“We’re going down. Look! That must be the place we’re going,” Slick yelled to be heard over the sound of the helicopter. Sam craned her neck and gasped. How in the world had the place been built on the mountain? She could see buildings, houses, the helipad, and something that looked like a training area. Acres and miles of habitation. What she couldn’t see were roads of any kind. As the helicopter banked and turned, an Olympic-sized pool came into view, its water azure blue. She blinked when she saw horses grazing in a small pasture next to a barn with a red tile roof.

They were lower by then, at the tree line, making it possible to see another helicopter on the pad, this one newer-looking, sleeker somehow. Then she saw something that jerked her upright—a cable car and pulley, the car itself at rest inside some sort of structure. She tried to comprehend the amount of money it would take to construct what she was seeing.

They were on the ground, the sound of the rotors deafening.

Sam was the first one off the copter, her hair flying backward as she ducked and ran to a grassy patch of lawn at the edge of the pad. This time she did laugh when the others came barreling after her, their gelled, moussed hair standing straight in the air when they removed their headsets. She smoothed her own curly locks, feeling almost normal.

“Okay, do we just stand here, or is there a welcoming committee or what?” Kayla asked, hugging her arms to her chest. “I’m never going to be warm again. Look, my feet are blue!”

The sudden silence was deafening. The pilot tossed out the five duffel bags before he hopped out of the copter. “Help yourselves, ladies,” he said.

Grumbling under their breaths, the women marched over to their respective bags and picked them up.

They heard the golf cart before they saw it. Sam gawked, while the others openly stared at the handsome man and vicious dog that looked like a wild wolf sitting next to him.

“Welcome to Big Pine Mountain! Follow me.”

And that was their welcome greeting. No more, no less.

Sam knew a sharp retort of some sort was about to erupt from one or the other of the group. She squelched them all with a stern look and a shake of the head. They followed the golf cart in a straggly line, pulling up short when it ground to a halt in front of a long, low building with a sign on the front door that read, OMEGA THREE.