“I don’t know where your son is.” He insisted on denying everything, no matter how much proof they seemed to have to prove his guilt.
Walter stepped in. He moved close to the man who had taken his son and his voice grew into a low menacing growl. There were countless threats in the three words that the bear uttered. “This isn’t over.” He turned away from Fredrick and pulled Ursula with him. They left the man to his shopping, and he knew that he was going to have to take some other action to make this man see the light. “We might be distracting him, but we need to distract a lot more people than him, for this to work.” He whispered to Ursula as they climbed back into the giant truck that they had driven there.
“What are we going to do?” She asked, her nerves were nearly frayed and she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to keep up her part of the bargain up.
“I don’t know, but we have to distract his entire tribe. We have to keep their minds off of guarding the children so that we can get them to safety.”
“I don’t have any idea how to do that.” She was admitting it, even though it didn’t exactly make her happy.
*
They had to do something and it had finally been decided and approved by everyone involved. “Are you sure that this is the right idea?” Ursula was nervous as she dressed in her black tank top and dark blue jeans.
Walter couldn’t help but look at her, the way the nearly black denim hugged her curves made his body respond. He scolded his mind, forcing himself back to the project at hand. “This is the best idea we have. It’s going to keep them occupied for as long as we have to keep them that way.”
“This all seems so vague.” She shook her head and looked down at her interlocked fingers.
“I know, but it needs to be vague on purpose.” He tried to explain her. “We don’t know exactly what we’re going to encounter, with either side of the mission, and it’s better if we don’t set anything in stone. We’ll be fine and we’ll get him back this way, I promise.”
“I just don’t like it. This is wrong.” She frowned.
“If you don’t want to be a part of this, you don’t have to. I can do this alone.”
Her eyes snapped up to meet her mate’s eyes. “I need to help. I need to do something. I have to help.”
“There are other ways that you can help.” He could tell that his words had carried the desired effect, and that her mind was already made up. She was going to do what she needed to do to get her son back, and it didn’t matter what her conscious was saying about it, she was going to help her son any way that she could.
“No, there really isn’t. I have to do this.” She sighed.
“Do you think that this is going to work?”
“Do you have anything long sleeved?” Walter asked the woman who had so quickly become one of the most important parts of his life.
“Nothing dark.”
“You might want to change, it will help you protect yourself if he changes.”
“What does he change into?” Ursula was asking as she walked back into the bedroom to search her drawers for a shirt that would provide at least a minimum amount of protection from the rampages of an angry shifter.
“Something small, I think it’s a weasel or otter or something like that.”
“From what I’ve heard he does sound like a rodent.”
Walter hadn’t heard the human insults that referred to someone as an animal before. In his world that wasn’t really appropriate. “What does that mean?”
Ursula poked her head from behind the door. A bare shoulder with a single strap on it was visible from the shifter’s position. “I mean that he’s a rat, sneaky and underhanded.”
Walter sighed, he didn’t know how to respond to that, so he finally decided on honesty. “Do you think that it’s OK to compare and innocent animal to someone as evil as he is?”
Her jaw dropped. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m sorry, I’ll work on changing.” She felt like she had just shot out some kind of racial slur, and felt way too guilty about it.
“I know that humans don’t think about things like that, but just be careful who you talk to and say things like that.” Walter warned her, but the love was obvious in his voice. He was eager to help her fit into his world and she was suddenly cognizant of the pain that Standard English phrases might cause in a place where all of the people are at least half human.
“I’m so sorry.” She pulled her head back out of sight in embarrassment and pulled the long sleeved baby blue shirt over her head. It was the shirt that her mother had given her just before the older lady’s untimely death. She hoped that her mother would help her find her son and bring him home to the loving arms that couldn’t live without him.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Are you ready?” Walter had more important things on his mind.
“I think so. Will this work?”
Walter recognized the shirt as the same one that she had worn the first time that he had met her. “That looks better.” He was wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans.
“Good.” Ursula smiled. “Do we have everything that we need?” She asked the question, but was already heading for the door.
“Yeah, I think so.” He followed her out the door. “Let’s get going.”
The pair traveled back to the store, after having verified that their target was still there, shopping for children’s clothes now and humming as if he had succeeded at his mission with much less effort than he was originally planning on. “How does anyone spend that much time shopping?”
Walter shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never understood it.”
“Do you think that he does this on purpose?”
“He probably only goes shopping once a month or so and has to make sure that he has everything that he needs for the children that he steals.” Walter’s voice grew angry as the reason that they were doing this was brought to the forefront of his mind.
Ursula shrugged. “I just hope that our son hasn’t been left somewhere alone.” She looked at Walter. “Did anyone check his car and see if the boy is in the vehicle?”
“I’m pretty sure that that’s the first thing that they checked.” He comforted her, knowing that they would find out soon enough.
Ursula paused before she exited the truck. Her eyes scanned the parking lot, trying to magically identify some vehicle as Fredrick’s, but there was no use. There was no way to tell which one was his.
“Where are we going?”
Walter frowned and looked at the woman. “I don’t know yet. Let me find out what his car looks like and we can go wait by it.” He made the call and got all of the information that he needed. “It’s a late model red SUV.” He examined the parking lot as he told his mate the license plate number.
It didn’t take them long to find the vehicle. “Is it locked?”
Walter tried the door. “Yep, no kid in the car either, but I do see a convertible car seat.” He had gotten more comfortable with specific terminology that came with being a parent lately. He remembered a time, no more than a few months ago that he would have thought that a convertible car seat was one that was used when the top was down in your car. He shook his head, remembering the uncomfortable conversation that those assumptions had caused with the woman who had done her research long before this point.
“Let’s hide close by. We can take him here.” Ursula’s words were a lot more confident than the voice that spoke them.
“That’s going to have to work. I don’t exactly know how to break into a car.”
“We don’t have the right tools anyway.” Ursula noted, carefully examining the vehicle.
“What kind of tools would we need?” Walter had been taken aback by the shocking statement that Ursula had made. It wasn’t so much the fact that she had said it, but instead it was the disappointed frown that she had on her face.
Ursula winked. “I might have gotten into a little trouble when I was a kid, but you’ll never fi
nd out, those records are sealed now.”
Walter smiled. “I’m learning more about you every day.”
Ursula stood on the toes and peered over the vehicle next to Fredrick’s old truck. “He’s coming, get down.” The words were a harsh whisper and both of them dropped down so that their profile wasn’t visible at a quick glance. “Do we have a plan?”
“Grab him and run?”
Ursula worried about all of the stuff that he had just bought, she didn’t know why she didn’t want it to be abandoned in the parking lot. She chose not to mention it, instead focusing on the mission at hand. Collateral damage would be the least of their concerns if this actually worked.
Fredrick didn’t seem concerned as he rounded the corner toward his vehicle. He never saw it coming, and they struck quickly and in concert. Ursula was surprised by the ease at which they managed to put their hands on the man, but it wasn’t going to go well.
The man shifted in their hands, changing into a weasel, with flashing sharp teeth and a wiggly shifting body with slippery fur. “Damn it.” Ursula cursed as the creature slipped out of her grip. “I can’t hold him.”
Walter lunged for the creature, gripping his tail and violently yanking him out from under a nearby vehicle. “Don’t make me call animal control.” He growled violently and twisted his body into what seemed to be an unnatural position. He managed to slip out of Walter’s hands and darted under his own car, hoping for safety.
Ursula glared under the vehicle, squinting hard. “I don’t see him.”
Walter dropped down on to his chest, peering carefully under every nook and cranny. “I think he’s behind the front right tire.”
“Are you sure?”
In that moment Fredrick leapt out, scratching vicious little claws across Ursula’s face and gripping her ear with his teeth. “Damn it, he’s got me.” She yelled, trying to get her hands on the wiggly little creature.
“Watch out.” Walter jumped over the car and just barely managed to miss landing on his mate’s head. He grabbed at the weasel again, trying to save the woman’s face from getting too damaged. He wrapped his hands around the little rodent and managed to pull it away, forcing the creature to relinquish its grasp on the tender flesh of her face.
Walter wrestled with the beast while Ursula slowly dragged herself to her feet, forcing her eyes to focus on it. “Do you have him?” She placed her hand on her bleeding ear, and noticed that a small chunk had been bitten out of it.
Walter grunted, trying to control the slippery weasel. “Yeah, I think so.”
He didn’t really have him, not as well as he thought he had him. Fredrick shifted one way and wiggled the other direction immediately afterwards, managing to extricate himself from the bears grip. “Damn it.” Ursula lunged for the creature, and managed to grab its tail. She had no idea how she had managed to lay her hand on the beast, but it was in her hands and she lifted the man up.
The creature stopped and bared his teeth at the shifter and his mate. Ursula reached up to grab the weasel, forcing it into an uncomfortable position. “Did we bring the crate?” She didn’t remember having pulled it out of the car.
“Damn, we left it in the truck. Let’s get him there.” Walter repositioned the creature and shifted into a more comfortable position, still holding tightly to his prize. “You’re going to return our son.”
Ursula grabbed the shopping cart and they led the way to the vehicle. It was a challenge to get the creature into the crate, he wriggled and fought, biting and snapping the entire time, but the location was too tight for him to change back into his human form. He wouldn’t have fit there, so they had the advantage and finally managed to shove the creature into the small dog crate that they had wrangled up before they headed back to get this man, just in case he had decided to change. “Stay in there.” Walter insisted as they loaded the shopping into the car.
“I’ve got your stuff. You and all of this stuff can go back home when my son comes home.” Ursula’s voice was shaking as she spoke, sitting in the passenger seat while Walter turned on the vehicle. Walter drove in silence and the only noise in the car was the violent hissing and vicious thumping from the carrier that was buckled into the back seat. “You aren’t going to be getting out of there. If you try to shift back, you’re going to be in a very uncomfortable position.”
The growling continued through the entire trip, and it didn’t stop, not even after they had found themselves pulling in front of their tiny little cabin. “Where are we going to put him?”
“Basement.” Walter grunted as he tried to lift the carrier at the same time that the trapped shifter threw his entire body weight to the side, forcing the cage to shift and strike the bear in his midsection. He grunted and with a quick outpouring of breath it became quickly obvious that he was about to drop the cage.
Ursula darted around the vehicle, rushing to catch their prisoner before he managed to fall down and possibly break the cheap device. She managed to catch the vessel and quickly rushed it into the house and down the stairs into the basement. Walter wasn’t far behind her. “What now?”
“I think that we can leave him in the cage and they’ll realize that he’s missing soon enough. They’ve already moved out.”
Ursula’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think that we should be talking about that here.” She motioned toward the crate. “Is there a better way to secure that?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a blanket and some straps. We can tie it down to something.” Walter suggested, shrugging and looking inside of the crate. “You can stay in there for eternity, for all I care.” He growled at the tiny little creature and got a series of chattering threats in response.
“How about that table over there?” They got to work and it didn’t take them long to be happy with the job that they had done. She placed the crate down and threw a blanket over it to cover it. She didn’t look inside, she didn’t want to lay her eyes on the angry little creature again. Fredrick’s flashing red eyes seemed like they were the very essence of evil and she touched her ear once again, feeling the scratches and cuts.
It didn’t look like the creature had a chance of getting out of his little box. They promised to bring him back food and headed out of the basement, back up the stairs. Ursula shuddered. “How bad is it?”
“It’s not that bad.” Walter led her to the bathroom and removed the first aid kit from its cabinet. Carefully he started to clean the wounds, giving special care to the tiny chunk that had been bitten out of her ear. “You’ll heal in no time.”
“That doesn’t matter. We need to find our son.”
“I know, I never expected you to be so brave.” Walter was in awe of this woman. She had proven herself to be extraordinarily powerful and he couldn’t understand how he had never really seen that before. If Ursula was allowed to take action she was able to stand up with the strongest member of his tribe. Her vision changed in his eyes and he saw a warrior, a fighter willing to stand up and do what she needed to do to protect her family and her people.
“Have they said anything yet?”
“I think they’re still working, but don’t worry, these guys are the best there is.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “You were amazing out there, are you sure that you weren’t a master criminal back in your world?”
“If I was, I would never tell you.” She smiled weakly, this entire situation had exhausted her beyond belief.
He ignored the joke, studying her eyes carefully. “You look tired. Do you want to get some sleep?”
“I don’t think I can as long as that man is in my house.” She shuddered. The very presence of Fredrick made her nervous, as she thought about the kind of danger that he could put her in. “We need to get our son back so I can sleep again.”
“I can get Isabella to give you something.” Walter offered, even though he shuddered when he said the name. He still didn’t like the woman, even though Ursula had found it in her heart to forgive the closest thing to a doctor t
hat his tribe had easy access to. The betrayal was still just a bit too fresh and it occupied his mind more often than not.
“No, you need to help with our son. I’ll stay awake and watch Fredrick.”
“Are you sure?”
“About as sure as anyone can be in this situation.” She told him the truth. “I would never be able to sleep with that man in the house anyway. Maybe I can get him to talk.”
“Don’t do that, you don’t know if he’ll be able to escape if you let him change form.” Walter warned her. “If he gets a chance to change, it’s going to put you in a very vulnerable position. It’s best to leave him where he is and forget about him for a while.”
“I’m still going to have to bring him food.”
“That can wait until I get back. I’m going to arrange a place to keep him. With him being that small, our normal prisons aren’t going to work.” He kissed her and left the house, eager to get the kidnapper out of his house and in a place where he couldn’t hurt anyone or escape with enough thought.
CHAPTER 13
Fredrick wasn’t happy. He struggled with his bonds and the hideous cage that they had placed him in. He needed a way out and was pretty desperate to find it. He had heard them talking about sending a team in for the boy and knew that he had to warn them to hide all of the children in his care. He pushed his body back and forth, ramming into the plastic sides and metal bars of the carrier that they had placed his animal form in. He struggled and fought, carefully determining his surroundings with more and more of his movement before deciding on the best course of action for him.
He began to chew, having chosen the quickest place to break out of his prison. He couldn’t help but smile internally when he realized that the young couple had assumed that he wasn’t capable of thinking like a human in his animal form. That might have been true for the lumbering bear of a man, for Walter, but it wasn’t true for him. He was capable of rational thought, of having his fully developed brain power trapped within the beast. It had taken years of practice, years of study and training and digging up of ancient rules and stories. It hadn’t been easy, it wasn’t until recently that the local tribes had started to write things down so they hadn’t been able to study about the history of their people and only had ancient legends passed down and changed through the generations.
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