Trapped at the Summit by Ali Olson

Author:Ali Olson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-10-20T02:54:41+00:00

Chapter Five

Jonah watched the large animal, stunned and trying to wrap his head around what he was seeing. He knew there were mountain lions on Mt. Rainier, of course, but not this high up. Never this high up.

This was not good.

“It’s injured,” Val whispered. “Look at the way it’s moving.”

Jonah watched and immediately saw what she meant. It thrashed its head around as it shuffled forward. It was moving quickly, but the movements were scattered and unpredictable, not like the normal stalking smoothness he’d expect of a cat. Jonah couldn’t identify exactly what the problem was, but it was clear that it was hurt.

“I wonder if it got injured and then lost, or if it sustained an injury as it tried to find its way back home. It must’ve gotten out of its territory days ago to get this high up,” he said softly, still trying to understand what he was looking at. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the animal.

Then he felt adrenaline shoot through his body as he realized two things at once: the first was that the animal must be absolutely starving, and the second was that it was definitely heading in their direction.

He also felt something he hadn’t experienced since before his sister died: fear for his own life. It was hardly noticeable beneath his fear for Val’s safety, which was nearly overwhelming all on its own, but it was there.

He could hear Val’s breath speed up and knew she saw that it was coming their way, too. And what it could mean if it reached them.

Animals could be unpredictable and dangerous if they considered a human a threat. An animal out of its territory, confused, hurt and very hungry, was something even more worrisome, and they wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. Most mountain lions wouldn’t approach people if they could help it, preferring to keep their distance, but they couldn’t afford to assume that was what would happen here.

And it was still coming their way, moving a whole lot faster than Jonah would like, even with its injuries.

“We need to get out of here,” he said to Val, forcing himself to stop staring at the animal and move. Val turned her attention to her things and packed as rapidly as possible and he did the same. They both knew leaving their gear could spell death out on the glacier, but there was no time to waste.

“We should leave any open food,” she said. “And any meat.”

He immediately saw the wisdom in her words. The food was probably what was drawing its attention to them in the first place. For it to be this high up, it had to have been wandering without anything to eat for days. And if the mountain lion did smell their food and they packed it all along with them, it would just follow them.

With how fast it was moving, they might not be able to outrun it out there, at least not safely, what with

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.