The fact that he was staring at this one in the eyes was actually a good thing. It meant the cat wasn’t sure if they were food. Yet. Not that the idea offered him a shred of comfort.

“You’re, uh… you’re supposed to stand tall,” he told Earflaps breathlessly. “Stretch your arms out and make yourself appear as large as possible.”

“Bullshit,” Earflaps whispered back at him. “You first.”

Ty shook his head minutely. He knew what you were supposed to do. But he just couldn’t force himself to move as the cat stalked back into the underbrush and disappeared. Ty had never seen anything so big that was so adept at hiding itself, even if it was dark. A part of him, the part that may or may not have been suicidal and wasn’t terrified into stupidity, took a moment to admire the ability.

“Oh God,” Earflaps mumbled softly. Ty could see his breath misting in the cold air. He trembled with the urge to flee from the danger. Ty could understand the impulse.

“Don’t move,” Ty told him again. The man didn’t respond, but Ty could see his body coiling in the moonlight. He knew he was fighting the same instinct to run that Ty was. He was losing the fight, though. “Don’t move, man,” Ty practically pleaded. He raised the shotgun, more for comfort than actually thinking it would do much good if the cat came at him from behind.

Earflaps jerked suddenly and broke into a run. Ty shouted at him, but the man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He hadn’t gone four steps before there was a loud screech. The underbrush whispered with the movement, and the cougar yowled again as it pounced on Earflaps’ back and knocked him to the ground. Earflaps gave a horrible scream as Ty brought the shotgun around and fired. The cougar flinched, giving another keening cry as it leapt away, disappearing silently into the darkness.

Ty stood breathing hard and staring, straining his eyes as he moved forward cautiously. He didn’t think he’d hit the cougar, but the sound of the shot had at least scared it off. For now. After a brief moment, he rushed toward the fallen man and laid the gun to the side, yanking off his coat to press it to the gaping wound on the man’s neck. Flashes of the past assaulted him, holding his camouflaged clothing to the wound of a dear friend as he died in Ty’s arms, so far from home.

Ty gasped as the warm blood flowed through his fingers. The man grabbed at his wrists, looking up at him with terrified eyes, unnaturally white in the moonlight that filtered into the clearing.

“Hold on,” Ty told him breathlessly. “It’s not that bad,” he told him, knowing the man wouldn’t make it long enough to call him a liar. Even as he tried to stem the bleeding, the life drained from his prisoner’s eyes, and Earflaps fell limp, the blood still gushing from the rips in his throat.

ZANE’S head jerked up and a shiver ran down his spine as the scream echoed through the trees. He was on his feet, gun in hand, without even thinking about it, turning toward where he thought the scream might have originated. Then his brain kicked into gear. That wasn’t Ty screaming. It couldn’t be. It was Earflaps. Shit. Had Ty actually lost it and shot him? Or did Earflaps rush Ty in the dark?

It all added up to him needing to be there, now, and see what was happening. See if Ty was okay. And if he wasn’t, Zane would deal with it. They were both getting off this damn mountain alive.

“What happened?” Deuce demanded dazedly as he rolled to his hands and knees.

“Sounds like he shot him,” Earl guessed roughly as he stumbled over the fire and grabbed for the second shotgun. “Garrett?” he barked as he stood and peered out into the pitch-black woods.

“I’m going, Earl,” Zane answered flatly as he checked his gun. “Stay with Deuce.”

“Garrett,” Earl said again sharply. When Zane looked up at him, Earl was staring at him determinedly. “You bring him back,” Earl told him quietly.

Zane stared at him for just a moment, surprised at the lack of argument, but then he nodded curtly and turned to lope into the darkness in what he hoped was the right direction. If Ty had killed the man, he might not be in the most stable state of mind. Zane hoped Ty seeing his partner would be enough to snap him out of it.

TY CLOSED his eyes as he moved his bloody hands away from the dead man, but then his eyes were on the underbrush once more as his hand groped blindly for the shotgun. If he was going to be eaten, he wanted to see it coming. And he would damn sure to put up a fight. He knew the others would have heard the shot and probably the screaming. But that didn’t mean they would find him in the dark woods. Not in time, anyway. He even thought maybe he could hear them calling out, but he didn’t dare call back.

His hand landed on a decent-sized rock. Ty palmed it, still feeling around with the other hand for the gun. What the hell had he done with it? He tore his eyes away from the trees to search the ground. The barrel shone dully in the moonlight, roughly six feet away. As he crawled slowly toward it, he found a thick tree branch that was still fairly green and hefted it. The more weapons he had on him until he made it to the gun, the less he felt like kibble.

Ty felt the movement at his side rather than saw it, and he turned and tried to rise to face it, striking out with the stick as the cougar came at him with horrifying speed. He didn’t make it to his feet, though. The impact knocked him to the ground, the big cat landing on him and knocking the breath from his lungs. He saw stars as his head banged against the hard ground. The cat caught the stick between its sharp teeth, and it snapped in half like a desiccated twig, showering Ty’s face with bits of wood. The cougar’s claws scraped across his shoulder and tore into the skin.

Ty screamed in agony even as he held what remained of the stick in front of his throat, trying to protect himself. He cried out again as teeth sank into his hand. He dropped the stick as he lost feeling in the hand but rounded with the stone in his other hand, smacking the cat in the side of the head with it. It made a dull thud when it hit, and the cat leaped away and hissed at him angrily, lashing out with one giant paw. Ty rolled out of its reach, narrowly missing being lacerated by the impressive claws. He found himself on top of his shotgun, and he grabbed it gratefully, rolling again and coming to sit with it clutched to his chest.

The cat shook its head, pawing at its ear where Ty had landed the blow, tail twitching as it sized him up again. Ty pushed up onto his knees and threw the rock at it, sending it scampering backward a few feet with a low growl. He gripped the gun and struggled to his feet unsteadily, surprised when he weaved a little, wielding the shotgun almost like a baseball bat with both hands until he could grip it correctly and aim it.

The cougar continued to watch him warily, obviously deciding that he might not be an easy kill after all. Ty could feel blood dripping down his fingers as he gripped the gun, and he didn’t know if it was his blood or the other man’s. The cougar made a grumbling, growling sound in its throat as it slinked toward the body lying in the brush. Ty realized belatedly that the big cat must have thought he was after its meal.

“Take him,” Ty told the cat breathlessly. “Eat him. He won’t care now,” he said as he began backing away.

The cat hissed one more time, bared its impressive teeth, and then took Earflaps by his ruined neck and began dragging him into the forest. It locked eyes with Ty, neither looking away until the cat dematerialized into the woods.

Ty listened intently, holding his breath as he waited for the telltale breaking of twigs that signified the cougar making a hasty retreat. He heard none, though. It was still out there. Watching him. He lowered the shotgun as his entire body began to tremble. He’d just been attacked by a fucking mountain lion.

And he was not handling it well.

“Ty!” It was Zane’s voice, somewhere close, coming out of the darkness. Ty could hear rustling approaching from behind him.

Ty held his breath a moment, weighing the benefit of calling out versus being eaten. “Garrett!” he called back after a few seconds. His voice was filled with panic and near-terror. He backed away another step. The shotgun shook in his trembling hands.

There was an immediate shift of direction in the movement behind him, and he could hear Zane running toward him, amazingly sure-footed in the darkness, he thought distantly. Time dragged as Ty tried to watch all around him, listening hard, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before Zane skidded to a stop not too far away and called his name again.

“Slowly, Garrett,” Ty managed to call back, though his voice was still shaking with fear and adrenaline.

Zane went still for a long moment before he started moving, one step at a time. Then he appeared out of the darkness at Ty’s side, his gun held ready. “What the hell?” Zane said under his breath, surprise and something darker in his voice. “I heard gunfire and screaming.”

“It ate him,” Ty answered without moving. Somewhere in his mind, he knew it sounded astoundingly stupid. But it was the best he could articulate.

Zane, for some reason, didn’t act like it was odd at all. Maybe it was the stunned look on Ty’s face, or the fact that his entire body trembled, or that he was covered in blood.

“Can you get back to camp?” Zane asked, turning so his back was to Ty’s as he looked at the darkness around them.

Ty nodded jerkily, backing up until his back was pressed against Zane’s. “Count of three,” he said shakily. “We run.” He remembered the last time they’d counted to three, cornered by kids with paintball guns. Ty had used Zane as a distraction, as a human shield. Ty gritted his teeth as the shaking in his hands subsided suddenly. He’d take on that mountain lion with his bare hands before it touched Zane; he knew that much for certain.

“I’m facing twelve,” Zane said to him quietly. “We’re going to three o’clock.” Ty nodded in acknowledgment. “Count,” Zane said.

The brush shivered in the moonlight as Ty watched it. He swallowed hard and said a shaky, “One.”

Zane shifted his weight in preparation to move. “Two.”

Ty spared the dark woods one more careful look before he reached behind him and pushed at Zane’s hip. “Three!” he shouted, and they turned and ran as fast as they could through the darkness.

Zane led him back to the camp, where Ty knew the fire and the scent of more people would provide safety. Adrenaline still rushed through him, and he didn’t know how badly wounded he might be. Nothing hurt yet, at least. He just knew they needed to get to safety before the cat came back for more.

When Ty and Zane broke through trees and into the circle of light and warmth from the fire, Earl was waiting with a flashlight and a large hunting knife. As Ty stumbled, he grabbed the shotgun out of his hands; Deuce stood with his shotgun drawn, looking out into the woods, ready to fire at anything that came after them. Ty slid to the ground and grabbed at the end of one of the sticks in the fire, turning with the flaming branch in his hand and breathing hard as he waited. For whatever reason, he felt better with the branch than he had with the shotgun. Probably because he’d missed with the fucking shotgun the first time.

But the forest was quiet. Nothing came out of the woods after him. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, and another happily answered the call. The fire crackled merrily, and the only sounds were Zane’s and Ty’s harsh breaths as they tried to pull air in.

Finally, Ty lowered the stick in his hand and looked down at it abashedly before tossing it back in the fire. The others lowered their weapons and turned to look at him doubtfully, like he might have finally had that mental breakdown they were all expecting.

“I’m okay,” Ty mumbled to them. “I think.”

“Where’s—”

“He’s gone,” Ty said flatly, cutting Deuce’s question off.

“Gone? What happened?” Deuce demanded.

The flashlight played over Ty, and Earl stopped it at his hands. “Jesus Christ, boy,” Earl grunted as he came closer. Zane appeared at Ty’s side, shoving his gun into his waistband, putting a steadying hand against Ty’s back.

Ty looked down to see that blood was dripping down his fingers, running freely and obscuring the sources so they couldn’t see how many punctures there were or how badly his hand was torn up. His entire front was covered in blood, in fact. Some his, spreading from the scratches on his shoulders, but most of it belonged to the dead man.

He held his hand up and peered closely at it in the wavering firelight. “Fuck, man, I just got that out of a cast,” he said in annoyance. “Bring that light,” he requested as Earl stopped in front of him and shined the light down on his hand. He could discern at least four separate punctures, one of which was so deep that Ty thought it might actually have hit the bone. His fingers were stiffening up quickly, and his hand was beginning to throb. The knuckle of his ring finger was swollen and turning blue. “Hell,” he cursed in defeat. He supposed he was lucky that he still had the hand at all, considering he could have yanked out the cat’s tonsils at one point.

“What happened?” Deuce demanded.

Ty shook his head as Earl yanked the buff off Ty’s head and used it to make a rough tourniquet around his forearm. The buff wouldn’t go tight enough to do much good, though, and Zane went to dig in his backpack.

“What’d you do?” Earl asked as Ty tried to calm his breathing.

“Cat jumped us,” Ty answered in a surprised voice. “Ate him.”

“A cougar?” Earl asked in shock.

“Yeah,” Ty answered, still in disbelief. He held his hand up as it began throbbing angrily, trying to slow the blood flow to the wounds.

“I thought cougars in these parts was just hearsay,” Earl said in surprise.