He shot to his feet, burst forward, fell. Trying to grab breath. Loud sounds were suddenly distant. His body—gone. He could not feel it.

Stumbling up, he lurched toward the safety of trees with the heat beating on his skin and a column of fire rising up from the burning camper. At the tree line, he crouched down in the snow where tall cragged pines offered refuge. A dark lair. He squeezed under the twisted branches, scrabbled low, scraped skin, ensconced himself deep. The roar of the fire. Feet numb. Then he remembered and searched at his waist for the knife, unfolded it.

Calm, be calm.

A sooty, propane scent of rotten eggs spilled over the land. He wiped blood from his good eye and looked out. Great flames rose from the camper and bent with the wind, and smoke billowed above the treetops. He huddled down in the blackness.

Surely they would come back.

Out of curiosity, if nothing else.

Seconds passed. He watched the break in the tree line where Red and the men had left. Inhaling shallowly. Blackness. Wind.

Nothing.

He could not hear the truck engines.

Funny. He did not feel cold anymore—

Something whined close by. He jerked up, peered into dark. Listened.

Brisk pad of paws on snow. Then a whimper, lupine. Jack’s chest began to ache. The knife was in his hand, the blade glinting. Firelight flickering through the trees. There, between the branches—he could see gray fur disturb the dark mold. Then a leg. Lean, with wiry tendons. Placed softly.

A wolf.

Light trembled among the pines, and the leg disappeared. This isn’t real, Jack thought. You’re hurt. You’re seeing things. That’s all.

But the padding drew nearer.

Until it stopped. Five yards away. Maybe less. Jack hunched lower. His spine tingling in pricks. His fingers gripped the knife.

You have lost it. You have lost it.

Just then came another noise: voices. Whispers drawn on the frozen air, sharp as scratches on slate.

So. They took the bait.

His grin split the wound on his lip, and he winced. From where he crouched, he peered out over the fire-splashed snow at the open clearing, perhaps forty yards away. Camper ablaze, burnt to a skeleton. Toolshed to the right. Trucks off to the left through the trees. Wolf, somewhere nearby. As he watched, the firelight blinked at him. There to the left, he could see figures. Two shadows blotched against the night.

Don’t move.

They haven’t seen you.

The figures divided. One along the tree line to the left. One headed right. Out in front of that shadow was the darker contour of a gun. He’d have to—