Blood in the Pines

Blood in the Pines

The trail was old but steady—just enough pawprints pressed into the damp earth for Pete to keep going. He’d been tracking since dawn, keeping his rifle low and his thoughts quieter than the wind.

He knew whose prints these were. Not what’s.

Grace.

She wasn’t magic, he told himself. Not exactly. She was a woman who could wear another shape, and sometimes that shape tore things apart. Just another predator, maybe—but one who could talk, plan, and make her own bad decisions. That made her twice as dangerous. And twice as valuable.

Somewhere high overhead, a raven called, then fell silent.

Pete adjusted his pack and stepped over a moss-covered log. The ground on the far side gave way instantly. He dropped hard, hitting bottom in a breathless, bone-cracking jolt. His right leg folded wrong beneath him. Something snapped like a dry stick.

White pain. Then black edges.

When he could breathe again, he knew it was bad—bone-deep bad. His boot was twisted, and each throb of pain felt like his body trying to turn itself inside out.

Radio? Dead. Rifle? Out of reach. Standing? Not a chance.

Movement. Soft, deliberate.

She stepped out of the shadows—four legs, fur the color of storm clouds, eyes catching the canyon’s thin light.

Grace.

Her ears pricked forward. Her breath smoked in the still air. She took in the scene—him crumpled against the rock, the smell of his blood—and he could see it in her eyes: the calculation.

“Easy,” he said, keeping his voice even. “I’m not your problem today.”

The wolf tilted her head, then padded closer. Close enough for him to see the streak of white fur along her muzzle—the one he’d noticed in human form.

“You’re thinking about leaving me here,” Pete muttered. “Can’t blame you. But if I don’t walk out of this canyon, the wrong people will come looking for you.”

Her ears flicked back. Then, slow as a shadow moving across water, she backed up a few paces.

“I’ll bring help,” the certainty came—not in words, but in the way her gaze locked on his.

Pete let out a shaky breath. “Then I’ll trust you. Just… don’t take too long.”

She spun, a blur of muscle and fur, and was gone between the rocks.

⸻

Grace’s lungs burned by the time she saw the first glimmer of town lights. She shifted mid-run, the change tearing through her like fire under the skin. She hit the gravel barefoot, almost falling, but kept moving.

“Pete,” she gasped to the first person she saw. “North canyon. Broken leg. Needs help now.”

The rescue party formed fast—two ATVs, a stretcher, med packs. Grace was in the lead before anyone could ask how she knew where to find him.

They found him pale and shaking, propped against the canyon wall but alive. His lips were blue, his grip on the stretcher rails white-knuckled.

As they lifted him, Pete caught her gaze for half a second. Not gratitude. Not suspicion. Something in between.

They’d both kept their part of the bargain. For now.

⸻

Hospital Truce

Pete woke to the steady beep of a monitor and the sting of antiseptic. His leg was wrapped from hip to ankle.

Grace sat in the corner, still as stone.

“You,” he said.

“Me.”

“You didn’t eat me,” Pete said finally.

“Not that hungry.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. “Guess I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me,” she said. “You just don’t hunt me.”

“That a deal?”

“That’s the deal.”

Pete shifted against the pillows, grimacing. “You give me a reason, though—livestock torn up, people scared—”

“I know.”

They held each other’s gaze. Neither blinked.

“Then we understand each other,” Pete said.

“Good,” she replied, and left without another word.

⸻

The Deer Bait

Levi had been setting snares since he could walk. Sara was the better shot. Between them, they figured they knew more about the woods than the game warden himself. And if the old men in town weren’t going to deal with the thing killing livestock, then they would.

They dragged the deer carcass into a clearing before moonrise, chaining it to a post so nothing could drag it off too far. The trap was simple but mean—steel cage with the door propped open, tripwire rigged to slam it shut.

“Won’t hold a bear,” Sara said, “but it’ll hold this.”

They didn’t say werewolf out loud.

The forest got quiet near midnight, the kind of stillness that makes your skin itch. Then they heard it—pads in the pine needles, a low, wet huff of breath. The cage door creaked as the shape stepped inside.

The wire snapped. The door clanged shut. The thing hit the bars once, twice, shaking the whole frame. Levi caught a flash of teeth in the dark.

Then it went still.

Fur rippled, bones shifted, and before their eyes the beast folded inward into something smaller. A man crouched in the corner, bare-skinned and bleeding.

Sara’s hand tightened on her rifle. “It’s him,” she whispered. “Roy.”

Roy didn’t beg. Didn’t explain. He just stared at them with eyes that still held the wild.

By dawn, they had the cage chained to the trailer, bouncing along the dirt road toward town. Halfway there, the trailer hit a rut—and the cage door flew open like it had never been locked.

Roy was gone before they could blink, the forest swallowing him whole.

When Levi and Sara finally rolled into town, there was nothing to show but an empty cage and a story nobody believed. Folks laughed it off as too much coffee and campfire talk.

But the siblings knew what they’d seen. And they knew, sooner or later, the thing in the woods would come back.

⸻

Bug-Out Advice

The night air outside town carried the smell of pine and rain. Grace found Roy leaning against a fence post, hood up, watching her approach.

“They’ll keep looking,” she said. “Levi and Sara. They saw you.”

Roy’s smile was dry. “Not the first time I’ve had to vanish. Won’t be the last.”

“You just run forever?”

“I call it surviving.” He reached into his pack and handed her a worn canvas pouch. Inside: water filter, cash, map, knife. “You need one of these. Keep it ready. When the day comes, you don’t stop to think. You just go.”

“You think I’m gonna need it?”

“I know you will. Sooner or later, someone sees too much. And when they do—you run.”

The wind moved through the pines. Neither of them spoke again.

Grace stood there long after he’d walked away, the weight of the pouch heavy in her hands. She hated that part of her believed him.