NINE
One foot in front of the other. Jessica kept moving despite her exhaustion. She’d been walking since the sun rose early that morning, and with each step, she was more certain that she was lost. But it didn’t matter. If she didn’t even know where she was, that meant that Matt wouldn’t find her either. All she had to do was stay out of sight until she could find a town or the highway, and then she would get to a phone and call Agent Edwards from the FBI.
She put her hands in the pockets on her sweatpants, pulling out the last two granola bars that she’d swiped from the basket in the room where she’d waited for Matt. If only she’d known then what she knew now. She would have never gotten into the car with him, and she would have known that the entire kidnapping was his doing. But instead, she’d gotten into the car like a lovesick fool, expecting her crumbling marriage to miraculously be better just because Matt would be grateful that she’d come back alive. Well, he should have been grateful, but he wasn’t. She’d ruined everything he’d planned, and there was a chance that she would blow everything and expose them all. Jessica had listened to Matt’s ranting as he drove, but she couldn’t understand what he was talking about.
Who was the Circle? And what was she ruining? What could she possibly expose by surviving?
But she’d held it together because she thought he was taking her home to see Evie. She had let him continue ranting and only realized that he was doing more than just talking when he drove past their exit and pulled off the highway into a deserted lot. What happened next had been horrifying, but when the shovel had caught her on the side of the head, she’d been so shocked that she’d fallen down quickly and immediately knew that her best bet was to pretend to be unconscious.
She listened to him work at the ground for an eternity, but the shovel kept hitting the hard chunks of concrete from a gas station that had been demolished almost a decade before. There was nowhere for him to dig where they were, and the energy he’d wasted trying had cleared his head. Burying her there was an asinine plan anyway. He wasn’t thinking straight, and she would have been found almost immediately, dead or alive. The only suspect would have been him, and he needed a better plan.
So, he’d scooped her up and dumped her into the back of the SUV, and she’d let her body go limp and landed however she landed. She considered getting out then while he was trying to get into the front or locking the doors and trying to summon help by holding down the horn or even attempting to drive away. The keys were in the ignition. But with her reflexes deadened by the hard blow, he was already in the driver’s seat by the time she’d considered that option.
Instead, she’d lain there while he mumbled, and she knew before he even got onto Skyline Drive what his plans were. Too bad for him, she had plans of her own.
Her plan had worked, and Matt had given up so easily that Jessica was worried that he was going to find another way to come after her. Still, she ran, running so fast in the dark that she managed to rip one of her flip flops off right away, and she let the other one go with the next stride. The ground was soft and uneven, but in the dark, that had managed to translate into smoother sailing. She couldn’t see much, but she could feel it.
The SUV she’d once been so excited to drive raced up the fire road, spinning tires when it hit the pavement. A terrifying image of Matt turning the wheel and driving the SUV straight down the embankment and through the sapling and brush until he crushed her beneath it flashed through her mind, but she was much too far from the road for that to even be possible. She was safe from him, and she didn’t think Matt would be coming back. At least, not alone.
She unwrapped one of the granola bars and broke off only half a bar. She didn’t know how long it would take her to find a safe place with a phone, and she didn’t want to starve. She heard water in the distance and knew there was some running somewhere close by. Following the sound, she took small, careful bites while she scanned the woods around her for wildlife and people.
The water turned out to be a small waterfall that trickled down a small outcropping of boulders. The stream of water pouring down was no wider than what came out of her kitchen faucet, but when she cupped her hands beneath it and inhaled, it smelled fresh and was clear and cold in her hands.
Jessica drank greedily until she could drink no more, then she used her hands to wash her face, neck and hair where the wound on her head was. It had stopped bleeding sometime overnight, but she’d cleaned it each time she’d found water, hoping that it wouldn’t get infected and that she wouldn’t reek of blood and attract predators. She hadn’t seen any yet, but she knew they were out there, and that had her terrified. It would do her no good to escape Matt if she found herself face-to-face with a hungry bear.
She shivered, looking around nervously. She had been in one spot far too long. It was time for her to move on. She took one last drink even though the water and the granola bar had filled her stomach. There was no telling when she would find water again, and she couldn’t risk dehydration.
The forest was quiet as she walked, with only an occasional bird tweeting merrily here and there. She’d expected to see more wildlife in this area, but with fall in full swing and winter fast approaching, most of the wildlife had slowed down or was busy preparing itself for winter.
She was watching one such bird fly around, gathering bits of fur and feathers from low hanging branches, when it stopped, held perfectly still for an instant, then took off. Jessica had seen the direction the bird looked in and the startled expression on its face, and she knew immediately what that meant. There was something in the woods, and it wasn’t far behind her.
Heart racing, she was careful to watch where she stepped and avoid dead leaves as she ducked quickly off the grassy deer trail she’d been following and found a hiding space between two boulders surrounded by a stand of saplings. It wasn’t the best place to hide, but it would give her enough cover if the intruder was human. The breeze was at her back as she scurried away, so she hoped there would be enough space between herself and the trail to keep a wild animal from smelling her. She was downwind, but after hiking for hours with no shower and a large gash on her head, she had no idea how far downwind she had to be to protect herself.
And what if bears could track you like a bloodhound?
She shuddered at the thought, but she held her ground. Crouched down in the crevice that was rounded like a tunnel, she was trapped. If she went out the back, there was nothing but more trail. The space between the boulders was large enough for her to crouch and run, which meant a mountain lion or a man could follow her through and out the other way. Her only option was to stay quiet and hope that whatever it was didn’t see her through the thick leaves.
When she heard voices, she almost called out. It sounded like search and rescue. Maybe they were looking for her. But before she could find her voice, the men were closer, and she could finally hear their conversation. She clapped her hands over her mouth, silencing her fear and hoping that they couldn’t hear her heart beating out of her chest.
“Do you see anything?” a man’s voice called out.
“No, Jake. I just see more of the same. Tracking her on this grass is almost impossible. If she went this way, she’s not leaving any shoe prints. Any word on what type of shoe she was wearing?”
“No idea. Her husband didn’t give us much to go on, but she’s here somewhere. I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?” another man teased.
Their voices were low, but they carried on the wind, and so far, she counted three distinct voices spread out. They were on her trail; they just didn’t realize it.
“Why did we come this way again?” a fourth voice asked.
“Do you have to question everything, Tristan?” the third man sneered angrily. “If you want to lead the group, why don’t you become a better tracker?”
“Enough, Hank,” the man named Jake said as he stepped into view.
Jessica’s throat caught, and she wanted to scream, but she managed to remain silent. The leader was close to her. No more than one hundred feet upwind of her, he was wearing black fatigues and combat boots. Even if they hadn’t already mentioned Matt, she wouldn’t have trusted this man. He looked like the men who had taken her in the van after the older woman had lured her close. They’d been dressed identically, and they’d all been large, muscled men who looked like they belonged in the military, not abducting women while they were out for a jog.
The second and third men came into sight, spread out in the low brush behind Jake. They were still arguing, and she knew at once that these two men were Hank and Tristan. They were huge, and both looked angry.
Jessica shrank further into the dark crevice, thankful that the black sweatpants and sweatshirt that Senora had given her to wear were the same dark black as the shadows that concealed her. Had her clothes been any other color, she would’ve been easily spotted. As it was, she was much too close for comfort, but the men seemed more focused on their spat than they were on their job.
They were still arguing, and Jessica knew that their leader was losing his patience with their nonsense. His shoulders were set, and he was scanning the woods ahead of him with a narrower focus than he had been before. He was even with her hiding place now, but he was so distracted by the bickering that he didn’t even scan that far to his left as he kept walking.
“I told you two to knock it off,” Jake said through gritted teeth. “You’ve managed to get along most of the day; let’s keep it professional.”
“Is it professional to attack everything I say?” Tristan muttered, turning slightly and glaring at Hank.
Jessica could feel the tension rising, and the urge to run was growing with each passing second. Were these men armed? Would they start shooting at any second? Why had they sent four men to find one woman? It seemed like overkill, which meant that someone really wanted to find her.
Her heart sank when more men appeared from the brush and from behind trees. There were six that she could see. Six men had been sent into the woods to retrieve her.
She was screwed.
“Everything you say is a whining question,” Hank shot back, shrugging when Jake gave him a look that would stop an angry bull in its tracks. “Maybe you would have a chance to be a leader if you were a better follower. Someone has to lead, and some have to follow. You would know that if you had any leadership potential in you. Maybe that’s why J passed you over for that promotion.”
Tristan turned, his face flashing with anger.
“That’s not what happened.”
“You can tell yourself that, but the truth is you’ve been passed over before.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Men,” Jake warned through gritted teeth.
His anger was growing, and from where she sat, it looked like he was growing. The bickering faded into the background as Jessica focused on Jake, watching him and trying to figure out what was going on.
Hank took another jab at Tristan, and this time, Tristan lost his cool and rushed at Hank. His long legs ate up the ground between them, but before Tristan could reach Hank, there was a roar and the sound of ripping fabric. Jessica turned her attention back to Jake just in time to see his fatigues fall away in a heap of torn fabric and a large, black bear spring forward and place himself between the two men. This time, Jessica couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her lips, but the bear just a hundred feet away was roaring still, angrily swiping at Tristan, and there was no way anyone heard her. The massive paw connected with the side of the man, and Tristan flew through the air and hit a tree, grunting hard and landing on his feet despite being thrown nearly twenty feet by the massive bear. The bear turned his attention to Hank, sharp teeth bared in an angry snarl. He looked terrifying, and it was all Jessica could do to stay silent and keep from wetting herself. Hank already had both his hands up in surrender, though he didn’t look the least bit scared. What was more baffling was that neither man seemed the least bit shocked that their leader had turned into a bear.
Jessica, on the other hand, was rendered speechless by the entire thing.
The bear stopped, then looked at Tristan and waited for Tristan to admit defeat. He roared once more, voicing his displeasure and standing on his hind legs to display his size. Jessica’s mouth was open, and she couldn’t believe her eyes. Maybe she was delirious. Or maybe there was something in the water she’d just had. There was no way this was all real.
She shrank back into her hiding place a little more, and her back connected with something solid and warm. Before she could cry out, a hand covered her mouth and clamped down hard, cutting off her scream and making it hard to breathe.
“Not a sound, got it?” a deep voice said from behind her.
She nodded her understanding.
“Good. Now, back up nice and slow, and don’t try to run.”
His hand didn’t move from her mouth, though it did soften just a bit. She thought about biting him, but where would she go? She was surrounded, and the little display between the three men in front had distracted her enough that she hadn’t even noticed the man coming in from behind her. She was caught, and she wasn’t going to get away now. She was going to have to play it safe and let him think that he had her before she made her move. If he thought she was going down easy, he was going to be in for the shock of his life.
Her heart was pounding painfully against her chest. She was trying to stay calm so that she could think. Panicking wasn’t going to help her at all, but it was hard to remain calm. There was a man in the woods that had turned into a bear without warning and another man holding her tightly in his arms. She was trapped, and she’d gone through all this just to get caught her first day on the run. She was furious, and she was terrified. She didn’t want to go back to that place. She’s rather die than be subjected to the things she’d seen there.
In her terror, her adrenaline surged, and everything moved in painful slow motion. She could feel the man’s muscles bunch and release as he guided her out of the tunnel she’d been hiding in, and she could hear each measured breath that was shockingly steady and even, considering the amount of effort he was exerting to keep her contained. She could even smell him, and though she expected him to smell like an animal, she realized that he smelled like any other man, and that she didn’t even know what a man bear would smell like. He was just human, and somehow, after what she’d seen, him appearing to be nothing more than a normal man was more frightening than anything else she’d encountered in these woods. At least the man who was lumbering around angrily roaring had revealed everything there was to know about him. The unknown was so much scarier than the known, even when they were impossible.
The man continued moving backward until they were in darkness again, and Jessica realized that they were in the mouth of a narrow cave that she’d walked right by not too long before she’d realized the men were in the woods without even noticing it. Had she been that lost in her thoughts?
He leaned so that her arm pressed against the smooth wall of the cave, then he turned her, and she came face-to-face with her captor. Her breath caught, and her eyes met hazel eyes staring back at her.
“Senora?” she whispered in shock.
Senora smiled.
“I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
Jessica looked at Senora and back at the man who had grabbed her from her hiding place. In a hushed whisper, she addressed the man.
“You’re not one of them?”
“No,” he said softly.
“Did you see?” she asked, not even sure how to put words to what had happened.
“I did.”
“But it’s not possible.”
Senora looked at Jessica, then at Ty, her expression confused.
“What’s not possible?” Senora asked Ty.
“The men in the woods searching for Jessica are WereBears.”
WereBears? Jessica thought, still not sure what she’d seen with her own eyes.
“WereBears?” Senora repeated, but she didn’t seem as shocked as Jessica thought she should be. “What are they doing here looking for her?”
“I don’t know,” Ty said. “But I know that things just got a whole lot more complicated than we thought they were going to be.”