Page 48 of Fat Enemy Mate

"Hall, now," I say. "All of us. Skylar and Fern, you can go back to the clinic or come back with us. Just don't be on your own."

"We’ll come back with you,” Fern says, “we need to help.”

We move quickly, back in the trucks. I hear Connor talking to Thomas, telling him we need every patrol on lookout and checking if their group is almost back. I hear Thomas yelling instructions over the line, and I know the call has already gone out across town. They’re treating Lara like one of our own, and I feel that.

We're back at the hall within minutes, and the meeting room is already filling up as Thomas and the others pile in. This is the room we always use for tactical missions, and it’s ready to go almost straight away. Nick is on the phone coordinating with the guys already out on the border, and Thomas is already splitting the volunteers into groups as quickly as they arrive.

"Connor, we’ve got to find out if it was a patrol van," I say. "We need to find it."

"On it," Connor says, and he's on the radio. "All security units, all security units. Anybody got eyes on the patrol vehicles? I want every single one of them accounted for. Anyone who has not radioed in the last fifteen minutes, radio in now. I want all the numbers."

The radio crackles. Voices come back in. Dylan from the ridge. James from the eastern line. Patrol vehicles four, seven, and nine come in one after the other.

Then a voice I don't recognize comes over the radio.

"This is the depot. Connor, I tried to reach you this morning. Vehicle three's been missing from the lot since last night. It was in for repairs, and we’ve been flat out this morning. We hadn't put it on the boards yet. I'm sorry, man. I should have flagged it harder."

Connor closes his eyes for a half-second and rubs a hand across his face.

"Send the plate to the hall radio," Connor says evenly. "Not your fault, do it now."

"On it," the voice says.

The plate comes through over the radio. Thomas writes it on the map with a marker, big enough for the whole room to see. Tango three eight seven Delta Bravo.

"That's how they got in unnoticed," Nick says, voicing the obvious. "And out unnoticed."

"That's how they gotLaraunnoticed," I tell him. "Anyone in this town sees a patrol van and assumes it's pack. They drove straight through our town and took her because everyone trusts those vans."

"They've planned this," Caleb says, from the back of the room. "This isn't a lucky grab-and-go. They came in with a plan."

"And we thought they’d gone quiet," Ethan mutters.

I don't have time for people to sit around and question if we should have done more; we can get to that later. I tune out all the voices and look at the map.

"Right," I say. "Connor. Get that plate out on the radio to every road out of town. Every checkpoint. The pass road, the southern line, the eastern line through the forestry road, every single person in the pack, not just security. I want eyes on that van immediately; it can’t just vanish, and they probably still think they’ve got some cover."

Connor nods and gets back on the radios.

"Thomas," I say. "Get these volunteers out into trucks ready to roll as soon as we have a direction. We’re going to need to move fast, so I want everyone ready."

"On it," Thomas says, turning to shout instructions across the hall before leading the volunteers out to the lot.

"Wilf," Nick says.

I turn to look at him and try to temper my wolf, who is getting more frustrated as the moments tick by. Organizing is one thing, but I need todosomething now.

"Luna and Anya are on their way," he tells me. "Anya hadn't left for the city yet, and they’ll be five minutes. She was just dropping Luna at ours when I called. Anya says she might be able to get a tail on Lara if the magic is strong enough."

"We’ll take her with us," I tell him, and then stare at the radios, “we just need to know which damn direction first.”

He nods, and then he’s back on the phone, presumably with Luna. I try to take a breath and look back at the map, considering the most likely route. The pass road goes north over the mountains. The forest road, the southern road to town toward the valley, and the road that goes east past the river. The depot was over on the east, which is in the opposite direction of the ridge and hut where I found her, but it does lead back to the old Cheslem stomping grounds, so that would make sense…

I run through a thousand different scenarios, but the pressure under my chest is only growing, and the weight of it is making it hard to concentrate on anything else. It’s been building ever since Connor got that call, since I realized she’d been taken.

She is my mate. I love her.

That's what this is. That’s what my wolf is trying to tell me. Forget the lottery, the magic left open, or anything Elder Amelia warned me about—I don’t care about any of that. I just care about Lara. She has been the simplest good thing in mylife; nothing is actually complicated about this situation once you strip the lottery and my own baggage out of it. This isn’t just my wolf leading me; this is the man and the wolf knowing she’s perfect for us. She might never accept a shifter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her.