Hannah
Despite the frantic morning, Hannah found herself in a happy mood as Josh pointed to a truck pulling up to the side of the road. She climbed into the front seat at his insistence, saying hi to Connor. She had met him briefly, but didn’t know him well.
The big shifter sniffed at the air and frowned. “You smell like wet dog.”
Hannah sat bolt upright and stared at Josh in horror. He was giving her the same look back.
They had forgotten about the fact that nobody else knew she was a werewolf!
“You can smell that?” she asked in dismay, trying to pretend like she knew about it.
Connor nodded as he eased them back into traffic. “Yes, it’s not exactly…subtle.”
She laughed, embarrassed. “We jumped in a pond, and there was a dog there. I love dogs,” she said, fabricating the lie as she went. “I gave him a hug. I thought it had dried off by now. Josh hadn’t said anything about it,” she said, turning a glare at him.
He shrugged. “Not my place, ma’am,” he told her formally, dropping back into the bodyguard role with ease.
Hannah frowned internally, but a quick wink reassured her that he was only acting.
Connor looked back and forth between the two of them, as if he didn’t buy what they were selling, but in the end he and Josh shared a look, which was enough to silence him.
“What do we do now?” Connor asked, moving on from the subject. Hannah sensed he wasn’t done with it, but was willing to leave it for now.
“My brother is still out there,” she said, checking her own phone, but there was still nothing from him. “I think they may have gotten to him. It’s not like him to take this long to get back to me.” She frowned.
“Let’s go take a lap of the hotel,” Josh suggested.
Hannah sat back, her phone held tight in her hand so she could feel if it went off to notify her of anything. Something was going on, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“The others are behind us now,” Josh told her, giving her a pat on the shoulder as he pointed in the sideview mirror from the back seat.
She longed to reach out and grab his hand, to hold it, to nuzzle it against her cheek. But she couldn’t. She just smiled at him instead and looked behind them to see two more trucks and a bike following them, almost in a convoy.
“Why are you all in separate vehicles?” she asked.
“Didn’t know where you were,” Connor explained. “Easier to split up just in case you need a ride ASAP. Turns out you did.”
She nodded, sitting back in the seat as they approached the hotel. It was on the corner, a big building that followed the road. The building was shaped like an L, with the back corner open for the pool, patio, and other outdoor areas, which were hidden from the street.
What was in plain sight, however, was a black van.
“That doesn’t look very pedestrian,” Josh muttered under his breath.
Hannah was forced to agree. “That looks rather…military.”
The big shifter grunted an agreement. “I’m almost surprised it only has two axles. A third would fit on there just fine.”
“The street-legal versions aren’t allowed to have them,” Connor said quietly. “Only the military versions have three axels. But otherwise, it’s going to be mostly the same. Bulletproof armor and glass, reinforced everything. Those things do not play around. What the fuck is going on, Josh?”
Hannah looked at the driver.
“There’s a group of mercs after her,” he said. “Shifters too, and good ones.”
“You didn’t tell us that before,” Connor said tightlipped, pulling the truck to the side of the road. It was marked as a no-parking zone, but they didn’t expect to be long. The other vehicles followed suit.
“I didn’t know that they were either of those things myself,” Josh said. “But I found out the hard way.”
Hannah was distracted by what she saw at the door.
“Chad!” she cried, hand going for the door handle.
“Hannah wait!” Josh cried, his arms snaking around from behind the seat and holding her in place.
“But they have him!” she protested. “We need to go help. Come on! With all of you, we can easily take them on. They won’t know what hit them. Please?” she said, struggling to break free, but the big shifter was just too strong for her. Plus she didn’t dare use her strength just yet. Surprising the other members of Josh’s team like that would not be a good way to earn their respect.
“Hannah, look,” Josh urged.
“What?” she said.
“He’s not being taken against his will, Hannah,” Connor said softly.
She looked again as her brother walked toward the vehicle. A pair of mercenaries walked on either side of him, the sun’s light making it easy for everyone to see exactly what was going on.
“They’re wearing police-like uniforms. Maybe he’s been tricked into thinking they are the authorities?” she said angrily. What were they trying to say?
“Unlikely,” Josh said. “Your brother avoided the police the other night just like we did, remember?”
The hidden meaning in his words was clear. Chad knew better than to let himself be apprehended by the police in King City. With the Agency on the loose and government at various levels in almost outright collusion with them, a shifter—especially a werewolf shifter—would be very wise to avoid being taken in by the “authorities.”
Or at least, she hoped Chad knew better.
“And even if he was being taken against his will, he doesn’t look beat up at all. His clothes aren’t disheveled, ripped, nothing. Your brother doesn’t seem like the type to go down without a fight,” Connor told her.
Hannah looked at them all, then back at the scene of her brother and his captors. She was sure they were captors. But as much as she wanted to deny what the others were saying, it did make a lot of sense. Besides, where had her brother been while she and Josh were fighting for their lives to escape? He hadn’t been in his room, and he hadn’t responded to any messages either.
“What if they got him first, and are now pretending that they have me, to make him go along peacefully?”
The bear shifters exchanged a look that didn’t go unnoticed by her. It said, “Maybe, but we don’t think so.”
“Shit,” she swore, still not convinced, but not able to deny it either. “What do we do now?” she asked, sitting back in her chair, making it clear that she wasn’t going to try anything foolhardy, such as charging out at them all alone.
“We’re going to follow them, of course,” Josh said, nodding to Connor who spoke quietly into his phone, before hooking it to the dash.
Hannah frowned. “Okay, so why aren’t we moving then? In case you missed it, they just pulled away.”
Josh rubbed her shoulder gently. Her right shoulder, the one Connor couldn’t see. She smiled to herself at that, and resisted the urge to reach her hand up to make contact with him.
We really need to put this out in the open. I can’t see the others missing it either. They’re all very smart.
Connor started speaking, interrupting her thoughts. “It would be dangerous for all of our vehicles to follow them at once. So we’ll take it in turns. Right now, Justin is on his bike, staying close to them.”
Hannah looked behind them and saw that he was right. At some point the motorcycle that had been parked at the rear of their little convoy had disappeared. Even as she watched, the last truck in line eased out into traffic as well, and in seconds was swept away. Another minute went by, and then the third truck.
Finally it was their turn, and Connor moved smoothly back into the flow of vehicles, listening to a voice through the phone. He nodded, then put it on speaker and set it in the dash. Justin was speaking, updating them on street movements. They followed him, until he switched out and Jared began to follow them.
“Wait,” Hannah said softly, turning to look at Josh. “There are four of you on your team, right?”
He looked at her. “Well, it’s Jared’s team actually,” he looked sheepish.
Hannah smiled. “I know that, but there are four, correct?”
Josh nodded. “Correct. Why?”
She did some quick mental math. “So, two of you are here. Justin is on a bike, and Jared is in one of the trucks. So who is in the other—”
A woman’s voice came over the radio. “Okay, I’ve got them now. We’re headed north on Duke Street.”
“That would be Shay and Madison,” Connor told her.
“Right.” She sat back in her seat, contemplative.
Hannah had met both of them, and had known Shay to be a driver of considerable skill. But she hadn’t actually believed that they were allowed out on missions. Yes, Madison was the boss, but that was still a change that she had not expected.
They let their women go into harm’s way.
No, that wasn’t right at all, Hannah realized as she continued to think about it. It was highly unlikely that Connor and Justin willingly let them go, no matter how competent they knew the pair of them to be. It was far more likely that they respected the fact that if they tried to say no, they would lose. Smart men.
She idly wondered if Josh would continue to allow her to be an active part of things if she stuck around. They had fought together in the park, and fought together well, but that had been out of necessity, not by choice.
The idea continued to flit around her head, growing steam as it did. For years now Hannah had accompanied her brother as he made his speeches and tried to raise awareness for the plight of shifters in the world at large. She had thought she was doing her part to help, to right the wrongs that were being committed. But perhaps she needed to be more hands-on. The idea of digging in and doing something felt…right.
I wonder…