Dawn

by Sherry Foster

  Dawn continued to drive while shooting nervous glances at the girl on the floor. It was approximately thirty minutes later, according to the clock on the dash, before the girl looked up from her tablet and stretched. She scrambled up from the floorboard and turned around to sit down in the passenger seat.

  “So I imagine you have a few questions. I do also. Let me go first and then I will answer your questions. First off, do you have a place of safety we can get to in a fairly reasonable amount of time?” She watched Dawn shake her head before continuing. “I guess that means you do not know how to get in touch with the friends you left behind.”

  Dawn interrupted, “I don’t even know if they lived, much less how to get in touch with them.”

  “Oh, they lived. According to what I heard back there, some Alpha named Gammon came in and when they left they did so with three females. One was on a stretcher, they cursed her a good bit. One was crying, they want her dead for some reason. And the other was hobbling around on crutches or being carried in some guy’s arms. She kept kissing the guy by the way. You would be surprised at how much people talk around someone my age and size. As if size matters when it comes to intellect. So your questions? Oh wait, you wanted to know my name didn’t you? You may call me Alice.”

  “Alice, you don’t look like an Alice.”

  “Oh good grief. Why does no one ever pay attention to what is said. I told you, you may call me Alice, I never once said my name was Alice.”

  “I see. No, no I don’t see. What is going on? Where are we going? What is collywodle? What is your real name? My god, tell me something!”

  “Fine, just keep driving north and I will tell you what you need to know. You may still call me Alice. Let’s see if I can answer your questions so you will stop bothering me and I can concentrate on finding out more information about where we need to go. I am nine, oh I see that surprised you, I am small for my age. Size does not determine intellect I believe I mentioned already. Let’s just say I have a better than average intellect and leave it at that. I have no idea what a collywodle is, perhaps you meant collywobbles, which is not the word I used. Coddiwomple is to amble with purpose toward a vague destination. Santiago’s territory is somewhere west of Denver in the Rocky Mountains. We are going to coddiwomple in that direction and hope I can find out more information about where to go on the way. Collywobble is intense anxiety or nervousness which I do not suffer from at all. I believe if one makes the appropriate plans then the success rate should be sufficient for one to succeed at a fairly high level thus reducing any need for anxiety or nervousness. Please do try to speak correctly as incorrect word usage annoys me. My mentor, wonderful lady, Sam Livy, taught me that one should always strive for perfection in one’s speech.”

  Dawn interrupted to ask, “If Sam is such a wonderful person why don’t we head to her house?”

  Alice gave a snort of disgust, “Does this British accent suggest I am from this misbegotten country? Now, try not to interrupt. You will learn more if you wait until you have all the information before asking questions. Sam was killed in the kerfuffle to take me as was Shawn Inmon when he attempted to step in to prevent my abduction. The two shared guardianship of me so now I have appointed you as my new guardian until such time as we find Santiago’s pack. I was told if things went wrong while in this country get to his territory and they would get me to safety. Not certain what they will do with you but we will concern ourselves with that when the time comes. They are a pack of honor so you will be fine there, if that is indeed where they leave you. If not they will send you to an alternative pack to live in safety and security until such a time as you decide the direction you wish your life to take. I would suggest a better education myself, but people rarely realize how lacking they are in this area. Now, this car formerly belonged to a lady named Tessa Escalera. You look nothing like her so I did not bother trying to get you an id with her name. Many agencies have a picture of the person on file and quite frankly I did not have time to hack every database with her information. Do try not to get stopped as all the paperwork on the car is still in her name. We will ditch the car later for something else. Preferable a rental, which you should not worry about at the moment. I will adjust the system of the rental agency to reflect the rental of whichever car we decide upon. The smell is something I concocted which you would not understand even if I explained it to you, so I will not waste my time doing so. The smell does temporarily incapacitate the males of our species so we will need to wash this smell off before we reach Santiago’s pack despite the fact the smell will dissipate to a degree over time. We will draw less attention to ourselves if we smell presentable when we make stops for petrol and food. About forty miles up the road on the left is a small motel. I have reserved us a room there for the night. I took the liberty to pack a bag for you based on an approximation of your size. You will find it in the back seat. We will not be staying at the motel of course, we just need to use the bathing facilities to clean up.” Dawn listened in awe as Alice continued to lay out the plans she had made over the last week. If they didn’t make it to this Santiago’s place safely she would be surprised. But by god the girl needed to learn a little humility. Dawn wasn’t sure she could make the whole trip if she had to listen to such arrogance from a nine year old. Her former guardians probably willingly died to get away from her.

  Chapter Six

  Marcus looked around the cabin as he led Trevor inside. He headed toward the kitchenette, “Want a beer man?”

  “Yeah, mate, might as well.” Trevor took his hat off and and tossed it on the coffee table in front of the couch. When Marcus looked back he saw Trevor had his elbows on his knees with this head in his hands.

  “It must have been bad.” He said as he walked back with two beers.

  “Bad? Yeah, you could say it was bad. Of course bad is an understatement.” Trevor caught the beer Marcus tossed him and sat it on the table. He stood up and took his shirt off and turned around. He heard the low whistle from Marcus at the sight of his scarred back.

  “What the hell did that and why are you showing it to me?”

  Trevor snorted, “Not what, who. Who did that would be more appropriate. Miranda and her hell-born clan turned on my pack when her precious daughter mated to a member of my pack and was later killed. She blamed my pack for allowing the mating. She claimed if my pack had not allowed the mating her daughter would not have been killed by a human hunting party. Understand I was young when the events happened, I never even met her precious daughter or her daughter’s mate. We had a large pack and I was still a child so some of the older pack members had never come into my sphere of acquaintances. Plus, like I said, I was a child and children don’t always pay attention to the events going on around them. But the voice as she rained down fire upon the pack haunts me in my dreams at night. My parents shielded me from the worst of it as they screamed in the death of her hell-fire. Your little witch sounds just like the voice I hear in my nightmares.

  Marcus whistled again, “No wonder you changed so fast. But Kate is still just a child to us. Granted she is mature but given my age anyone under a hundred is barely more than a child. She not only could not have been there that day, I doubt she knows what happened. Her parents have stayed away from clans and shifters both. Although from what we have discussed I think it was involuntary, the staying away from shifters. From my understanding shifters didn’t always see them, even when they were right in front of them. Almost like they had an invisibility spell on them or something. I think it rather strange others could not remember witches existed until their little Kate mated into my pack. It was almost as though it broke some sort of barrier.

  “Well if the barrier is down and shifters will begin to remember witches then Miranda is going to surface and come looking for the reason why. She will not rest until she finds out and destroys whoever broke the spell.”

  “What do you know of the spell? How many of your original pack survived? Did any of them besides you rememb
er witches?”

  “Besides me, four small children survived, shielded by the bodies of their parents. Two adults who were not in the territory that day, and their two teenage children survived also. They picked up the pieces and made arrangements for us to leave the old country and travel to Australia to start a new life. Along the way they managed to gather a few more orphans and some adults. None of the ones who made the trip were Alpha material though they did the best they could. Our pack was not poor so they had access to gold to give us a good start in the new lands. I think the gold is what got some of the others to follow us. Though I will say we did lose some over the years to the harshness of the land. The magic of our species does keep us hidden from the authorities, though looking like a freaking dingo to others is embarrassing. At least we can’t see what they see.”

  “Interesting. I wondered why Australia makes no claim to having wolves on the continent. Anyway, so what now? You came here with a plan to get your females mates even knowing you could lose them to other packs if they chose to stay. But now?”

  Trevor sat back in his chair with a far-away look on his face. Marcus watched him for a moment but Trevor’s face never changed expression other than the one tick just below his eye. Marcus leaned back in his chair and made himself comfortable. He should probably leave and let Trevor think things through but he had more questions he wanted answered. Why did Trevor’s wolf want to stay? What did he know of the spell?

  Marcus?

  Yeah Jaden what’s up?

  Have you found out any more about what Trevor knows?

  Not yet. Or rather, not much. I will say he showed me something to back up what happened in the cafe and if I carried around what he carries around I probably would have immediately gone for Kate’s throat out of survival instinct. Most of us would have if we had gone through what he went through. Marcus proceeded to tell Jaden what he had learned. He heard the mental whistle of his Beta when he relayed the picture now emblazoned in his mind of Trevor’s back.

  Amazing he survived at all with the primitive medicine back then.

  No shit. Doubt he would have if not for the shifter blood. I am going to try to find out more. I don’t need to tell you to keep this information to yourself but Jaden? Don’t let anyone know about Miranda and the clans and what happened to Trevor back then. We don’t need the pack to panic about Kate and what might be coming. Call William and Gammon and get them both back down here along with that long lost brother of his, Edward. We need to start planning not only the rescue of Dawn and the others, but the protections of the pack if the clans come calling. Best get Santiago in on it also. Damn, just when we get one step ahead life sends us two steps back.

  How much do you want me to tell William and the others?

  For now? Nothing. I want nothing said over a phone line at all. Get them here without telling them anything.

  And Trey’s pack?

  They are more suited to building robots and security measures than anything else. Get Trey over here if you think they can up the security technology beyond what we have now. We don’t need them to go on the next mission. I would like to keep the mission personnel down to a manageable group. In and out with all the females we can get. Even the ones who seem happy where they are, we won’t have time to sort through them. We can let Gammon sort them out after we get them free. And double down on getting Craig to work with Kate’s parents to learn whatever skills his mating has brought him. Tell him it has been a week and he needs to start learning what he can and can’t do with that damn freaky golden wolf.

  Yeah? How should I go about doing that oh fearless leader? He has me on the not-allow-to visit list because I piss him off. For that matter you on the list now also. Anyone who might mention the training he needs suddenly goes on the list. He has shut down the path-way to speak to him mentally. His wolf is not helping, so if you have a suggestion I am open to listen.

  Figure it out. We have one more week to get everyone on board. I want to hit that compound hard and fast. If we hit them too soon they will be ready for us. If we give them two weeks they will have just started to relax and probably will not have too many extra-precautions in place to stop us.

  I can get the Alphas here and William, but you better make alternate plans for Craig, The only one who might reach him is Kate. I will try to talk to her again. Maybe her parents will have some ideas. This is all my fault, no, I take it back, this is all Trey’s fault. Marcus heard the evil laughter through the bond. I say we get Trey to talk to Craig.

  I don’t care what you do, but tell Kate to get her mate in line if they want to help us rescue her friends.

  Chapter Seven

  “Look, you might be some super intelligent, super human but I am tired. We have to rest somewhere. Where is this town with the rental cars at? Can we get a van or something where we can sleep?”

  “I am not a super-human. I have explained to you before, I do what must be done. The rental car agency is in the next town. I have taken the liberty of renting us a suitable vehicle for the completion of the trip. We can stop at a cheap store after we get the vehicle and stock up on a few things. Now please stop talking to me. I am rather busy trying to save our lives if you haven’t noticed, or at least secure our futures.”

  “You know it wouldn’t hurt if you learned how to be just a tad bit humble and a lot more friendly. This trip sure would go easier if we could have some sort of conversation.”

  Dawn glanced over at Alice when she finished. Alice didn’t look up from the tablet in her lap but after a moment she began to speak.

  “I learned to talk before I learned to crawl and started reading before I walked. I have a degree in Chemical Engineering and I am working on other degrees. I have nothing in common with others my age and truthfully, the only thing I have in common with you is my species and the captivity we just escaped.” She looked up at Dawn before continuing, “Do you think we have any common ground to talk about?”

  “I, well, we could probably find something to talk about. You could tell me what you are working on now. I haven’t had anyone to really talk to in over a week. I miss my friends and I have no idea where we are going or what will happen when we get there.”

  “I can’t tell you what I myself do not know. I am trying to find leads to Santiago’s pack. I know the internet is not going to have a sign saying go this way so I have to dig to find clues. Most humans do not know we, as a species exist so I have to look for the subtle clues. A wolf sighting where no wolves should be. Something unusual which will lead us to, I hope, a general direction. My concern is the packs with honor are not stupid and they rarely do stupid things. So the amount of care in tracking down the right pack takes more searching. I have found what I believe to be another pack with honor. Although I do not have high hopes for your interpretation of what I have found I will tell you anyway. Sometimes you people see things differently.”

  “Excuse me? You people? What is that suppose to mean?”

  “Less educated people can often see subtleties which will escape less socially adept persons such as myself. What did you think I meant? Was that offensive? I can see by your face you were offended. Shawn did work with me on social interactions. I was a poor student. Now, a few months ago a marriage took place between the head of a robotics company called Pack Robotics and a young female. The man is, according to the reporter, excessive in protecting his privacy. The wording is a bit unusual in the interview with the reporter. Here, let me play it for you and tell me what you think. Pay special attention to the back ground noise.”

  As Dawn listened to the interview she recognized what had caught Alice’s attention. Barely heard in the background of the interview from an unknown person the word true-mate had filtered through the interview. But why would a shifter get married and give an interview to the press?

  “What does her face look like?”

  “Her face? You want me to describe the bride to you?”

  “No, I want, never mind the town is coming
up, give me directions to the rental agency. When we stop I want to watch the interview.”

  Twenty minutes later the two were back on the road in a different vehicle. Alice gave directions to a store where they could stock up on some essentials. Before going in the store Dawn watched the interview.

  “Her face, she is happy and true-mated. I know that look, I have seen it before. Find that pack and we will find safety. No female can be true-mated and that happy to a dishonorable male. At least, I don’t think they can be, and the reported said he protects his privacy to an excessive degree which tells me he is protecting his pack. Who knows, he may know how to find Santiago’s pack and they can get us there. Or maybe they will know how to find my friends.”

  “Those were my thoughts, except the conclusion she is happy and true-mated. Could be the words were a deliberate ruse to get females to surface toward their pack.”

  “Cynical much? Look, Alice, you are going to have to trust me to know what the face of a true-mating looks like. You can’t duplicate that kind of happiness. I have trusted you to get us out of captivity, trust me to know people. That female is happy, that male is happy, not the happiness of conquering and winning but the happiness of having the one person who completes you. Please, find that pack.”

  “Oh I found them hours ago. I have been researching all I could on the possibility they are a pack. I have concluded they most probably are shifters and the business dealings the company has are all above board. The company is not as profitable as they could be but they are one of the premier robotics companies in the world. The influx of money the company has suddenly come into in the last few months could be called questionable but only by someone digging deep. People do not donate that amount of money to a company as the records show happened immediately following the marriage. I tried to trace it back to the source but I need a bigger computer with more computing capacity to really find out everything.”