“She’s been found!” he shouted to the searchers in the lines to the left and right of him. “We can all go home!”

The cheers were faint but unmistakable in the stillness and serenity of the forest.

Ranger Brock, along with everyone else, turned around and headed back to base.

* * *

The staff at Redstone Memorial had wasted no time treating Angelina after Maria had walked into the hospital carrying the limp body of her sister in her arms.

Angelina was suffering from exposure, and her body temperature had dropped significantly, but they were able to bring that back up to normal fairly quickly with plenty of blankets and heated oxygen that helped to warm her body from the inside. She was also dehydrated, having lost a lot of her body’s moisture through sweat beneath her snowsuit. An intravenous saline solution would remedy that problem over the next few hours. In the meantime she could sip orange juice and water until all her fluid levels returned to normal. Finally, there was the cut on her forehead. Eight stitches had closed that up nicely, and now there was just a big brown bandage between her eyebrows and her hairline.

Maria remained in her sister’s hospital room while the medical staff attended to Angelina. She wanted to be there at her bedside when Angelina regained consciousness and became aware of her surroundings.

It took a good half hour for Angelina to come around, but when she did she wasted no time getting on her sister’s back.

“Where did you go?” she asked Maria.

Maria considered the question a moment before answering. “On a wild-goose chase.”

“You left me,” Angelina said, as it all came back to her. “You went off and left me in the forest!”

Maria shook her head. “Never again.”

“Don’t be too hard on your sister,” said Nurse O’Neal, who had been standing by since Angelina had been admitted. “She was the one who brought you here. Carried you into the hospital in her very arms.”

“No.” Angelina shook her head. “It wasn’t her.”

Maria said nothing. She hadn’t claimed to have rescued her sister from the forest, but she hadn’t exactly said anything to the contrary, either. It might have appeared to some that she was trying to present herself as the hero, but that wasn’t it at all. Maria was actually doing her best to avoid any mention of Argus and Tora Brock. If people knew the brother and sister had found Angelina and brought her to the hospital on their own, they might start asking more questions, like…well, “How did two teenagers find her when no one else could even find a decent trail to follow?” for one.

The nurse looked at Maria curiously for a moment, then turned back to Angelina. “If it wasn’t your sister, then who found you and brought you here?”

“It was a wolf.”