Andrea’s voice was tense with restrained panic.

“Lori has gone! We’re calling everyone we know. She's nowhere to be found. She’s disappeared, leaving Nancy alone in the garden.”

“Hey, slow down,” Bruno said. “You’re saying that she’s gone somewhere without her baby? She wouldn’t do that.”

“I know!” Andrea wailed. “Something’s happened to her!”

“I’m coming right over,” Bruno said, already running through his house.

“What’s going on, dad?” Tad called.

“I’m not sure yet.” Bruno looked at his son. He didn’t want to expose him to any kind of situation, but he couldn’t leave him by himself, and there was no time to make other arrangements. “Come on, we’ve got to go to Andrea and Magnus’s place!” Tad ran after him without asking any questions, hearing the urgency in his father’s tone.

They drove fast to the cabin, jolted to a stop and rushed into the house. Andrea came to meet them.

“Lori and Nancy were in the garden together, and I was upstairs. When I came down, she wasn’t there any more. How could she have just disappeared?” Bruno ran outside again, pacing around, sniffing the air. Nancy’s little cradle was in a corner of the garden. He sniffed all the way around it, in a steadily increasing circle. He knew that smell! Sweaty, unwashed bodies, mingled with a much stronger smell of wolf. And not just any wolf. The wolves who’d owned the meth lab he’d just turned over to the cops. Shit! Some of them must’ve avoided being captured, and then they’d somehow figured out a connection between him and her. He didn’t have time to wonder how they’d done it.

“Tad! Come on,” he called, and began to run after the scent of the two bikers and Lori. Tad caught him up and they plunged into the woods. They followed it for a few minutes as far as a clearing. And then it stopped.

“Damn!” Bruno exclaimed. But there was also a strong smell of gasoline, and an odor that only came from motorbikes. They’d taken her off on a bike. She could be anywhere. He felt like punching something. Instead, he bunched his hands into fists and walked around in a tight circle.

“Dad, calm down. We’ve gotta think,” Tad said. Bruno glanced at his son’s earnest face.

“You’re right, Tad,” he said. “Let’s go back to the car and see what’s already being done to find her.” They hurtled back through the trees and found Andrea talking to three cops.

“She’s been taken by some bikers – the ones who were renting out her old store. They’ve abducted her on their bikes,” Bruno told them. The cops nodded. They knew him well, and didn’t need to ask him how he’d gained this information. They just took it as fact – something he was very grateful for. They took their radios off their belts, and began talking into them rapidly.

“We’ve got traffic checking the highway cameras in the local area. Hopefully they’ll have something for us soon,” they said.

They all stood waiting in silence, too tense to speak. Terrible thoughts were running through Bruno’s mind. Were they planning to punish Lori for what he’d done? The thought sickened him, to the pit of his stomach.

At last, the radios crackled.

“Two bikes, both registered to tenants at that address have been seen heading north on the interstate. They’ve only managed to trace them for the first few miles though. After that, the cameras are unreliable.”

“I’m going to find her,” Bruno yelled. “Tad, stay here with Andrea!”

“No, I’m coming with you!” Tad shouted. Bruno stopped and turned to his son.

“Tad, it’s not safe for you. It could be a dangerous situation.” Tad’s lip trembled.

“Dad, please. I need to be with you.” There was something in his green eyes – something that was terrified of abandonment. Bruno couldn’t do it to him again.

“Ok, but you’ve got to do exactly what I say.” Tad’s small chest heaved in relief.

“Ok,” he said, and he ran towards the pick-up with his dad.

Bruno drove slowly on the interstate with his windows open. He knew it was a long shot, but he hoped he’d pick up something. So far, there was nothing. Just the thick, choking smell of thousands of vehicles and hot asphalt. Lori was so present in his mind. He was so worried about what those feral animals could do to her. But it was more than that. He felt like his mate had been snatched away from him. However hard he’d tried to put her out of his mind after he told her they couldn’t be together, it clearly hadn’t worked.

“You care about her a lot, don’t you, dad?” Tad piped up, after being silent for a while. Bruno smiled at his son, amazed once again at Tad’s maturity and perceptive abilities.

“Yes I do, Tad,” he replied.

“When you find her, I think you should become mates, and she should come and live with us in our house.”

“I don’t know about that. Sometimes things aren’t as easy as they seem.” Tad was quiet again.

“It’s because of mom, isn’t it?” Bruno sighed.

“Yes it is,” he said at last.

“But it’s fine, dad. We’ll never forget mom, but I don’t want you to be lonely, and I feel like Lori is the one you should be with. And I would love it if Nancy was my little sister.” Bruno took a deep breath.

“It’s more than that. You know how we lost your mom?” Tad nodded, his eyes wide. “And you know how I met Lori – after the fire service rescued her from a car wreck?” Tad nodded again. “Well, I just feel like it’s a bad coincidence. I feel like the heavens are telling me that I wasn’t able to save your mom, so I don’t have the right to be with someone that I did save.” Tad was silent for a lot longer this time.

“But dad, maybe it’s the opposite? Maybe the heavens are giving you a second chance. You became a firefighter so you could save people. And you did save Lori and Nancy. So you don’t have to feel bad about not saving mom any more?” Bruno frowned. He’d never seen it that way before. He’d carried so much guilt around for so long, that he thought coincidence could only be a bad thing.

“Do you really think so?”

“It makes sense to me, dad.” Tad said, suddenly sounding far older than his years. I guess if the heavens wanted to punish me, I would’ve been killed while I was trying to save Lori and Nancy, Bruno thought to himself. But if I was with Lori, would I ever be able to forget that she and my previous mate were connected by fire?

“If you rescue her now, it’ll make everything alright,” Tad said. Bruno’s head jerked to stare at his son.

“Tad, where did you get that idea from?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. It just came to me. Like there was a voice in my head,” Tad said, sounding worried.

“Tad, it’s ok, I’m not angry with you. I just needed to know.”

“It was like someone was giving me a message to pass on to you.”That was exactly how it had sounded. Bruno thought hard about Lori. He allowed his mind to be imbued with her presence. He tried to feel her with all of his senses. And she came to him, as if they were being connected across time and space. Her eyes were dazzling violet, but full of vulnerability. She was his mate, and she needed him. And he knew how to find her. He cleared his mind of any preconceptions, and let his mate guide him to her.

He turned off the interstate at the next opportunity, drove back south a little, then took a back road through some farming land. He kept going and going, and the road turned into a rough track. Night had fallen, and visibility was very poor. They seemed to be driving towards a farm. He sensed that Lori was no more than a mile away. He stopped the car and parked up next to an abandoned building. “There’s not much time,” Lori seemed to be urging him.

“Tad, I’m going to go on foot the rest of the way. I need you to stay in the car. It could be dangerous for you to follow me. Do you understand?” Tad nodded. “Here’s my phone, with all my numbers on it. Use the maps app to figure out where we are, and call the cops right now and give them our location. Got it?”

Tad nodded again.

“Sure, dad.”

“And keep the doors locked.”

Bruno unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, followed by his pants, shoes and undershorts, and then he stepped out of the car. Tad watched while his father shifted in front of his eyes, becoming a huge brown bear with pale blue eyes, and long, sharp claws, before he sprinted off, following the track ahead.