He nodded.
“All right,” said Ty. “Let’s go.”
Ryder shifted first, into his lanky adolescent wolf form—gray with white markings, with the beginnings of a powerful frame. He’d have to grow into those bones, Ty thought, and hoped that one day the kid would be the sort of man his wolf form hinted he could be.
Misty shifted, too, into her deceptively delicate doe form. Ty had wondered, at first, at how his jaguar—who tended to turn his nose up a little at prey animals, to Ty’s exasperation—had had instant respect for the doe.
Fast and strong, the jaguar thought now, reiterating his earlier sentiments. Powerful even without claws and sharp teeth. A worthy mate.
Ty could only agree.
At first, Ryder was unerring. They ran swiftly through the woods after him; it was clear that he was scared for Zeke, and wanted to get to him as quickly as possible. Another point in his favor.
After they’d been running for a while, though, Ryder hesitated and slowed. He paused in a close thicket of trees, sniffed the air, looked right and left, and then shifted back to human. Ty and Misty followed suit.
“I don’t know—we wandered around for a while after this,” he admitted. “Back and forth—we weren’t paying attention to where we were going. I don’t know what’s the right way.”
Misty nudged Ty and reached for the radio; he handed it to her, and heard her reporting their location in a low voice. Ty focused on Ryder. The kid’s breath was getting faster, and Ty needed to make sure he didn’t work himself into a panic attack.
“Ryder, look at me,” he said. “We’re going to work on helping your memory, so we can find Zeke. First, I need you to take a deep breath.”
Focusing on the goal worked to bring Ryder’s attention back to Ty, and he followed Ty’s rising hands to inhale, and then falling hands to exhale. Already, he looked a little calmer.
“One more time,” Ty said, keeping his voice slow and even. “In....out. Good. Do you feel like your head’s a little clearer?”
Ryder nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking—I didn’t mean to freak out on you—”
“No need to apologize,” he said. “We’re looking ahead. Let’s not focus on which way you went anymore. Think about where you were when Zeke fell. Was it higher up than this?”
Ryder nodded vigorously. “It was a lot of snow. And mostly rocks, not too many trees anymore.”
Where they were, it was still heavily forested, and there was only a light dusting of snow on the ground. Ty nodded encouragement. “What did the rocks look like?” He glanced back at Misty, who was now listening closely.
Ryder haltingly described a craggy area. “We were stoked because it was really cool-looking and we’d never explored over there before. We’re always looking for epic rock formations, you know, the really steep weird ones, and it was—like—a huge steep peak with a hole in the middle, almost a crevasse thing. And...that’s where he fell.” Ryder looked agonized. “I swear I would’ve brought him back if I could, but I didn’t know if I could even climb back out by myself, and I definitely couldn’t have done it trying to carry Zeke with me. I didn’t want us both to be stuck and then maybe he’d never wake up—”
“You did the absolute right thing,” Ty assured him, politely ignoring the tear that slipped down one of Ryder’s cheeks. “No one would’ve benefited from both of you going missing.”
The radio crackled. “Cal’s on his way,” Misty reported. “He’s got a couple of people with him. Lynn, too, and she’s bringing Ken and Nate.”
“Do you have any idea what he might be talking about?” Ty asked. “A big peak with a hole in the middle?”
Misty hesitated. “Maybe. Cal or Lynn might have a better idea, although we’re outside the Park, so—but I might. If I’m right, it’s this way.” She nodded northeast.
“Let’s go, then,” Ty said. “We can keep the others apprised. If we don’t find him, they can start searching elsewhere.”
Misty nodded, and they all shifted again, Misty leading the way this time.
***
Misty
Misty was still, continuously, impressed at Ty’s ability to talk to people. She knew that if she’d been the one talking to Ryder, the urgency of the situation would have bled into her voice. She probably would’ve been short and forceful, because a kid’s life was on the line and it was hard not to be.
Ty, on the other hand, had been completely calm, not putting any pressure on Ryder at all. Far from stressing him out, he’d clearly kept the kid from panicking. Misty wanted him on hand whenever she had to talk to a scared witness or a mutinous suspect.
And now they might know where they were going. Misty was once again grateful to her father, who had insisted that she know all of the territory around the town like the back of her hand. Don’t worry too much about the Park, he’d always said. There’s a whole crowd of people whose job it is to know the Park, to protect the tourists from getting themselves in trouble out there. Our job is to protect the town, so you make sure you know all the places a person could get themselves in trouble nearby, because if I know anything about people, you can bet you’ll be finding someone in every one of them over the course of your career.
And she could remember noticing a hole, hidden from anyone who hadn’t climbed up the steep rocks around it—not high up on a peak, where big gashes in the stone were common, and anyone who was climbing would likely be experienced and have equipment with them, but down beneath the tree line.