“Vicky, somebody is at the door. They want to sell us something.”
Greg wandered into the kitchen where Vicky was busy doing the dishes from lunch.
“You didn’t open it did you?” Vicky asked, a surge of panic curdling her blood.
“No, I didn’t answer it. But I can hear him and see what he had been outside the window. He wants to talk to us and sell his books or something.”
“. You remember what your father said. He would be angry at both of us even answered the door and spoke to a person.”
“I told you he wasn’t there. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t like talking to strangers anyway.”
Greg gave a halfhearted shrug and headed back upstairs to play with Michael.
Vicky nervously headed toward the door, wringing her hands together. She saw the man on the porch, her blood tendinitis. He was gaunt and tall. Definitely not the same physique she was used to seeing the bear shifters off. Perhaps he wasn’t a bear shifter at all, but the Dragon shifter or something else entirely. She couldn’t be too sure, and instead of answering the door, she pulled out her phone. It was a bear shifter he would probably be able to hear her speaking. He was a Dragon shifter, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she knew she had to tell Bruce. This was strange, even for these parts where it was probably perfectly plausible for men to be wandering around selling encyclopedias.
“Bruce?” She whispered into the phone. The call had gone straight to his voicemail. “I need you to come home as soon as you can. There somebody outside and they want us to open the door. It might be nothing, but I’m a little bit nervous. He doesn’t look like a bear shifter at all.”
Her heart constricted tightly in her chest when a sudden banging noise crashed through the back of the house. She was reluctant to leave the front door where the man was still standing. But the noise had been even more terrifying. She grabbed for the weapon Bruce had ultimately given her. They had only trained with it for a little while, but it had been enough for her to get the hang of holding it. She followed the noise to the back, holding the gun shakily in her hand. When she reached the kitchen, she prepared herself to find the worst. However, all she found was a raccoon that had somehow burst through the kitchen window and bolted itself onto the counters.
She lowered the gun uncertainly. “Get out of here you,” she exclaimed, grabbing a broom, and trying to usher the little creature back outside.
Just as she was doing so, however, she was gripped with fear as a low voice sounded from behind her.
“It’s no way to talk to an innocent little creature, now is it?” A chilling man’s voice said.
“Get out of here. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I assure you I do.” Vicky could almost hear the smile in the man’s voice, and it filled her with rage.
“You need to get out of his house right now,” she said, her hands trembling and wrapping around the handle of the gun.
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that. I’m pretty sure there are other innocent little creatures here that will help us to fulfill our goals. We aren’t going anywhere until we have them.
She suddenly realized what was going on. They were going to use the children to try to blackmail Bruce into handing over the rights to the Jensen project. It was despicable, and she found herself more angry than she had ever been in her life.
“What kind of horrible people are you?” She asked incredulously, would be around two in the weapon at the man’s head. But he grabbed her wrist before she had a chance to pull the trigger, and the gun dropped from her hand from his force.
“We aren’t people at all, dear human. We are Dragon shifters.”
An anguished cry of fury rolled from deep within Vicky’s chest as she was forced forward. Suddenly, there were other men in the room, tall and gaunt like the man who was standing outside on the porch.
The kids began to scream and cry as they were torn out of the rooms by these horrible abductors, and Vicky’s heart broke entirely hearing their fear. She had been useless to protect them. Bruce was going to hate her. Not only that, but she might not survive this. Everything about this situation was horrible. She had never felt more hopeless in her entire life. All she could hope was that Bruce would get the message sooner rather than later so they would be protected.
When the Dragon shifters had rounded up all the kids, they brought them into the kitchen with Vicki. The kids were whimpering and fear.
“Shut them up, will you?” The leader of the Dragon shifter abductors demanded to Vicky.
Vicky did her best to keep her voice even in calm. “It’s going to be okay you guys. You know your daddy will make sure everything is all right. We have nothing to worry about. These people are just after something your dad has that they want. They won’t hurt you.”
The kids were quieted, but the look of fear in their faces was unmistakable. Soon, they were all being pushed out the door and forward toward the van that was waiting outside. Vicky sent a silent prayer out into the universe that Bruce would be able to come back in time to help them. But who knew where he was? Or what he was doing? There was no way to tell whether or not he would even receive a voicemail or find it important enough to address. All she could do was hope everything was going to be all right.