What was Zachariah doing out here? Why had he left his room? Was it possible he was getting better?
Hope flared in Raven's chest, sharp and fragile. Maybe it wasn't the Hydra virus. Maybe it was just the flu. She wanted to believe it, needed to believe it, even though every vlogger report she'd scrolled through in the past weeks had painted a darker picture.
She drew a steadying breath, crouched at the roof's edge, and leapt. The drop was long, but she softened her legs, rolled, and came up quick, brushing pine needles and mulch from her clothes.
A whistle cut through the air—one long note, two short. Vlad's signal.
She slipped behind the tiger house, into the restricted zone where the fence rose eighteen feet high. The rest of the enclosure was a careful illusion: a ditch circling the perimeter wall, six feet high on Vlad's side but only four on the visitors' side, giving tourists the thrill of proximity without the danger.
Vlad usually lounged on the polymer rock shelf beside his shallow pool, waterfall streaming from a hidden PVC pipe. Today, he rose at her call, sauntering forward with ears pricked, his massive body rippling with muscle.
Raven pulled a strip of venison jerky from her cargo pocket. Tigers weren't supposed to eat dried meat, but Vlad had developed a taste for it. She stepped back and hurled it over the fence. His head snapped, body coiling, and in a blink the jerky was gone.
He prowled back to the fence, pressing his weight against the steel, chuffing—a sound like a cough, low and eager. Tigers didn't purr. They chuffed when they were content, when they wanted closeness.
Raven reached out, fingers brushing the cool metal. For a moment, the world narrowed to the tiger's breath, the rasp of his fur against the fence, the strange comfort of his presence. Vlad was dangerous, lethal, untamed. But he was honest. Unlike people, he never pretended.
Behind her, Zachariah's shout echoed again, ragged and desperate. The sound pulled her back, reminding her that the refuge's fragile order was cracking.
Zachariah coughed again, a wet, violent sound that sprayed phlegm across Raven's face. His cheeks were hollow, spiderwebbed with swollen, pulsing veins that glowed purple-black beneath his skin.
Behind her, Vlad slammed against the fence, his growl rumbling like thunder. The chain-link rattled under his weight, claws scraping metal, tail lashing in agitation.
"Back away!"
Raven's head snapped up. Her father was sprinting up the path from the lodge, arms flailing, his voice raw with urgency.
"Get away from him!"
The command jolted her out of paralysis. She wrenched her arm free, stumbling back. Her spine struck the fence—Vlad snarled, hurling himself against the barrier, claws raking inches from her head—before she staggered clear.
The tiger's piercing yellow gaze flicked between Zachariah and her father, ears flattened, fury radiating from every muscle.
Raven pressed herself against the wall of the tiger house, gasping, her chest heaving. "Dad…"
Her father skidded to a stop, planting himself between her and Zachariah. In his hands was the tranquilizer gun, gripped tight, barrel leveled at the man he'd worked beside for over a decade. His face was taut, eyes blazing with grim certainty.
"He has it, Raven," her father said, voice low and hard. "He has t
he Hydra virus."