He looked toward the edge of the bluff where his little one was hiding, waiting for him, and saw something that scared him: a black thread rising to the sky.

He broke into a run, darting through the trees. When he reached his lair, he saw smoke blowing through the gaps between the wooden beams. He ran to the back and lifted the plank he used as a door. The room was just as he’d left it, with one exception: in his absence, the hands that occasionally—and now so rarely—pushed food and clothing through a hole in one of the walls had left a plate of food on the floor.

His little one was in the corner from which he never moved and appeared to be sleeping, a half-empty bowl of food next to him.

He went to him and tried to wake him up, but his eyes wouldn’t open. He had changed color, and his skin had gone cold. He rubbed at it repeatedly, but it refused to warm up. He called out in a howl, pinched his skin, but he was sleeping deeply. He thought, then, that it might be best not to wake him up at all, not even now that the smell of smoke was becoming stronger.

He curled up against his cub and held him in his arms where he would not be afraid and would soon wake up once more.

-63-

-63-

The only way to reach the abandoned mountain shelter was on foot. Teresa’s muscles burned with the effort, and she was panting with fatigue. Marini was right next to her, steadying her every time her knees buckled, only for her to elbow him.

“You should have waited down in the valley,” he’d said at one point, triggering a volley of insults in return.

Teresa could feel the weight of the baby’s romper in her coat pocket, the burden of the responsibility she’d knowingly shouldered when she’d decided to concentrate the search in that particular area—and nowhere else. If she had made a mistake, there was a risk they would never find him again.

The search was advancing at a brisk pace. Everyone involved was fully aware that it had been almost twelve hours since the abduction, and that the child must be getting hungry. They were pushing as hard as they could, and their heavy breathing reverberated in the air. It was like a human net, stretching across hundreds of feet of undergrowth, inspecting every shadow and every nook as it ascended.