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Seyla, Jessa and Sam took off together, running toward the girls and the figure beyond them, yelling in unison.
The driver stopped and looked in their direction for a brief second before melting more of the fencing.
Jessa ran ahead. Seyla pumped her legs to run faster, with Sam and Jessa right next to her. “Stop!”
The driver glanced at them again, the blue flame illuminating enough of their face to reveal the same twisted clown mask she’d seen at the cat colony. The figure shoved an item through the opening and dropped it. Seyla and Sam were getting close when the driver scooted onto the quad and sped off.
Jessa rounded up the girls and herded them away. Seyla ran to the fence. It had to be the same person who’d chased her at the cat colony. And they were getting away. Seyla examined the ground. A steak lay next to the gaping hole in the outer fence. Cairo stumbled through the hole in the inner fencing, heading toward the piece of meat at her feet. And her. And the gaping hole. Now what? How could they hold her at bay with nothing but a couple of crutches? But if she escaped in the state she was in, she’d likely attack whoever she encountered. Seyla gulped at the flash of memory of a group of kids she’d seen right afterentering the park. They were grinning, cotton candy sticks fisted in their hands, walking alongside their parents.
“I’ve got something!” Jessa shouted, racing over. She shoved a wooden set of steps from one of the trailers against the fence, and Matt handed Seyla his crutches. She and Sam pressed them against the steps to keep them in place. Jessa pushed against the steps themselves. Cairo grabbed the piece of meat and swiped at the rickety steps. Her thick claws raked against the walled back of the wooden steps, tearing at it and jolting them. Matt dropped to the ground and took Seyla’s place to hold the crutches and steps against the opening.
Seyla backed away. She called to Cairo to draw the cat’s attention off of the hole. Her hand shook as she dialed the sheriff’s number. She waved her other hand around to distract the cat. While she explained the situation to the sheriff, she watched the quad drive off in the distance.
How many people would get hurt before this person was caught? She couldn’t let them get away again. Next time…no, she couldn’t bear to finish the thought.
Jessa stuffed her own phone in her pocket, holding the steps in place with her back. “I called Allen. Got his voicemail. He’s the one who’s supposed to be patrolling the perimeter right now. Clearly, he’s not.”
The cat pawed at its face again, shaking its head and dragging its nose against the ground. “Where are the girls?” Seyla asked.
“On the other side of the supply trailer over there. They were rattled. One was crying.”
A calm resolve came over Seyla. “Jessa, the sheriff will be here any minute. He’s already at the fair. He’ll have some help and knows what they need to do.”
Seyla backed up a few more steps. “I’m going after them,” she said. “I can’t let any more people or animals get hurt if I have the chance to stop it.”
“No way, Seyla,” Matt protested.
The others chimed in. Seyla took off running anyway.
Evidently, this person would do anything to get what they wanted. If they were only targeting her, she could handle it. But they were targeting other innocent people and animals, using them as pawns in their sick agenda.
The assailant wasn’t aiming to hurt her this time. However, the public outcry regarding a predator on the loose attacking people at the fair would definitely succeed in closing the sanctuary. Why target her at all, then, if shutting down the sanctuary was their goal?
An answer emerged from the fog of confusion. Seyla increased her pace.
Since she’d been hired at the sanctuary, she’d completed the income-generating zip line. She’d spearheaded the new enrichment program that brought a lot more visitors. No wonder they wanted her out of the picture. Closing the sanctuary must be their objective. Why?
Another thought sank to the bottom of her stomach. Had they found some way to induce a heart attack to kill Hannah? She’d introduced the idea of the zip line, and made great strides in its building before she died. As outlandish as the idea sounded, it was too convenient to be coincidental.
Seyla stumbled over a divot in the ground and caught herself. Ran harder. Her windpipe burned more with each rasping breath. She’d rarely pushed herself this hard on her runs. Would she be able to keep it up?
She could see them ahead of her, driving through the field in the direction of a broken spot in the reserve fencing. Broken by them, no doubt. The woods would slow them down. However, the thought of following them into a place where no one could see her turned her bones to jelly. What if they turned around and came after her?
What if they had a weapon?
If only Jax stood beside her. She’d feel a lot braver with him next to her.
The quad driver entered the woods at the edge of the reserve lands. Seyla hesitated. Should she go after them?
A vision of those carefree, preteen girls and the families strolling around the fair unaware of any danger played across her mind. This had to end. She’d follow them at a distance and call for help when she discovered where they were hiding out. Her decision made, she cast one last look at the specks that represented her friends and crossed into the reserve.
/////
Jax was searching for the boy behind some supply boxes for a local beekeeper’s honey booth when a shout rang out that the child had been found.
Seconds later, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and opened a text message from his uncle. A shadow fell across the phone’s screen. He turned to find Victor Soros standing behind him. Shielding the phone, Jax shot the man an icy glare and marched away to read the rest of the text.
The next sentence stopped his heart.
