But this? I stopped walking and stopped talking, because taking a child, hurting a child in any way?

“This doesn’t make sense.” Gabriel said the words for me.

Restless, I crouched, my weight on the balls of my feet and my fingertips braced against the cave floor. The scene looked no different from this angle. The harder I stared at the physical traces Bella had left behind, the further into my own mind I retreated.

Girl presses herself back into the darkness. Wet. Cold. Her throat burns. Can’t move. Can’t make a sound—

“Kira? Come in. Kira and Gabriel, come in.”

My hand tightened around the radio as I fought my way through the flashback, lashing out against the memories, tearing at them in my mind. The real world came slowly into focus.

I lifted the radio to my mouth. “Bella was here.” I’d practiced. I was ready. But somehow, the rest of what I needed to tell them wouldn’t come.

Gabriel squatted beside me. “We’ll give them directions,” he said quietly.

“We’ll give you directions,” I repeated. My grip on the radio relaxed slightly, and I continued, my eyes on Gabriel. “We found a cave. There are signs of a campsite.…”

* * *

It was another half hour before the rescue crew reached us. In the last few moments of quiet before the chaos descended, I made myself look at Gabriel. “Bales was right. You know this mountain.”

That was the closest I could come to thank you.

Gabriel, apparently, wasn’t a person who liked to be thanked. “We both know who the real hero here is, and it’s not me. There’s no trace of hero in my DNA.” He nodded to Saskia. “All credit goes to her.”

Saskia was the one who’d found this place. She’d gone in blind. She’d taken the risk. It meant something that Gabriel recognized that, when most people couldn’t look past the wolf in her eyes.

“Kira!” Cady called my name from somewhere near the cave’s entrance.

“Here,” I called back, moving toward the sound of her voice. “Sass and Gabriel, too.”

A beam of light, brighter by far than what my flashlight could offer, flooded the entrance. Cady’s hair was soaked, her clothing dripping. Mackinnon Wade crouched beside her. With unnatural calm, he surveyed the situation, then dropped down into the cave himself. He let out a low, soothing whistle and held out a hand to Saskia.

My dog’s blue eyes studied the large man intently. After several long seconds, she approached.

“What do you say, superstar—how about we get you out?”

Gabriel snorted. “Saskia has a counteroffer. She would like to eat your face.”

To his credit, Mac didn’t seem to take offense. “Will she let me pick her up?” he asked me. “I can hoist her out without much fanfare.”