#TBT-First Sight#
*Harmony, Alaska - the log cabin congressional church filled with
worried and concerned residents. There has been a number of brutal
killings and the towns people wanted to get to the bottom of what's been
happening.*
*Alex had recently discovered the gruesome attack
when she flew to deliver packages to Pop's place. Blood everywhere.
Teddy 's lifeless bloody body sprawled out on the ground. Several other
bodies laid across the fields and the body she noticed just before she
landed, bloodied at the edge of the woods, her heart sanked, Pop Tom.
She sobbed, kneeling down beside him. Who or what couldn't have done
this. Why? Reaching out carefully rolling him over, she gasped at the
expression of terror on his face. It took her a back many years ago, a
memory she did not care to rekindle.*
*Discussion among the towns
people began to get a bit out of control when Big Dave started
insinuating that the attacks were done by wolves. Someone suggested a
wolf hunting party. “It wasn’t wolves,” Alex murmured, her mind flashing
back unwillingly to the sight of the bloodied track she saw in the
snow. It hadn’t been left by a wolf, nor any other kind of animal, of
that she was certain. But a small voice whispered that it wasn’t exactly
human, either. So … what, then? She shook her head, refusing to let her
thoughts wrap around the answer she hoped—prayed—could not be true. “It
wasn’t wolves,” she said again, lifting her voice over the din of
paranoia running as rampant as a disease all around her. She stood up
and turned to face the vengeful crowd. “No wolf kills like this, not by
itself. Not even the boldest pack together would do this.” “Miss Maguire
is right,” said Sidney Charles, one of Harmony’s Native elders and the
town’s long-running mayor, even if he held the office in name only in
recent years. He nodded to Alex from his seat in the front row of the
church, the dark hair of his leather-bound ponytail shot with gray, his
tanned face lined the deepest at the corners of his mouth and eyes,
creases earned from his kindhearted, jovial nature. Today he was somber,
however, the heavy weight of all this talk of death showing in the
slump of his otherwise proud shoulders. “Wolves have a respect for
mankind, as we should respect them. I have lived a long time, long
enough that I can promise you they did not do this awful thing. If I
live for a hundred more years, I will never believe they would.” “Well,
all due respect, Sid, but I, for one, would rather not take that
chance,” Big Dave said, to the ready agreement of several other men
standing nearby. “Last I knew, there weren’t no season on dealing with
problem wolves. Ain’t that right, Officer Tucker?” “No, there’s not,”
Zach relented. “But—"Big Dave went on. “If we’ve got wolves threatening
human settlements, folks, then it’s our right to defend "ourselves.
Hell, it’s our goddamned duty. I sure as shit don’t want to wait around
until some rangy pack decides to attack again.” “I’m with Big Dave on
this,” said Lanny Ham, shooting up from his seat like a rocket. He wrung
his hands in front of him, his nervous gaze darting around the room. “I
say we take action before the same kind of trouble comes to roost right
here in Harmony!” “Are any of you listening at all?” Alex challenged,
her anger flaring. “I’m telling you, wolves were not responsible for
what happened to Pop Toms and his family. They were attacked by
something terrible, something horrific … but it wasn’t a wolf. What I
saw out there could not have been done by any kind of animal. It was
something else—” Alex’s voice snagged in her throat as her gaze strayed
to the back of the church and clashed with a pair of silver eyes so
piercing they stole her breath. She didn’t know the black-haired man who
stood there in the shadows near the door. He wasn’t from Harmony, or
any of its far-flung neighboring towns. Alex was sure she’d never seen
those lean, razor-sharp cheeks and square-cut jaw, or the startling
intensity of his gaze, anywhere before in the whole of the Alaskan
interior. His face wasn’t the kind a woman would ever forget." *
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