by Sammie Joyce
Shane gave him a look and headed toward the front door.
“Where are we going?” Dimitri asked.
“I guess you can’t read minds?” Shane walked out without telling him where they were headed.
4
It finally happened, Ranson said to himself. He was standing outside of the restaurant watching all the commotion that had occurred since the 911 call that had gone haywire and caused Sarah to flee.
Ranson knew all the signs of her changing for the first time and it could be scary for her, for anyone that didn’t know what was going on or how to control it. She should have been taught how to handle her change, to recognize the signs, but her parents never taught her how to do that. Well, the people she had thought were her parents.
Sarah’s abilities were supposed to manifest years ago, but they hadn’t. He had waited patiently but to no avail. He had started to get discouraged when she hadn’t exhibited any signs of her abilities, even when he had taken matters in his own hands and had staged an accident that had caused her parent’s death. He had thought that would have broken her. But she was strong and resilient. Maybe he shouldn’t have made it look like an accident, instead, murder with intent – like it was. Maybe that would have broken her and caused her to change earlier. It was too late now… the damage was done. Now she had finally shown great signs of her abilities.
People, like his wife, didn’t understand why he kept an eye on her. She thought his efforts could have been used on someone else that was more worthy of them. Sarah was a waste of time and resources, to her and the rest of his team and there was a time when he started to believe them. He didn’t give up though. He continued to follow her and watch her from his favorite booth in the restaurant, waiting for it to happen. And, when it did tonight, as with all shifters when their body started changing, she started to get very ill and he didn’t know why. He wondered if she had sensed the danger? The danger going on inside her body and the danger that was waiting for her on the outside. There were two different groups that were looking for her, who had been watching her, and he needed to make sure that they didn’t get to her before he did.
He had been thinking long and hard about taking her to his facility where he could observe her and where she couldn’t hurt herself or be hurt in the process of learning about her abilities. However, he knew it was better to let her shift naturally because a lot of things could go wrong when in a controlled environment. She was a late bloomer for sure. So, what could have triggered it now?
It didn’t matter. He could figure all of that out in the lab. Right now, he needed to focus on finding her, which wouldn’t be that hard. All he had to do was follow the bear and the vampire. These government-sanctioned teams were ridiculous. All they did was follow rules and procedures that hindered them from getting anything done because they had to make sure that they did things in a certain way to please those above them. He was glad that he ran the show. He didn’t have to worry about doing things to please his superiors. He was the boss.
Ranson looked behind him and located the men that were part of his team. He signaled to them when the bear and the vampire made their way out of the restaurant. They were trained to use lethal force when taking care of the trackers. That was, after they got the girl. They knew what to do at that time. Right now, they would just have to follow them.
He was anxious, but his trackers knew that they needed to find Sarah and bring her home. There was no excuse for failure. He had been waiting years to learn from her. Sarah had no idea about who her real parents were, but he did, and he knew what she was capable of. Her parents were exceptional, with amazing abilities and he knew that hers would only top theirs. He knew that he could use her for many thing, but he had to capture her first.
Now, the bear and the vampire had left the restaurant and his team went after them, he should clear the scene. He didn’t want anyone to recognize him. He had been eating at the restaurant on a regular basis and that gave him a good alibi, and why he was a bystander to what happened. However, he didn’t need anyone else from his former life, or who he worked with at the facility, to recognize him. He didn’t want them to know what he was up to since he was supposed to have stopped watching over Sarah. They had no idea that he had kept her in his sights for this long, and they wouldn’t be around to see him win in this case.
Dimitri entered the diner ahead of Shane. One of the many reasons that he was Shane’s right-hand was because he had abilities that the others didn’t. He, like all other vampires, had what was known as Vampire Voodoo. This was how vampires were able to track their prey so easily.
Shane had never been close to a vampire before Dimitri. The two had been forced to work on an investigation together. Shane told Dimitri from the beginning that he didn’t trust him and was only working with him until he had too. That was until Shane got a glimpse of what Dimitri could do. From that day forward, he wanted the vampire on his team and trusted him more than anyone.
His abilities were like that of a psychic. He walked into the room and he didn’t talk to anyone. There was still commotion going on. There were patrons, the cook and another waitress in the restaurant talking to some of the paramedics. Not to mention the police that had attended when Sarah fled the scene.
He didn’t speak to anyone. He wanted to see what happened for himself and not have the story tainted by what they had to say. He walked in the room and put his hand on the table in the corner. A flash of an older man in his late fifties, early sixties, was sipping on a cup of coffee and staring in the general vicinity of where a young, sick waitress was standing. He had a creepy smile on his face and it kind of gave Dimitri a weird vibe. He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t there to focus on the guy and what was going on in his mind. He was trying to find out more about the waitress that the man was looking at. He had a good idea that was Sarah.
The woman started sweating. He could see her cheeks flushing and beads of sweat running down the back of her neck. He could hear her heart overdoing it and could sense the heat rising up inside of her. He was aware that his body was encountering its first change. She had no idea what she was happening to her body and he could smell the fear emanating out from her.
All of these events flashed through his eyes as he touched different parts of the room. People looked over in his direction but he was used to it. He just kept doing what he was doing, as Shane followed behind him to make sure that no one disturbed him. He needed to have full concentration.
Dimitri stopped at one of the booths in the far back and hung out there for a few moments. His eyes widened and he turned abruptly. “She went that way!” He jogged out the front door of the restaurant and out into the street.
Shane knew that he must have been sniffing around and he followed right behind him. “What do you smell?” he asked the vampire.
“She ran that way!” He pointed in the direction of the woods.
“Why would she run through there?”
Dimitri rolled his eyes. “She was scared. She had no idea what was happening to her. And she recognized two of the paramedics and they frightened her. That was one of the main reasons she ran and turned into a rat,” he said.
“Wait! She turned into a rat?” Shane asked. “She had never changed before and the first thing she turned into was a rat?” He laughed out loud. “You had me for a minute.”
Dimitri had a scowl on his face. “I’m not joking. She ran out of the restaurant into these woods and without a second thought, turned into a rat and kept going. I’m telling you that if we continue heading in this direction we will find her,” he reassured his boss.
Shane eyed the vampire. He had a puzzled look on his face, he didn’t know what to do or say. He was at a loss for words.
“Excuse me, sir?” A young woman was trying to get his attention. It was the waitress from the diner. She was holding out a picture to him. “I found a picture of Sarah you asked for.”
Shane took the picture out of her hand and looked at
the three people in it. It was the cook, the young waitress and a young girl that must have been Sarah. They were all smiling profusely and wearing St. Patrick’s Day hats. “Thank you,” he said.
Dimitri watched Shane as he studied the picture. The bear put his hand over the girl’s face and a tear fell down his cheek. If he didn’t know any better, Shane felt something for this shifter and Dimitri didn’t know how he felt about that.
“We need to keep moving forward, boss. We don’t want to lose her. Her scent is still fresh. It makes tracking her a little bit easier,” he tried to reassure Shane and have him focus on the mission at hand.
“I don’t know how I feel about your idea of her shifting into a rat. But you have never been wrong before, so I’ll follow you and see what we come up with. I do know that we aren’t going to get anything accomplished if we stay here,” Shane said gruffly.
Dimitri took that as a win for the moment and led them into the woods. He needed to keep an eye on his partner. He had never seen him look at a girl that way as he did with the picture and he hoped the girl wouldn't get in the way of what they were trying to accomplish.
He looked over his shoulder and Shane was slowly following behind him, eyes fixed on the people in the picture.
5
Sarah turned her head to glance back at the commotion in front of the diner and continued to run right into the forest, tripping over some twigs in the process. She needed to get away as fast as she could. She didn’t know who those men were and what they wanted with her. She just knew that they were the same men who had been following her around for a while, and they were dangerous. She could feel it deep inside her gut and it scared her to her very core.
She ran faster and faster until she could feel her heart beating furiously in her chest. She could hear footsteps close behind her and she frantically hid behind a tree. I wish I could make myself smaller, she thought to herself. They were bound to find her at any given moment and she didn’t know how to protect herself.
After the footsteps dissipated, she ran the other direction as she remembered a place where she could hide. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and she started running faster than she had ever run before. The fear was getting to her. She could hear new sounds and see things that she had never noticed before. It was like her senses were on high alert, especially her sense of smell.
The abandoned building came into view and another shot of adrenaline shot through her legs and pushed her closer to the entrance. There was a little opening in the door that she knew she could squeeze through if she turned sideways. Without slowing down, or taking a moment to think things through, she shifted her body in midstride and leapt through the tiny opening. She landed on her feet, which was unusual for her routine clumsiness. However, she pushed any questions she had about her movements aside and blamed it on her urge to survive. She knew that instincts could cause a person to act out of character and it was nothing more than that. She had bigger things she needed to be wary of right now than why she hadn’t fallen on her face the moment her feet landed on the concrete floor.
She collected herself for a few seconds and looked around the abandoned warehouse. It had once been owned by some company but now it was a neon beacon that flashed itself to every known drug dealer in the area. She looked up and noticed how big and wide the warehouse really was and wondered what type of people and animals had found a home in this place. Now that she thought about it, she wondered if this was actually a safe place. Should she take her chance and stay in the warehouse or take her chance out in the woods?
Sarah took a deep breath and worked on calming her nerves. She needed to come up with a real plan and standing there in the middle of the room wondering what was going to happen next was not helping the situation at all. Her hand reached for her back pocket where she kept her phone. The first thing she could do was turn on her flashlight and have a decent look around. Then she wouldn’t be in the dark anymore, figuratively and literally.
Her hand brushed against fur and she recoiled in confusion. She tried again and came back with the same results. Panic started to rise. She thought of all of the creatures that the fur could be connected to and what they would do to her. Paralysis started to rise in her body yet again, she didn’t move for fear of what was going to happen. If only she could get to her phone, she would be able to turn on her flashlight and possibly scare away or at least identify the creature that was standing right behind her.
The instinct to run was so great that she had to force herself to think like her legs were full of lead so that she would stay where she was until she figured out her next move. Running was a viable option. However, she had no idea where she would run too because the danger outside was just as great as the danger she felt inside the warehouse.
What do I do now? The question screamed throughout her brain.
She was left without anything besides a gut-wrenching fear for her life.
Shane was slowly following behind Dimitri and staring at the photograph in his hand. He had seen this girl before, but he didn’t know where, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was oddly familiar. He would have remembered meeting her before. He was good with faces and smells. The scent that she had left in the diner was of nothing he had ever smelt before. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was intoxicating.
“Will you hurry up?!” Dimitri yelled behind him. “I have never known you to drag your feet when we’re on a mission. What’s wrong with you?”
He looked up from the picture and realized that he was trailing behind Dimitri in the woods. “What are we doing here?” he asked confused.
“Are you alright, boss?” Dimitri looked his big frame up and down. “Did something happen to you at the diner that I’m unaware of? I know that warmbloods are affected by things that do not harm our kind at all.”
“No, I’m just confused by this picture,” Shane responded. “This is the girl that we are looking for and I have no idea why, but I know that I've seen her before. I just can’t place her and it’s driving me crazy.”
Dimitri leaned over and stared at the picture Shane was holding out in front of him. “She doesn’t look like anyone I’ve met. I could check your memories, but you have them closed off to me.”
“And for good reason,” Shane spat back. “You don’t need to be roaming around in my head. Can we get on with this case? We need to find Sarah and take her in for questioning.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.” Dimitri stared Shane right in the face. “You’ve been in your own world and you haven’t been listening to me. I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes, but your face has been buried in that ridiculous picture. Let me have it!”
No,” Shane growled. He swiped his hand at Dimitri in a gesture of ownership and stuck the picture in his pocket.
Dimitri stepped back and stared at Shane in confusion. “Okay, you can keep the picture. I just need you to listen to me. Can we work on this case now and you can come back to the picture later?”
Shane nodded in agreement, but he was also concerned, as well as astounded, at his own behavior when it came to the picture. He still didn’t understand why he felt so protective over it. He didn’t even know the girl. Yet, his instincts clearly told him that he did. “Okay, can you fill me in again? Where are we headed and why? What did you find?”
“Well, I headed in this direction because of what I saw in the diner. I’ve have picked up her scent, but the scent of an animal, as well—” Dimitri started.
“What type of animal?” Shane growled under his breath.
“Take it easy. Nothing that would harm her. I actually still think she’s shifted into a rat, but I have never met a were-rat before. And, that is clearly what I smell around her scent,” Dimitri said.
“That’s impossible. It did not take her this long to shift for the first time and then she shifted into a rat. You must be mistaken,” Shane argued, though he could faintly smell the scent of a rat in the air too. He
just hoped that they were wrong.
“You offend me, boss. You know that I am never wrong with my predictions. This is why you brought me to help you with this case.”
“I’m not about to go chasing a rat across God knows where because you think that’s what you saw or smelt with your voodoo vision crap!” Shane bellowed. “We need to come up with another plan.”
“Then what do you propose?” Dimitri snarled. “We don’t have time to stand here arguing over what she has shifted into when our main purpose is to find her and bring her to safety,” he said throwing his hand up in the air in a type of surrender. “There’s an abandoned warehouse up the way. That might be where she fled. Let's take a look until we can come up with another plan.”
Shane could see that Dimitri was getting upset and the last thing he wanted to do was aggravate a vampire – even one that was on his side. He needed to focus on the mission and not any of the other things that were making him lose focus.
They continued to walk through the forest in the direction of the abandoned warehouse. Once they got closer, he realized that this warehouse was where local merchants used to stock some of their overstocked goods. Now it was just another abandoned building hiding in the woods, taking up space and making their city look bad.
“Come to the abandoned building in the woods,” he said to the other men who had gone back to base. He had no idea what they would find or what they were going up against. He knew that having the other two shifters with him would be beneficial.
The two showed up within record time and he briefly told them what they were there for.
“We’re still searching for Sarah. Dimitri seems to think that she shape shifted into a rat and might have ran into the abandoned building. Don’t get me started on how I feel about his prediction. No one shape shifts into a rat. But, anyway. Let’s case the place and see what we come up with,” he ordered them.
