Chapter 5 - THE ASSAULT ON MILE MARKER 62
A heavy chunk of ice and heavy-duty tow cable whipped through the shattered rear window, wrapping violently around the metal headrest of the passenger seat and yanking the car backward with a bone-jarring jolt. Elena screamed, throwing her arms over the front floorboard to shield the wolf pups as her car skidded sideways across the ice-packed highway.
Outside, the black pickup truck had returned, its heavy-duty winch grinding aggressively as it dragged Elena’s sedan toward the deep snowbank at the edge of the guardrail. The mother wolf, realizing the threat had returned, let out a fierce, guttural snarl and began clawing desperately at the snow, dragging her broken hindquarters two agonizing inches closer to the rear bumper of Elena’s car.
"Elena! What's happening?!" Dr. Vance’s voice screamed frantically through the fallen phone on the floorboard. "I hear a winch! Is Miller back?"
"He's trying to push me off the embankment!" Elena yelled back over the screech of grinding metal and howling wind. "He’s going to flip the car!"
The weight of the heavy truck slammed against Elena’s rear bumper with a sickening crunch, lifting the back tires of her sedan completely off the pavement and tilting the vehicle at a terrifying forty-five-degree angle over the steep rocky ravine below. The wolf pups began to shriek in sheer terror, tumbling against the dashboard as the entire car groaned under the strain of gravity and steel.
Outside, the mother wolf made a superhuman effort, using her powerful front shoulders to heave her paralyzed body forward until her head rested directly against Elena’s driver’s side door. With a final, desperate surge of maternal agony, the wolf slammed her teeth into the heavy rubber seal at the bottom of the door, biting down with enough force to tear the weather stripping away, exposing the manual emergency release cable beneath.
Elena saw the animal’s intent flash in those fierce, intelligent amber eyes. The wolf wasn't attacking her—she was trying to open the door.
"Hold on!" Elena shouted downward to the pups, releasing her grip on the steering wheel and diving into the footwell to grab the heavy red wool blanket just as the car tilted another alarming foot toward the drop-off.
She reached down, her fingers grabbing the torn rubber seal where the wolf had ripped it away, and yanked the emergency cable with all her weight. The driver's side door popped outward with a violent snap, the wind instantly rushing in to fill the cabin with blinding snow and freezing air.
Through the blinding white gap, the mother wolf looked up at Elena, her jaws slick with blood from tearing at the frozen metal, and let out a low, urgent huff that sounded unmistakably like a command to move.
May you like
Without a second thought, Elena scooped up the two tiny pups wrapped securely inside Lily’s red wool blanket, threw herself sideways out of the open car door, and tumbled directly into the deep, powdery snowdrift beside the dying wolf.
Behind her, with a deafening screech of rending metal, the empty sedan lost its last point of friction and flipped backward over the guardrail, plunging into the dark, jagged ravine below and exploding in a muffled, fiery roar against the rocks.
