by Celeste Raye
“All I want to do is come back to you two. Nothing could keep me away longer than I have to be gone. This is where I want to be.”
That made her smile, but there was still a bit of sadness in her eyes, and he asked her what it was about.
She quickly wiped her face. “I don't know. I guess I am just trying to keep it together.”
He held her for a moment and told her that everything was going to be fine. Of course, he did not know if that was true or not, but Scott was convinced that she would not have been brought into his life for no reason.
Scott left and tried not to let the woman's words bother him. They had grown closer and he had gotten to know her more and more. The words that he remembered from Jack, were still playing in his head.
Jack had been far righter than he would have imagined. Something that he hadn't thought of, not even in passing, was now taking over his mind. Maybe it was time to move on. He needed to start new, and Scott knew that he wanted it to be with Vanessa. She was his next chapter.
When he got to the meeting that Jack had set up, it was a lot smaller than the rest of them that he had attended. There were fewer than twenty people there, and he only recognized Jack.
Jack waited a few minutes before he introduced everyone to Scott. Scott was a little nervous, but at the same time, he was excited to get things moving in the right direction. The idea that someone was working with the Franklin Organization made the smaller meeting even more valuable.
“I know that a lot of you are here for the first time, but we have a plan in place that we would like to talk about. As much flak as the idea of working with witches has gotten, I do not see a better scenario. We have worked with witches in the past, and it has worked out in our favor. I believe that we should do so again.”
Jack was speaking, and nobody was hollering out suggestions and causing chaos as they did at the other meeting. Here, it was a lot more civilized, and it felt like people were more than willing to go out of their way to make things work. Scott was starting to have hope that it actually could.
After Jack said his piece about the witches, there were a few questions about which coven Jack wanted to go with. There were a few suggestions thrown out and then a decision was made. Two covens were agreed upon, and the meeting was ended with the idea that they would be spoken to. They would get on board and then the plan would finally go to the next stage.
Scott was feeling optimistic, but then after the meeting, he started to get more and more information that disturbed him greatly.
He overheard several people talking, and there were more shifters that had gone missing in the last week than there had been in a year. It wasn't clear if there was that large of an uptick in kidnappings or if they just knew now what had been going on the whole time.
Either way, the Franklin Organization seemed to be doubling down, and that made Scott very anxious. It was scary to think that they could somehow get even worse than they were already.
He left not too long afterward and tried to find a positive spin to have on it. He was still waiting for the revenge that he felt he deserved, but at the same time, it was no closer than it had been when Shane was gone.
Scott didn't like to put his eggs in one basket, but he didn't seem to have a choice at the moment. They were going to have to rely on a bunch of witches for their safety. That was hard for Scott. Not only did they not trust witches in general, but he also did not believe that they would have the power to take out such a strong member of their own species.
Scott worried himself ragged on the way home. Jack's idea of bringing in witches was the best one that they had. That's the whole reason that he went to the meeting to begin with.
He did not care who or what took down the Franklin Organization, just the fact that it was gone for good from his life, was all that mattered to him. He wanted Shane to feel safe and be able to sleep without nightmares, convinced that some witch was going to come take him away and do more experiments on him.
When he got back to the house, there was an eerie feeling that came over him. The place was quiet, and Vanessa was not on the porch. He went to Shane’s room and saw that he was not there. It was too late into the night for his son to be up.
He called out their names and tried to beat back the panic that was coming up his chest and into his throat. Where the hell were they? The immediate answer was that they’d been taken. Scott knew that something was amiss. They wouldn’t have just left…
There was no sign of struggle, but that didn’t mean anything. He called out again, louder and more desperate, before he finally turned into his true form and started to sniff around. He was looking for the two that were most dear to him, and it wasn’t long before he was picking up their scent. All he had to do was find them.
Scott was worried, scared shitless really, ideas running through his mind that made it hurt. But he wasn’t going to stop until he found them. There was no blood, no broken glass, no smell of gunpowder. Scott wanted to believe that all of those things were good. It meant that nothing had happened to them yet. He just had to find them and make sure that didn’t change.
Chapter Nineteen
Vanessa had been awakened by a scream from Shane. She hadn't known at first what was going on but quickly realized that someone was in the house and trying to take Shane. She immediately went for the gun that had saved her before and made her way to the boy’s room.
Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and she worried about what was going to happen next, or what she was going to find when she got into his room. Sure enough, there was a witch there. It wasn’t a young and beautiful one like before. This time the witch was old and frail. She had thin white hair and a face that was wrinkled up in anger.
“Get out of here!”
She yelled at the same time that she shot, and this time she hit the mark the first time around. The witch dropped, but Shane yelled something about there was one behind her. His eyes were practically glowing a coal black and that threw her off for a moment.
She felt her body being thrown, and there was nothing she could do but fly across the room. Her body crumpling into a pile against the wall. Vanessa could see the second witch, and then a third one. They were forcing Shane out of the room. Vanessa looked around for the gun that had dropped out of her hand. One witch was down, so she had to only deal with the other two. The odds were getting better.
Then she saw the witch pick up Shane with some magic spell and he was hovering in the air. He thrashed around, and that did very little to help his cause.
None of the witches we're paying attention to Vanessa at the moment. They were far more worried about Shane.
“We told you that we would come back for you. Did you really think that your father could keep you safe? He left you with a human.”
“I am not going back.”
Vanessa knew that Shane was scared, but there was a fierceness in the way that he spoke. She felt it in her soul, and Vanessa knew that he was hurting. She wanted to help, and since they weren't looking at her, she was able to make her way towards the gun.
The gun went off, and it hit the redheaded witch in the shoulder. She cried out and flew back. The last one standing turned to her and threw a bolt towards Vanessa. She felt it in her chest, and the air was taken out of her lungs.
While Vanessa was gasping for breath, the witch that was standing over her looked around the room.
“You really have made a mess of things. I was hoping to get out of here, without cleaning up. Oh well.”
She helped the second witch that got shot in the shoulder to her feet, calling her Gabby. She said a spell over her, and the woman seemed to heal enough to be able to move around.
“Clean this up. We are not going to be able to leave it in such a way. The father will know what is happening and will come after us. It is better if we can get a little bit of space between us before that happens.”
In front of Vanessa’s eyes, the whole room started to be repaired. Every lamp
that was broken was put back right, and everything that was thrown was put in its place. It looked like nothing had happened, and Vanessa was shocked and dismayed to see it. At least if Scott knew something was up, he would come for them. Now, he would come home, and they would just be gone.
Vanessa wasn't even sure if that was true or not though, because the last time the witches had not deemed it necessary to leave Shane’s mother alive. It made her think that her death would be as easy to manage as the other woman's. She would just be taken care of, and there was nothing she could do about it. Most likely, she would never be found.
The idea was the depressing, but she didn't care. While the hurt witch was trying to fix everything, the other one was taking care of the body of the first. Vanessa wasn’t able to move, but everything inside of her was sending encouragement to Shane. He was going to need it.
He looked different than what she remembered, and the other witch seemed to notice. She seemed rather pleased.
“Now let’s go before he gets too worked up.”
Everything was put back right and Vanessa, as well as Shane, were dragged magically out of the house. They left not a trace behind them. It was like they were never in the cabin at all.
A mile away, Shane was fighting harder against the spell, and the witches stopped. They were in the middle of the woods, and Vanessa could see that there was no help coming. This was the end. It had to be. They would dispense of her soon.
“Look at him go. Our little booster is ready. He can do it on his own now. It won’t be long. As soon as we get him to Serena, this will all end.”
“What did you do to him? Let him go! You’re hurting him. Can’t you see that?”
The hooked-nose which turned her attention to Vanessa, and for a moment, Vanessa regretted saying a word. The woman’s stare was eating into her, and she just wanted her to stop. It was unnerving.
“We have helped evolution. Witches need more power, and shifters need a purpose. We have done both. The shifters that remain will be our pets. They’re animals, and they belong at our feet, doing our bidding.”
Vanessa was just as confused as when she had asked the question, but it was clear that the witch had no desire in satiating her curiosity. Soon, the witch visibly tired of her.
“Well, dearie, I don't think that we need you anymore, and we’re far enough away that you won’t be discovered for a time. Do you have any last words?”
The question threw her off because she hadn't thought about it. Vanessa had always figured that something would happen, someone would save them, and this wouldn't be the end. But if it was, what would she say?
She turned to Shane and told him to be brave. “Everything is going to be alright, and your father was will never stop looking for you. He will find you again, bring you home, and end these witches. You have to believe that.”
The witch made a scoffing sound and then told Vanessa that it wasn't nice to make promises that she couldn't keep. Vanessa didn't think that she was. She knew the conviction that Scott had and even if he couldn't save her, he could save his son, and that was worth more to Vanessa at the moment. She did not want to see anything else happen to Shane. The child had been through enough, and she found herself loving him much like he was her own. She failed to protect him.
“Be safe, Shane. You do what you have to do to make that so. You are stronger than you think.”
He looked at her confused and then started to shake. Vanessa thought he was having a seizure, but there was something else at play. She could see that the boy changed into the same thing that his father did, though Vanessa would have never imagined that he would be so big. Shane was at least four times as big as a regular lion, and that didn’t seem possible to Vanessa.
She thought that it was the end, but it wasn’t. The boy started to grow even bigger, his eyes black as night now, and he started towards the witch. She sent a bolt towards him, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.
“What are you doing, Shane? You are ours now! You make us stronger!”
“I’m not your pet.”
Shane jumped on the witch, and Vanessa heard a crunching sound. The witch wasn’t going to make it, and she watched as Shane finished her off and then moved to the hurt witch. She wanted to say something, do something, but she was in a lot of pain and rooted to the ground. The ten-year-old boy saved her.
The woods were loud, and it was hard to focus. Shane ran to her as a little boy again, and she wrapped her arms around him.
“You saved me, Shane. How strong you are!”
Shane grinned, and for a moment, the two of them were able to breathe again. They had traveled quite a distance from the house, and she didn’t know her way back. The two walked, hopefully in the right direction, and she was doing her best to make sure that there weren’t any more witches around.
“What did she mean by you were supposed to make them strong?”
“I am like a booster for magic now. They did something to my DNA. I don’t know what, but I have felt different for a while.”
“Your dad doesn’t think you’re old enough to shift.”
“That wasn’t my first time.”
“Well, it was a lot to see, Shane. You were huge. How did you get so big?”
He shrugged, and she decided that it was best just to leave it at that. Vanessa had so many questions, but it wasn’t going to be Shane that answered them.
“I am proud of you, Shane. I know you must have been scared. I was too, but you saved us.”
“You saved me before.”
Vanessa smiled and pulled him closer beside her. She was going to start crying if she didn’t give them some space. The last couple of weeks had been an emotional rollercoaster. It was too much.
“Dad is close. He will take us home.”
Vanessa didn’t even ask how he knew. She didn’t know if Shane was just that way, or if the witches had given him some kind of power. There was a lot more there that Vanessa needed to talk to his dad about. Scott needed to know what was going on. They also needed to find another place to go. The witches kept finding them, and they needed to know how.
“Well, good, because honestly I don't want to walk the whole way back. I don't even know how far we are and I'm starting to think we went the wrong way. It doesn't feel like we should still be out here. We should have seen something by now.”
Shane didn't seem too worried about it.
“Let's just let him find us. I am starting to get tired. Shifting is a lot of work. Dad told me that it would hurt, but he didn’t tell me how tired it would make me.”
They sat down and leaned back against a tree. She held the little boy, and he started to fell asleep against her shoulder. There was a moment that she had been afraid something was going to happen to him, and now she was convinced that she was lucky that Shane was there. He had saved her, even though it was her job to keep him safe.
Chapter Twenty
Scott picked up their trail not too far away from the house. It was clear that something was covering it up, some kind of magic, but he was better than the magic. It became clear to him rather that the witches were involved once again. He didn't know how they had gotten the two of them out of the house without a fight but it didn't matter. What mattered was they were still alive.
When he got to place where they had been, he immediately saw that this was where chaos ensued. Again, there were dead witches. One was shot, and two were mauled. Scott did not know what to think. He knew that something had happened, something bad, but the witches had not prevailed. It didn't make sense that if Shane and Vanessa were saved, that they kept walking further away from the house.
He picked up the trail and left the witches to rot. It was good riddance as far as he was concerned. Scott was starting to feel like much of the other shifters. Maybe getting witches involved in a witch problem was the last thing they needed to do. How would they ever know who was loyal and who wasn't?
He stayed in his shifted form for a little bit longer, be
cause his senses were better that way. They weren't walking very fast, and it didn't take long to come upon them. They were both leaned against a tree, sleeping. Or that's at least what he thought they were doing.
He called out to Vanessa and Shane once he had turned back into his human form. Shane ran to his father and jumped into his arms. Vanessa was a little bit more standoffish, but he didn't care. He pulled her against him and felt a wave of relief. Scott had the very real feeling that he wasn't going to keep coming up so lucky. How many times was his family going to break all the odds and come out ahead?
Scott started to ask a bunch of questions, but Vanessa shook them off. “Why don't we get back to the house and get some things together? We can talk about it on the way to the next place.”
“I haven't even gotten that far yet, but you're right. We need to get some distance between us and them. I have a feeling that when the witches don't come back, they are just going to send more.”
“Vanessa is right. I don't think they're ever going to stop coming after us.”
Shane was adamant, and Scott had no comment. It was becoming clear that the target on his son’s back was never going to go away.
Vanessa had this look of dread in her eyes, and it bothered Scott. Shane was looking the same way. Even though he was dying to ask what had happened, he could tell that Vanessa did not want to talk about it at the moment. Shane neither. What had gone on back there?
Scott gave them both a ride on his back. Vanessa was reluctant for a few moments, but when he told her that he could get her back in minutes, she was down for it. The last thing that Vanessa wanted to do was walk home. The witches could be there long before they were.
The bags that they had used to pack were quickly refilled, and a few more supplies were added to the mix. They loaded up with their SUV and started down the highway in another direction. Vanessa didn't even ask where they were going, and Scott was thankful for that. He didn't know what to tell her.
