She slipped on her boots, grabbed her flashlight, and stepped into the morning haze. The forest was cool, damp, and eerily still. No wind, no birdsong. Just her own footsteps. If there was another cub out here, maybe it was hurt, maybe trapped.
She’d only look for a while, she told herself. Long enough to know where to point the rangers later. But when she crouched near the treeline, studying the soil where the brush grew denser, her breath caught. They weren’t paw prints. They were human.