“You just got here a few minutes ago.”
She sat up, rubbing the sore spot on the side of her head. “How many of them are there?”
“Like, four or five of them.”
Clover blinked. The room was dimly lit; the lights were all turned off and the windows shuttered. She’d been dumped on the floor of the mobile home’s kitchen.
“Is Sam going to find us?” Twilight asked hopefully.
“He doesn’t have any reason to be looking for us, so we can’t assume that he will. If we get a chance to escape, we have to take it. If I say to turn, you all have to shift at once. And run for it. Do not stay behind to help me, do not look back. Do you hear me?”
“I’m not leaving you,” Moonlight growled.
“No way,” Lennon shook his head.
Clover cursed quietly. They wouldn’t leave her, no matter what she said. She knew it. And they were no match for four or five adult male bear shifters. How were they going to get out of this? She couldn’t think the worst. She couldn’t give up, not with her family’s lives at stake.
“Have you looked for weapons?” she asked in a low voice.
“Of course. There’s no guns and no silverware, not that knives would really help.” Lennon glanced around. “The electricity is off. No phone anywhere. And I can hear guys on both sides of the trailer.”
* * *
The car jolted over the road, and Autumn was thrown against the Skullrider bear shifter who was sitting next to her. He smelled bad and his lanky shoulder-length hair was greasy. Sapphire sat up front next to another bear shifter, ignoring Autumn.
Three bears against one coyote.
They were headed to the airport to fly to North Carolina. Sapphire had made it very clear that if Autumn attempted to alert anyone that anything was wrong, her brother and sisters would suffer for it.
Autumn had told them that she couldn’t describe where she’d thrown away the seeds because it was so deep in the woods, but she knew how to find it. She’d been lying to buy time; it seemed to have worked so far.
The plan was to meet her mother and father at the airport, then they’d all head through the woods and get the crop.
Sapphire even called her parents and held the phone up to Autumn’s ear.
“Now, Autumn, just cooperate with your sister and everything will be fine,” her mother said. “Your father and I are doing this for the family. We’ll have enough money that we never have to work again. We can live anywhere we want. How does California sound? Or Mexico? We’ll let you choose, how’s that? Won’t that be fun? Anywhere you want! And we’ll all have new names, and you can pick those too!”
Autumn felt nauseated by her mother’s sweet tone. She was sick of people trying to kiss up to her when they wanted something. “You’re actually okay with your children being kidnapped and held captive by a biker gang to force me to talk?” She felt something stirring inside her, something dark and ugly. She’d felt it for weeks and weeks now, rippling under the surface, ever since her parents had tried to involve her in their drug-dealing scheme.
“Autumn, you have to realize this is your fault. If you’d just told us where you threw the seeds, none of this would ever have happened.” That was her father’s voice in the background. “Sapphire is not going to let anything happen to your brother and sisters. Everyone will be fine.”
“You think Sapphire has any control over an entire biker gang?” Autumn screamed into the phone. “You stupid bastard! Rot in hell!”
Sapphire hung up and cuffed her on the head.
“Don’t you dare talk to our parents with such disrespect,” she growled at her.
Now they were riding in silence, and Autumn could feel fur rippling under her skin. Her bones shifted, aching to re-form themselves. It felt different from usual. Something had changed. Something was wrong.
“I gotta take a piss,” the biker sitting next to her growled. “Pull over.”
They pulled over to the side of the road and he slid out. Autumn quickly slid out too.
“Hey!” Sapphire yelled at her.
“Stretching my legs,” Autumn said in an indifferent tone.
The biker walked off into the tall grass, headed for the treeline. The driver climbed out too.
