Chapter Seven
Roscoe
Sawyer had been gone too long. Roscoe paced the edge of the forest line in his camp. At this rate, he'd rub a ditch into the perimeter with his impatient footsteps. He'd calculated the time it would take Sawyer and Gaia to make it through the forest, adjusting for Sawyer's likely clumsiness and then adding more time for Maggie to do what she needed to do to leave the inn for the night. Even with the new allowances, Gaia and Sawyer should have shouted for him an hour ago.
Maybe they had decided to lead Maggie and Heath in on their own? That was a possibility. The only possibility that was keeping Roscoe from storming into the forest. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise like someone was watching him without his knowledge. When he spun back to the camp, everyone was going about their business as usual. Still, the feeling remained.
That was enough of a reason for Roscoe. He undressed, putting his clothes in his pouch and then ran into the forest, shifting mid-step. He hurried forward, searching the floor for Sawyer and Gaia's tracks while letting his nose locate Sawyer's scent. Now that they were mated, it was easier to detect, and his scent had changed recently. Roscoe thought it was because the baby was about to arrive. Their son would have his own scent that was a combination of his parents but also, uniquely his own.
Roscoe found their tracks and followed them. If he hadn't been so worried, he would have smirked at the many spots on the trail where it was clear Sawyer had tripped. Each time, there was an extra pair of shoes, Gaia, helping him along.
When Roscoe spotted Gaia's body crumpled on the ground, his heart shattered. He searched for Sawyer in the space around her and did not find him. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or more upset by that fact. He shifted and approached Gaia cautiously, his every instinct telling him something horrible had happened. Something that he feared. "Gaia, can you hear me?" Roscoe said, searching around her as he did. He narrowed his eyes at a spot in front of her where a body had fallen in the brush, breaking branches and leaving a mark on the soil. Was that his Sawyer? Had he fallen there? Why? Where was he now? Roscoe couldn't let the questions drive him crazy, so he pushed them out of his mind and shook Gaia's shoulder lightly. If she had a head or spinal injury, he wouldn't want to move her.
She groaned, a relief since at that point Roscoe hadn't been one hundred percent sure she was still with them. He'd known she was alive, but not in what state she was still living. "What happened?" Roscoe asked quietly but then made himself bite his tongue. She was still coming to and who knew what her injuries were. "Gaia, where does it hurt?" he asked gently.
In response, Gaia jerked up and to her feet abruptly. She'd moved much too fast though and quickly grabbed her head as if the movement had pained her.
"Slowly, Gaia, don't hurt yourself more. What happened? Do you know where Sawyer is?"
Gaia looked around herself wildly. "Sawyer. Oh no," she muttered.
Roscoe felt like his world was balancing on a fine point. "Why oh no? What happened to him, Gaia?"
"I don't know. We were walking, talking and then, boom." She touched the back of her head gingerly. Roscoe peered over and saw blood in her hair.
"Someone hit you. Knocked you out." Roscoe knew who he thought had done it, but didn't say it out loud right away out of respect for Gaia. He smelled Garth in the brush. Though, to be honest, each bear had left their scent in the forests around. This part of the path was still within the perimeter of where they were allowed to go, and every one of his den brothers and sisters had been through the woods, leaving their scent. "There is a trail here," Roscoe said, searching past Gaia to a single line of shoe prints. "He could have carried Sawyer in this direction."
"You can say his name, Roscoe," Gaia said bitterly. "We both know who did this and when I find Garth, I am going to make him pay."
Roscoe began to follow the trail. "No, you aren't." He didn't have to say that was because when Roscoe found Garth, he'd make sure he could never harm his mate again.
The trail continued through the forest. Oddly, it followed Roscoe's favored path to the highway. That was strange, but also ballsy. If Roscoe had decided to take a spontaneous walk, as he had thought about doing the moment his mate left, it would have led him down the very trail he now stalked down. When they reached the highway, Roscoe's stomach twisted. Smartly, Garth had stayed on the asphalt, and the tracks stopped. Sawyer's scent was next to nothing in the open space. There were a few mud markings that Roscoe thought might have been them, but they only went as long as it took the excess mud to come off his shoes. Another ballsy move. Choosing to take the highway was a good deterrent against being tracked, but it also meant he had to have spent more time in public view of anyone who had driven past. Which meant…
"I'm going to Noel to see if anyone driving by saw them. If you feel up to it, I want you to go the opposite direction and do the same."
Gaia was already heading in the opposite direction. Roscoe knew he would eventually need to let her know that none of this was her fault, but he needed to find his mate first. His bear tore at his insides to be let free, so he could search, but none of the citizens of Noel would stop to answer questions from a bear.
When he made it to Miss Maggie's Sleep Inn, she was in the kitchen doing dishes that were likely from breakfast.
"Ross, hey, you're a little late for omelets, but I could whip you up a—"
"Sawyer is missing," Roscoe said, unable to small talk.
"Oh my God, what? For how long?"
"I am not sure. A few hours? Gaia is looking as well. We have reason to believe his kidnapper has him on—"
"His what? Heath! Come down here!" Maggie yelled out the kitchen door as she ripped her apron off. She wiped her hands dry and then settled them on her hips. Heath ran into the kitchen moments later, stopping short when he saw Roscoe.
"Sawyer has been kidnapped. The kidnapper is…one of us. He knows how to make it hard to track him. He was likely carrying Sawyer for some time along the highway. I need you to ask your neighbors, ask your friends, ask everyone if they saw something suspicious on the highway." He pulled out the walkie-talkies he kept for emergency purposes and handed Maggie one. "If anyone knows anything, let me know immediately. These will work within a fifty-mile radius."
"Of course," Maggie and Heath said at the same time.
"When we finish, we can start searching the woods too," Maggie said, walking to the door to pull her boots on.
"No. That's too dangerous for you. This man, he is like us. Stronger."
"A bear?" Heath said with the disbelief of a person who had only heard of shifters and never witnessed one in action.
"Yes, a bear. And he's got the most precious thing to me. I don't want you there when I find them. You don't need those nightmares."
With that, Roscoe left Maggie and Heath and headed back to the camp. For one moment, he wished his brothers were there, not because he wasn't able to protect his mate on his own but because they would know what he was thinking and be able to do what he wanted without him having to ask. It was getting harder for Roscoe to use his words efficiently when all he wanted to do was growl. He stomped through his camp. Gaia must have swung back around and told them what was going on because many of them were gone, likely searching the area as well. A group remained with the children, protecting them in the event that this was all an attack from another pack.
Roscoe hadn't given that idea one thought because this felt personal. Taking Roscoe's mate, the day of their bonding ceremony? The only person that affected was Roscoe.
He made his way to the cabin that Garth shared with Greg. He opened the door and stopped dead, wondering how no one had smelled this.
They were all preoccupied. Hell, Roscoe hadn't noticed the stench of blood either. Standing in the doorway, it was impossible not to notice. There was an initial pool in the front room and then what looked like the marks of a body being dragged that led into a bedroom. Roscoe followed the blood trail expecting a grim sight when he walked into the bedroom. Except, there was nothing. The blood trail just stopped.
"Whose is that?" Gaia asked from behind him. Her eyes fixated on the amount of blood on the floor. Whoever lost all that, wasn't in great shape.
"I can't tell. It is hours old, and there are so many other things in this room that smell like them. It could be either one of them."
"Why would Greg's room smell so much of Garth?" Gaia wondered out loud.
There were a number of reasons, from friendship to a roommate with no boundaries. The condom Roscoe spotted in the trash can told a different story.
"Why would Garth never tell me about this? I didn't even know he was gay. And after he was such a dick to me!" Gaia spun around surely fighting the urge to be angry with her brother and the urge to be worried about him. She was gone a moment before she called out Roscoe's name.
He joined her, grabbing a piece of paper from her outstretched hand. It looked like a map of the camp and surrounding areas. There were a few markings along the perimeter, some had been scratched out and had notes beside them.
Too far from a water source.
Wind carries the sound toward camp.
"What do you think he was looking for?" Gaia asked.
Roscoe studied the map. Several spots had been starred only to be crossed out with the note, Fearless leader path. The spots lined up with the perimeter Roscoe had begun walking every morning. So, Garth was looking for a spot that was close, but also isolated? "He had Sawyer in one of these spots," Roscoe said, indicating the points on the map that hadn't been crossed out.
Gaia nodded grimly. "Poor Greg, we'll need to tell the pack. What do you think happened?"
"I can't say, but it looks like maybe Greg found out what Garth was planning."
"I can't believe it. I mean, I can, because the evidence is right here, but I don't want to. He was a whiny brother, bossy most of the time, but he wasn't bad." For the briefest moment, Gaia's eyes filled with tears before she quickly blinked them back. "Let's get going."