Chapter 3

Gia stared at the dash as she turned the key. Nothing was happening. At all. She closed her eyes, “great. I broke it on my first solo trip.” She debated for about three seconds of opening the hood and looking, but she knew as much about vehicles as she did brain surgery. Blowing out a breath, she picked up her phone and brought up Zain’s number. She hit the call button before she could change her mind.

“Giana?”

“Gia,” she corrected. “The van died.”

“What do you mean died?”

She shook her head and got out. “I mean I was driving along and then it just turned off and now nothing.”

“That’s impossible. It was just at the shop for a complete car spa day, it should be working, it should be purring like a damn cat.”

“Maybe it didn’t like the spa.” She smirked.

“Shit. Hang on, I’m going to bring up your location on the tracking app,” she could hear him typing, “hang on a sec, Jesse is on the other line.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” She turned in a circle and looked around. There was absolutely nothing here. Except for fields, long grass, and the odd tree. That was it. To make the insult of screwing up her first solo trip worse, she had to pee and could be stuck here for a while.

“Gia, help has been called, uh, I guess just sit tight until they get there.”

“Okay, Zain,” she grinned, “tell them to bring a burger too, I’m starving.”

“Ha, I’ll get right on that.” There were voices in the background, “I gotta go. Let me know when they’re there.”

“Okay, thank you.” Reaching in the van, she grabbed her run pack and then grabbed the keys and jammed them in her pocket. Locking the door, she closed it, then debated which direction she was going to find a shrub or something.

Gia wandered across the field toward the trees. Okay, so some parts of her were girly, she liked the color the leaves turned in the fall. She just wanted to take a few up-close pictures of them for her own collection.

Her phone ringing startled her. She answered it without looking at the caller. “Hello?”

“Gia.”

It was Jesse. “I’m sorry…”

He snorted, “the van dying isn’t your fault. I have no idea why it would, I’m just thankful it did it now and not two days from now.”

She hadn’t thought of that. If she’d been transporting rescues, it could have endangered all of them.

“Someone is going to be getting an earful from Devin, so you can be sure it will never happen again.”

“Okay.” She turned back to see a car pulling up behind the van. Two big men got out of it. She grinned, “hey your guys made great time getting here. They’re already here.”

“What? Gia, our guys have just left the shop.” He barked into the phone.

Gia dropped to her knees and crouched down, so she wasn’t visible.

“Gia?”

“I’m hiding in the grass.” She whispered.

“Tell me what you see.” She could hear other voices in the background now.

“Uh,” she tried to see without making her location known, “just a second,” taking off the dark cap, she hoped her red hair blended better with the fall foliage and moved along on her elbows and toes toward the trees she’d originally been heading to. When she reached them, she dragged her body over the damp ground until she could use a tree to hide her. Looking around it, she kept low so no one could notice her, “okay, I’m hidden now,” she whispered, “there’s two of them, really big men,” she watched the one walk along the side of the van and look in the driver’s window, the other one was standing out front of the van looking in the field on that side of the road. He had a handgun in his hand, “they have guns.” She said breathlessly.

“Listen to me,” Jesse’s voice was calm and steady, “Webb and I aren’t that far from you, and a couple of other teams are nearby, we’re coming to you as soon as I hang up.”

“Okay.”

“You find somewhere to hole up and stay there, we’ll find you.”

Gia looked around in the trees, this bush area wasn’t very big, it was sparse too, no way she could run through it and not be seen. Peeking out around the tree again, she saw that the other man was looking across the road now in her direction. “I’m going to shift.” She said quickly, “I can get further. I’m on the opposite side of the road to the van.” She added in case they’d need a direction to start.

“Keep your phone on you, we have a tracker on the number.”

She nodded, as she leaned down and took off her boots. Dammit, she couldn’t load her pack with her clothes, she needed to be light and fast. “I’m not taking my clothes, just my phone in my pack.” She opened the pack and took out the snacks and water bottle.

“Stay safe, we’ll be there soon.”

She nodded and didn’t have a chance to say any more before the line went quiet. Looking at the phone, she double-checked to make sure he’d hung up. She was alone. She nodded to herself as she stuffed the phone in her pack and put it over her head. She tightened the strap a bit, so it wouldn’t get snagged on anything.

Checking once more, her heart felt like it was in her throat when she saw both men standing there now looking in the same direction she was, finding somewhere to stay out of sight may prove difficult. Sliding down, she prayed the tree and grass hid her completely. Pulling off her hoodie, then her t-shirt and leggings, she rolled them into a ball. She’d just bought that hoodie and wasn’t impressed she was leaving it behind. As a fox shifter though, she wasn’t large, so she couldn’t cart a wardrobe around with her as big clans could.

Checking that the pack was zipped up, she blew out a breath and shifted. She’d have to stay low until she put a few more trees between them and her. Looking one last time at her clothes, she turned and took off into the trees, zigzagging between them, making herself hard to track.

She scented around her, and didn’t pick up any nearby wildlife, which made it easier, she didn’t need any confrontations to add to her not-great day. It took a lot of concentration to keep going and not turn around and look back to see what those men were doing. They had guns and hers was under the seat of the van, so it was a no-brainer that running was the best option this time. She wasn’t sure if she could shoot a living thing, but now wasn’t the time to find out either.

She went flying past a rotting log and then put on the brakes and slid over the ground. Going back, she scented the log, and the area around it, there were no markings of a wild creature that she could detect. Moving closer, she checked under the log to see an old burrow was there. That year of running in bushes to escape her family had done some good, she knew instinctively where the best locations were for burrows and dens.

Scanning behind her, she froze, becoming statuesque, and moved only her eyes to see if she had anyone coming up on her. She didn’t see anything, she inhaled slowly, and the scent of rank cologne came to her. No shifter, with a brain, wore anything perfumed. They weren’t just on the wrong side of right; they were lacking normal shifter values and common sense too.

Putting her belly to the ground, she moved so her head was in the opening of the burrow and inhaled slowly, she couldn’t pick up anything that told her this was some creatures’ home. That was a bonus, the last thing she needed was to pull a Goldilocks and be in someone else’s home when they came back.

She hated every second of having to do this, but there was no way those two behemoths were intelligent enough to look in a barely visible hole in the ground. Baring her teeth at the thought of doing something like this, she jumped over the log and then relieved herself on the brown grass. Snort that, she thought as she jumped back over it and crouched down to creep into the burrow.

Her fox was one of the smaller animals in their world, but still bigger than the real ones. There was a moment of feeling stuck as she squeezed her larger body down the tunnel, hopefully, it was a normal den dugout after this, or she was going to be in a bigger mess than she already was.

Focusing on her breathing, she kept herself calm as she reached the bottom and then turned awkwardly so she was facing out again. The inner part had a faint scent of a real fox, a long-ago abandoned den. She didn’t let herself think of what had caused them to move away and not return, although, with no wildlife scents in the area, that could have been it—no prey to hunt.

Shuffling, keeping her body scrunched up, she moved back up toward the entrance, so she could at least hear if they were close to her location or not. When she stopped, she had a second of panic feeling like she was buried alive. What if they breezed right by here and she wasn’t found? Get it together. This is what you want. Closing her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. The slower she managed the less she felt like the soil pushing against her. Could be worse, you could be sitting at a luncheon with your mother and all the female mates in the clan discussing new gardens for next year. Yeah, as pep talks went, that did the trick. Good thing she had some girly bits in her and was drawn to those pretty leaves was her next thought, or she would have been standing beside the van when they pulled up.

She couldn’t hear any movement at all, which made her start to wonder if she’d hear Jesse when they got her to retrieve her. She shifted, so she could feel her pack, assuring herself that she still had it. Had she silenced the ringer? She had no idea. He said they could track it—did that work with her hiding in a burrow under the earth? Be a good tracker, Jesse.