Kira scanned the street carefully before leaving the building, then moved softly from car to car, keeping to cover as much as possible. The building with the campfire was about three miles north, uncomfortably close to the giant forest of Central Park. Wild animals lived throughout the city, but the park was home to most of the big ones. Kira traveled as quickly as she dared, keeping her flashlight off and using the moon to see. The pale light made shadows deeper and more ominous; it also made the ground look smoother than it really was, and Kira stumbled on the rough terrain anytime she tried to move too fast. She skirted the west side of the park, watching for animals, but there were none out in the open. This was bad news: If there were deer out, it would at least give the predators something better to hunt than her. Feral house cats were hardly the most dangerous predators in the city.

A shadow shifted in her peripheral vision, and Kira whirled around to look. Nothing. She paused to listen . . . yes . . . there it was. A deep thrum, almost too low to hear. Something very big was breathing nearby, not just breathing but purring, almost growling. Something very good at hiding.

Kira was being hunted.

Before her was a large plaza, the concrete cracked and buckled and dotted with tufts of tall, dark weeds; the center statue stood solemn and unmoving. Cars circled the edge, their tires long ago turned flat and deflated. Kira backed slowly against a wall, cutting off the predator’s lines of attack, holding her breath to listen. The deep breathing was there, a bass rumble of giant lungs filling and exhaling. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

There are panthers in the city, she thought. I’ve seen them during the day—panthers and lions and once, I swear, I saw a tiger. Refugees from a zoo or a circus, well fed by the herds of wild deer and horses that roam Central Park. There are even elephants—I heard them last year. Do they feed on those, too?

Focus, she told herself. They’re going to feed on you if you don’t find a way out of this. Lions or panthers or worse.