by Cara Adams
“Hell yes. A real school will be wonderful. My old school wasn’t fantastic, but I didn’t know how bad a school could be until we had to move. Animals in the jungle behave better than some of those kids.”
Favian called back over his shoulder, “We’re not promising that this is the world’s greatest school either, but the pack send all their teenagers there, and they wouldn’t do that if it was a jungle.”
“How much do you know about shape-shifters, JJ?” asked Brayden.
Elsie tensed. She wasn’t exactly sure about the answer to this question herself. She would have liked a little time alone with JJ before the trip to make sure he understood a few things, but she hadn’t had the opportunity. Of course he knew about shifters, but…
“Mom explained about shape-shifters when she did the whole Santa Claus, tooth fairy thing. I was likely seven, and I already knew about Santa and about werewolves. Looking back now, it was all rather weird. On the one hand, she was saying that people can turn into wolves and, on the other, that a man in a red suit who everyone had seen heaps of times isn’t real. At the time it made sense to me, though. One of the kids in my class in the first grade was a wolf. You people are the first panthers I’ve ever met that I know about, but one of the kids in the gang was a wolf. I knew the moment I saw him run away from a job. No one moves that fast and that…I don’t know, smoothly maybe? Kind of like a dancer, only running. Anyway I knew.”
“Thank you, JJ. You’ll be fine.”
“No, thank you. Elsie was doing her best for me, and it wasn’t mom’s fault she got sick, but that neighborhood was toxic. We were going to have to move because we couldn’t survive there. I’m glad she found you people.”
“We’re glad she did, too. Elsie means a lot to us,” said Amory.
Heat raced through Elsie. The warmth in his voice tugged at her heart and her cunt and everywhere in between. She wanted to stay with the men forever. Maybe it wouldn’t work out, but she sure hoped it did.
* * * *
Brayden had taken over the driving from Favian after two and a half hours, and that was almost two hours ago so he had maybe an hour left to drive, or perhaps a little less. The route was an easy one, and traffic wasn’t that heavy. The standard joke in Michigan was that there were only two seasons, winter and construction. Well, they’d gotten lucky so far today. It wasn’t winter, and there’d been very little construction. He just hoped that didn’t mean they were about to meet up with an endless series of workers digging up the road.
He flicked his gaze up to the rearview mirror again. It had been ten minutes or more since a white car had come racing up behind them driving like a bat out of hell. But instead of passing them, which it could easily have done, it’d dropped back, sitting a couple of hundred yards behind them now and traveling the same speed as them, which happened to be the speed limit.
Brayden wondered if the driver had a CB radio and there were police ahead booking speeding motorists, so he eased off the accelerator a bit, dropping to two miles under the speed limit. There was no sense in risking a fine unnecessarily.
Amory had his nose in his iPad again, typing away on the screen, and Favian seemed to be taking a nap. In the back row of the minivan, Elsie and her brother were talking quietly. Brayden couldn’t remember the last time they’d taken a road trip as a family. Likely not since they’d actually come from the UP to Ohio to live. When they were kids, summers had been spent on the lake. Surrounded by a national forest, and with Lake Superior to the north and Lake Michigan to the south, nothing was much more than an hour’s travel from them.
It was only once they were adults, and the business had expanded to support the entire pack, that travel down to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin had started to become a problem. Their current location was much more central.
Brayden had been watching closely, but there was no sign of a police speed camera, and the other car had maintained the same distance from them, even though he’d slowed slightly. Starting to feel suspicious, Brayden dropped his speed still farther from sixty-eight to sixty-five and then sixty-three.
Amory looked up. “What’s the problem? Are you tired? Is it my turn to drive?”
Brayden didn’t want to say anything. Likely he was being paranoid. “Sorry. I wasn’t concentrating.” He increased his speed slowly, and as unobtrusively as possible, inching up to seventy and then seventy-five.
The car behind them copied him, maintaining the same two-hundred-yard distance. Well damn. The driver would know Brayden had discovered him, and if he was being followed, trouble might be just around the corner.
“Is everyone wearing their seat belt?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Sure.”
“Why?” asked Amory.
Trust the Alpha to have worked out there was a problem.
“Likely it’s just my imagination, but the white car behind us raced up really fast, then when it got close to us, it dropped back and has stayed there. I slowed down so it could pass us, but it’s still there.”
“And now you’ve speeded up, and it knows you know,” said Favian.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“JJ, climb over into the back and get the coats. Toss them over to Elsie,” ordered Amory.
The boy instantly did as he’d been told while Brayden concentrated on riding the curves in the road, lifting his hands off the steering wheel from time to time to get a feel for how well balanced the wheels were and whether the steering was slightly off center. It all looked good to him.
“Elsie, get your coat and another one and put them on the floor by Favian and then lie down. JJ, you get a couple of coats and lie on the floor by the backseat. If they’re looking for anyone, it’ll be you two.”
Brayden was starting to get a bad feeling about this. He wasn’t a stunt driver. “We’re about ten, fifteen minutes from the Mackinac Bridge.”
“Do you think they’ll try to push us off the bridge?” asked JJ.
The boy was trying to sound brave, but Brayden suspect there was a very real fear behind that question. Fortunately Favian, ever the joker asked, “Why? Don’t you like swimming?”
“Fully dressed, inside a minivan, and a couple of hundred feet above the lake? Not really, no,” said JJ.
Brayden laughed. “Good answer.”
“There’s a lot of steel in the bridge. I think it’d be harder to push us off there than just about anywhere else,” said Favian.
“Hi, Dad. We might have collected a barnacle. We’re coming up to the bridge, and he’s just sitting behind us.”
There was a pause, and then Amory said, “Yes. Uh-huh. That’s what I thought. Okay. Sounds good.”
Brayden listened hard, but he couldn’t hear anything their father was saying. Well, no doubt Amory would give them enough information to deal with the problem. He supposed it was fair enough that he’d been driving. Favian could protect Elsie and JJ, and Amory would guide their rescuers, or someone, to make a diversion and help them out.
“Get off I-75 at St. Ignace. Go north and take 123 into the forest. The pack should be able to get there in time to meet us,” said Amory.
“That’s all good, but what about the bridge?” asked Brayden.
“Drive fast on it. Don’t worry about a ticket at a time like this,” suggested Favian.
“A ticket might be good. With the police hanging around us, the white car will disappear. But I’m going to feel like seven kinds of an idiot if it’s just an innocent traveler who realized they’d been speeding and decided to slow down,” he said.
“Except that you’ve sped up again, and so have they,” said Elsie.
Yeah. There was that. He hoped to hell everyone was correct and no one would be interested in causing trouble on the bridge. He recalled it as having a lot of steel wires and things. But he still suspected a damn hard push at high speed would have them flying off the roadway and into the water.
* * * *
Amory felt guilty. H
e’d been so busy answering his damn e-mails and reading reports that he hadn’t even noticed the car tailing them. Now he tried to keep his head down as if he was still looking at his iPad while simultaneously trying to learn all he could about the car behind them. It might look easy in the movies, but it was damn difficult in real life. Every time the car came into view and he tried to read the license plate, they’d go around a bend or the car would move more directly behind them or something else would happen. It must have taken him four or five miles before he was certain he’d correctly identified the plate so he could text it to one of his business contacts.
Being followed. Who are these people?
On it.
Well, that was good news. Probably. The traffic was slowing down considerably. Brayden edged ahead of several cars, squeezing into a gap and placing three vehicles between them and the white car.
“Nicely done, bro.”
“Hey, the bridge is a major tourist attraction. It’s important our guests get to see it.”
“Does this mean I can get up off the floor now?” asked Elsie.
Amory looked around. There seemed to be some holdup ahead, and they were in a steady stream of slow traffic.
“Yes, sure. But the moment we get to St. Ignace on the other side, you and JJ need to be on the floor, understand?”
“Yes, sir.” That was JJ already peering out the window.
Elsie was slower, taking the seat beside Favian and staring out her window.
The reason for the delay was explained when they reached the entrance to the bridge, as there was a tour bus and the people had gotten out to take pictures of the bridge. Once they got on the bridge proper, the traffic sped up though, and the journey was over quite quickly. The tension roiled in Amory’s gut. He wanted JJ and Elsie back on the floor, yet he didn’t want to spoil their chance to see the view. The bridge was a major tourist attraction after all. He kept looking behind them, but no one had overtaken them. Likely Brayden was a better driver than him. His brother seemed to be judging everything perfectly. Nevertheless once they reached the streets of St. Ignace, he ordered, “Get down please, Elsie and JJ.”
He tried to work out how fast Zebulun would have been able to get the pack to assist them. Likely they could be driving here while they were still working out tactics, so they would have left almost immediately. Although, on the other hand, it was a regular business day. Perhaps everyone was at work and only the old men would have been around. That wouldn’t be a whole lot of help to him. Damn! He needed a diversion, and he needed it fast.
Did Zebulun have a deal with the police up here? Likely not. Their reclamation of stolen property was mostly done well south of here, which was why they’d moved to Ohio in the first place. Damn and hell! How was he to protect Elsie? What if they were forced off the road?
“Well, fuck.” Brayden’s words were only just above sound level, but Amory looked in the side mirror and saw the white car overtaking the vehicles between them.
Brayden pulled out into the other lane and moved faster, sliding in front of a bus that tooted him and then turning a corner quickly and speeding up even more.
They left the town doing ten miles an hour over the speed limit and headed north as instructed. Since almost all the traffic stayed on the interstate and headed west, this wasn’t such a good idea. Brayden accelerated even more, both hands steady on the steering wheel, eyes fixed ahead of them.
That was okay. Amory was watching behind.
His cell phone beeped, and his father said, “It’s organized. Five miles down 123 is a furniture van. Drive straight inside it and stay there.”
The phone went dead before he could comment. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I need to know more.
But he didn’t. His father was making all the decisions, and Amory had to obey. It made him feel as though he was in kindergarten again. He had to trust his father with unquestioning obedience. That was something he, as an Alpha and a Dom, was no longer used to doing.
He relayed the instructions, and Brayden just grunted. That was when Amory wondered how Brayden would do it. Drive really fast to stay ahead of the white car, race up a ramp and into a furniture van, and then stop.
Fucking hell. That was impossible. Brayden drove well. They all had been taught proper driving skills. But he wasn’t a stunt driver. Dammit. Likely the minivan would roll over instead of going up the ramp or end up with its engine buried in the cab of the furniture van!
* * * *
Elsie had been one of the shortest kids in her grade for most of her time in school. When she’d had a growth spurt in the sixth grade, she’d hoped she was finally going to catch up to the other kids, and for about six months, she held on to that hope firmly with both hands.
Then the last couple of girls in her grade started growing taller, and once again, she was back at the end of the height line, the third shortest, the second shortest, and then the shortest.
But now, lying on the floor of the minivan, someone’s coat wrapped over her head and shoulders, and her own thick coat cushioning her ribs from the floor of the vehicle, she discovered being short was actually pretty good. This was the kind of minivan with the engine underneath the front seats. She braced her shoulders against the raised fabric of the carpet covering where the engine was beneath the passenger seat, her feet against the wall of the other side of the car, and gripped onto the seat supports of the chair she’d been sitting in with both hands.
She was just starting to think it was working pretty well when Brayden accelerated swiftly, launching the minivan forward like a rocket and slamming her back into the metal of the box protecting the engine. Wow. That carpet didn’t do a thing to cushion the metal. She wiggled the coat over her head, pulling it down farther past her shoulders. But that meant letting go of the seat supports, and when Brayden raced the car around a bend, her body smashed forward. Her head knocked against the metal seat supports, and her feet bashed into Favian’s shins.
“Sorry,” she murmured, trying to straighten her body out and grip onto the metal with her spare hand simultaneously.
An “oomph” from the other side of the seat indicated JJ was having a similar problem, but she wasn’t going to take the coat off her head to look. The last thing she needed was a concussion, or glass from a broken window landing on her exposed skin.
Elsie braced herself more carefully as Brayden gunned the engine around a series of bends, but when the car almost went onto two wheels on a turn, her body once again crashed backward into the engine casing. Only the sure knowledge that hitting it would hurt less than hitting the exposed metal of the seat supports prevented her from rolling over and facing in the other direction.
They must have turned onto a different road because the noise of the wheels on the road surface sounded harsher now, and there were a lot more twists and turns. Elsie’s hands were getting sore from holding on, but letting go wasn’t an option.
At least her feet in their sturdy boots had found a good place to brace her body against the side of the minivan.
“Slow down!” yelled Amory.
“Keep your shirt on. I saw the sign.”
Apparently Brayden’s idea of slow didn’t match with hers because, once again, her body rolled, and she gripped the metal support tightly.
The tinny, distant voice of an older man said, “Brake as soon as you see the furniture van. There are no vehicles ahead of you, and we’ll deal with the pursuers.”
Furniture van?
Elsie didn’t have time to ponder on what the man meant as Brayden skidded around a tight bend and then braked so hard the back of the car lifted off the ground and Elsie lost her grip. Her spine thumped hard into the metal, and then she slid inexorably back the other way until her legs were jammed far underneath the seats.
The car moved very slowly now up an incline, which meant she could get her arms free, and then it stopped. There was a loud metal banging noise, and the small amount of vision Elsie’d had from underneath the coat disa
ppeared.
“What the fucking hell? I’m going to be covered in bruises,” groaned JJ.
Elsie pushed the coat off her head, wiggled backward, and twisted her feet, trying to free them. One boot came loose, but the other didn’t, so she sat up and used her hands to grip her leg and wiggle it until her boot was set free.
They began to move, bumping slowly forward. Elsie looked out of the window and saw nothing. Favian, sitting on the seat where her leg had been caught, was a pale glimmer in the minivan, but outside, it was black.
“Where the fuck are we?” asked JJ, leaning over the seat and looking at the men.
Elsie climbed up onto the seat and echoed him. “I’d like to know that as well.”
“Inside a furniture van. We’re safe. Now shut up while Amory deals with his people,” said Favian.
Elsie sank back into her seat, wanting to know what was going on but not willing to risk interrupting Amory if something vital was about to happen. Then she inched away from the seatback. One section of her back hurt like hell. She must have bruised it.
It seemed like a very long time indeed as the furniture van bumped some more along a track, but likely it wasn’t really more than ten minutes until Amory’s cell phone rang again.
“My men have caught your pursuers. The furniture van will stop soon. You might want to talk to some of them.”
“Is it people from the gang?” asked JJ.
Elsie felt ill. Had her desire to help her brother escape almost gotten them all killed?
The furniture van stopped, and there were noises behind them. Elsie watched out the back of the minivan as one of the doors opened and a group of people climbed into the van. Several men pushed other men up into the van, and then someone else was lifted much more gently inside it. Was one of them hurt?
The door was locked again, and then a moment later, the engine began, and the van moved off, a little faster than before. It bumped along the track for a distance and then must have turned onto a proper road because the ride became smooth and they moved much faster.
