Annie's Plea

Annie's Plea
Annie

“I know, sweetheart, but I swear to you that we are going to get her back!” Logan told me. “Let’s get you to the sleuth house so we can continue our search,” Logan murmured lovingly to me.

I shook my head as I wiggled for him to put me down.

“No! We are family!” I whimpered, still sniffling, but knowing that if he heard me crying, he would force me to go back to the sleuth house. “We do this together! It’s the only way we win! Besides, you need me. I can speak to the vines!”

He set me down before throwing his hands up. “Annie, come on! It’s not safe out here in the woods! Let me take you to the sleuth house, where it’s safe?” he begged.

“No! I’m not going to let you guys go out there to look for her! You need me! You either let me go with you now, or I won’t be in the sleuth house when you get back!” I threatened.

He groaned as he threw his hands up again. “Fine! But you are to stay with us so we can protect you!”

I wiped a tear off my cheek as I smiled widely at him. “Thank you, Logan.”

“Uh-huh! I mean it, Annie, you stay with us! Let’s go!”

We all shifted back into our bears to take off into the woods. I followed close behind Geoffrey as we ran, while Marsha kept her head on a swivel, scenting and scouting for any scent that wasn’t one of us. We searched for hours until all of us were practically falling over our paws. We were completely exhausted and needed to sleep, but we kept pushing forward. We had to. Giselda’s life depended on it. Well, all of our lives depended on it. Without her, the bears wouldn’t exist at all. Suddenly, my link with Logan opened, and his panic flowed through.

“ANNIE! WHERE ARE YOU?!” he cried.

Marsha immediately skidded to a stop as we turned in a circle, desperately searching for him and Milton while our heart began to pound wildly in our chest. Where were they? How did we get separated? I forced Marsha to head back in the direction that we had come from.

‘Ummm, I don’t know, but we’re turning around! Can you follow our scent?’ I inquired worriedly.

‘I don’t know, my love. I can try. It’s faint,’ he answered.

‘Okay. Just try. We’re heading back the way we came.’

‘Be safe, Annie, and run fast. There’s more danger in these woods right now than ever before,’ he told me, and I didn’t miss the fear in her voice.

‘I will. You too. I love you, Logan.’

‘I love you, too, Annie.’

We cut the link, and I immediately reached for my link with Marsha.

‘What happened, Marsha?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, Annie! I was just following Geoffrey. I was so focused on running that I must have veered off without noticing. I’m sorry. I know we promised to stay with Logan. I don’t know why I–’ She skidded to a halt again, leaving me even more frustrated. ‘Do you smell that?’ she asked excitedly.

‘Smell what?!’ I replied.

‘That,’ she said, sniffing the air intently.

I closed my eyes as I let the air move around us, taking each separate scent in before discarding it. That was until I got the faintest hint of Giselda’s blood.

‘Giselda!’ I cried.

‘Exactly,’ Marsha said as she pawed at the ground, looking in the direction of her scent. ‘Do we go after her?’

I bit my lip as I considered our options. Logically, I knew that if we were close enough to smell her, we were close enough for Kirkland to know that we were here, too, and he could possibly use our presence as a way to distract Logan. I chewed on my lip worriedly. While we wanted to go after Giselda ourselves, we knew that we needed to have Logan by our side when we went up against Kirkland. If he had managed to get a hold of Giselda, who was the strongest, most intelligent person that I had ever met, then I didn’t stand a chance by myself. I sighed before tilting my head back to let out a frustrated scream.

‘We need to get back to Geoffrey and Milton! Then we can formulate a plan on what to do. We just need to do this together!’ I told her.

‘Alright! Let’s get back to them and quickly! We need to find Giselda before she disappears again.’

‘Let’s do it!’

She began to race through the forest, jumping over fallen trees and ducking under low-hanging branches until she skidded to a stop so hard that she flew forward, eating a mouthful of dirt. I started pacing in our head, completely overwhelmed by the need to go after Giselda ourselves. Her scent was growing stronger with every step we took, and it was distracting us. Marsha pawed at the ground again.

‘Annie, she’s so close.’

I groaned as I tried to push down the urge to veer off course again to find her. ‘I know, but we can’t. Geoffrey shouldn’t be that far. We’ll get him and then get Giselda! That’s what she would want anyway.’

‘Are you sure?’ Marsha asked anxiously.

‘No, but it’s the smarter thing to do,’ I answered.

She huffed angrily, but continued on our path. As we resumed our run, Logan’s scent grew closer, but so did Giselda’s, instantly distracting us again until Marsha cursed under her breath.

‘Annie, I can’t do this! She’s so close! We have to see where she is and what’s happening to her! That asshole could be torturing her, or worse! I don’t want to be this close to her and not do something! We have to do something! Geoffrey and Milton can’t be that far from us. Not with their scents being so strong.’

I groaned before nodding. ‘Okay, but make it quick, and be careful!’

‘You got it!’

She lifted her snout into the air, inhaling deeply before changing directions. As she stalked through the forest, she kept her head swiveling, more focused now than she had ever been before. I kept my attention focused on everything around us, searching for any sign of Kirkland. I didn’t want to give our sleuth or our people another threat to their lives. Suddenly, Marsha slowed to a stop, stepping behind a tree to hide before peeking around it to slowly run our eyes over the clearing, looking for Giselda. We knew she was there somewhere. We just couldn’t see her. Not yet, anyways. As we started to scan the area again, we heard a low whimper that had Marsha’s head whipping around to stare to our right, searching even harder for her.

When we saw her badly beaten body tied to a thick branch a few feet off the ground, Marsha inhaled deeply several times to reassure herself that we were alone before cautiously making her way over to stand beneath the branch. She slowly turned around in a circle, scenting the area again before allowing me to shift back. I tilted my head back to look up at Giselda, anger surging in my veins when I saw how bruised and bloody her face was. Her eyes were swollen shut, her nose was broken, and both lips were split. I gritted my teeth as I reached up to untie her carefully, catching her in my arms seconds before her weight took us both to the ground. As I was struggling to move her off me, a shadow fell over me, and I exhaled happily when I got a whiff of Geoffrey’s scent.

“Geoffrey, help me get her off me,” I grunted as I continued trying to move her.

Something sharp pierced my neck, and my head fell back so I could look up as panic filled me. I immediately swallowed hard when I saw Kirkland standing above me with a smirk on his face. My hand shot up to cover the place he had injected me, while I tried to push whatever he put in me out of my pores, but I couldn’t. The more my vision blurred, the harder it was for me to concentrate on eliminating the foreign matter from my body.

“W- what did you do to me?” I slurred as my hand fell from my neck, too weak to maintain its place.

He squatted beside me and gripped my hair in his hand to pull my head back. “Why, little Miss I’m better than you, if you must know, I injected you with a specially-made poison that is used to kill the vines. As long as you have any type of vine essence in your blood, you won’t be able to fight what I gave you,” he told me before chuckling. “I’m going to have fun with you while you’re out. I promise that it won’t hurt too much…”