. "It's the fault of these criminals who took us," Dani whispered. "Not us. Not either of us." He kissed her neck and pressed his face into her shoulder. "Summer, the Russian likes you. He's not going to make you disappear, okay? If anyone needs to escape, it's me. Let me try; I don't want you risking—"

"I will not let you go alone." Her arms tightened around his shoulders. "Dani, I love you. And maybe I have a hard time saying stuff like that, but I do. And there is no way I am going to let them take you away from me." She pulled away and met his eyes. "Don't ask me to do it. We're in this together."

He nodded slowly. "Together. I love you too. Did you have to pick this place to tell me?"

"Ibiza would have been a lot more romantic." She sniffed and fought back a smile. "Mackenzie women are ornery. You've been warned."

"I'm counting on your orneriness." He kissed her softly. "And I'm with you. Give me the word and I'll go. Just tell me the plan."