Windswept (The Airborne Saga) Read Online Free Page B

details that weren’t quite obvious. She didn’t recognize anything marked there but for the fact that it was somewhere in the wilderness. A few bordered Seward but even those weren’t very close.
     
    “Check this out too.” Leela pushed another messy stack of white paper at her. The stack made up at least sixty sheets, most with text and some laden with photos. Nothing stood out to her. They showed pictures of men with bushy hair, sullen eyes, and unrecognizable faces. There were empty woods, scraps of remaining buildings, and twisted metal that once had been cars. 
     
    There were too many pages, too much information. Anxiety making her act, Avery threw the stack down.
     
    “I don’t understand,” she admitted exasperatedly.
     
    “They’re news articles. I got them from the web when I began. It blew up so quickly. I’m sure I don’t have them all.” Leela gestured towards them the second time around. Reluctantly, Avery looked and pressed her brain for answer s.
     
    This time the headers on the pages stood out to her. They were all newspapers, news stations, and blogs. Below the title, dates of accidents were printed in bold. She caught on before sh e could voice it. These people, these faces, were of the dead. The pictures held the scenes where they had died. Suddenly cold, Avery dropped the bundle again and read with her arms curled around herself.
     
    Avery read through the first few lines.
     
    “These people were killed in supposed accidents. But they weren’t accidents, were they?” she asked.
     
    The report at the top talked about the brutal claw marks the man had died from. It had been in the woods in places that few humans would ever go. No trace of the attackers was found, Avery knew, as if they’d flown away without a trace. This wasn’t the work of bears or wolves. “They were harpies,” Avery answered herself.
     
    Her stomach already heavy as lead, she swallowed to keep any bile down. Avery had been the first to really know of the potential of harpie attacks, but nothing like a string of serial murders.
     
    “Who were these people? Were they important?” Avery asked next and flipped the page to stare at the black-and-white inked people. It didn’t seem right. The faces seemed so empty and yet so normal. Each one was just another scruffy Alaskan.
     
    “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have put it all together if they didn’t all share one thing in common. They were all hunters and mountain men out in the wilderness alone. That’s the way the stories managed to pop up together.
     
    “You see, these hunters could have crept up on anything—even harpies. And most people wouldn’t automatically shoot someone so human even if it did have wings. It made perfect sense. But the humans paid for the discovery with their lives.”
     
    Suddenly sick of looking at the photos, Avery flipped the stack back onto the desk and hid the faces away. She posted herself on the wooden table and folded her arms again. After a moment, she voiced what came next.
     
    “I understand it was probably just bad luck on their part. They ran into the harpies and were killed. But harpies just don’t hang around the middle of nowhere. What’s the third factor?” Avery asked.
     
    Leela was far from the person Avery thought knowledgeable on harpies. In fact, if her instinct hadn’t kept her asking, she’d have been bothered by the fact that Leela brought up anything at all. Leela was quick to answer anyways.
     
    “I wondered that. But then the simplest answer is usually the best one. I mean, what do harpies and this whole state have in common?”
     
    Avery perked up, catching sight of Leela’s brown eyes. There was no doubt in them.
     
    “M e of course,” Avery could only manage to whisper. Mason was right to worry. He was so very right. And nothing about that could stop the crippling guilt that seized her. Had these men died because she had to come home? If Leela saw her eyes glisten, she didn’t