True North (The Bears of Blackrock Book 4) (19 page)

He scanned the floor of the truck and the passenger seat, praying he would recognize it when he saw it. There was nothing there.

“Where are they? Where did Baird take them?!” Theron bellowed into the truck bed, reaching for Reed as he squealed in fear.

“The worst villains are often the biggest cowards,” Pearl mumbled from over his shoulder. She marched around the other side of the truck, and with one quick motion, ripped the driver’s side door off the truck. Charlie stifled a cry at the sight. Clearly, Pearl was startling more than just Reed.

She was chief for good reason.

Pearl grabbed hold of Reed’s coat and yanked him out onto the ground. He cowered at her feet, shielding his face from them. “My grandson asked you a question. Where is my granddaughter?”

Reed shook his head, stumbling over every word. “I don’t know. I don’t know! He didn’t tell us!”

Darrell lunged at the man and he cried out again.

“I swear! All we know is he took em north! Said he left them in the back seat of the car. The only other one who knows is Hank Dorman, and he ran off.
He ran off
!!” Reed screamed, flinching as Darrell lunged forward again.

Theron turned his attention to another truck, searching for Baird’s familiar rig.

“We could try tracking the fucker’s scent. Shouldn’t be too hard,” Darrell suggested.

“There’s no fucking time,” Theron said, rifling through yet another truck cab. He saw nothing to hint at a device for finding their trackers, but he was sure – the Holden’s were sure they had one. Theron turned his attention to one of the cars parked nearby, sniffing the air as he approached. A rusted Oldsmobile reeked of a familiar scent.

Davenport had brought his car, tonight.

Theron climbed into the front seat, reaching under the seats and into the back, scanning every surface, tossing every object aside. The glove box was a mess, but nothing to betray some tracking contraption.

Come on, damn it. It has to be here! It has to be!

A gun shot fired off through the darkness, startling everyone toward the back of Baird’s car. Theron glanced back to find Charlie flipping up the trunk lid. “It’s here, Talbot. I think this is it.”

Theron stumbled out of the car in such a hurry he could barely keep his footing. The case looked official, framed in heavy, textured plastic like something James Bond would carry. Despite that fact, it was sticky with dried beer.

Theron pulled the heavy case out of the trunk and set it on the cold ground. He needed light.

“Where the hell did that asshole get something like this?” Pearl said from over Theron’s shoulder.

He didn’t have time to contemplate such a thing. He had to make it work. He had to find Sinead.

The case snapped open easily, displaying a still screen. Theron ran his hands over the edges of the case, feeling for a power switch, or anything that might help him work the contraption.

“You! Yes, I’m talking to you!” Darrell hollered.

Theron barely glanced up as the sound of pleading and wailing drew closer. A second later, Darrell threw Officer Reed down to Theron’s side on the gravel road.

“Make it work, and I’ll try to convince my grandmother not to feed you to our children,” Darrell said, whispering with as foreboding a tone as he could.

It didn’t take much, Reed was a wreck.

Theron couldn’t blame him. Several of the Holden clan were still bears, stomping around the perimeter searching for the scent of those who’d fled. And even closer still, the corpse of Baird Davenport lay sprawled across the road, bleeding into the gravel.

Theron ignored the smell of blood filling the air. He wasn’t sad to see Baird dead, but seeing a man killed didn’t have a calming effect, that was certain.

“Do you know how to make it work? Do it! Turn it on,” Theron said, yanking Reed’s shaking hand toward the machine.

Reed shook his head and pointed to the dead man on the ground. “He has the key on his belt.”

The words were barely a whisper, but Darrell crossed the distance in two strides, ripping Davenport’s key ring from his belt with such force, the body lifted a foot off the ground before slumping back into the blood soaked gravel.
The smell only got stronger.

Darrell leaned down over Reed and simply pressed the keys into Reed’s chest. “Make it work.”

The officer stifled a sob, but took the key ring and began searching through the keys with his trembling hands. He held a stranger metal shape between thumb and forefinger and tried to insert it into the machine. Theron spotted the slot as soon as Reed took aim, then snatched the keys from the man. There was no time to wait for him to steady himself. Theron inserted the strange key, turned it, and the screen blipped to life.

This device, though seemingly high tech, was clearly several years old. Theron waited, watching the cloudy screen slowly brighten. There in the bottom left corner of the screen was a crowd of lights, orange and yellow, all crowding together and milling around like amoeba in a petri dish.

Theron paid this small pocket of life no mind, because far off on the top right side of the screen, two tiny blips hovered together there, perfectly still.

“Where is this? How far is this!?” Theron yelled, grabbing Reed’s collar.

“It’s five miles! Up the gravel road.”

Theron released his hold on Reed, grabbed the machine in his hands, and hauled it across the circle of cars. Charlie was already opening the passenger door of his truck when Theron arrived.

“I’m coming with you,” said a familiar voice. Theron turned to find Darrell standing at the passenger side door, meeting Theron’s eyes without an ounce of pleading.

This wasn’t a request.

Theron nodded, and Darrell hopped up into the bed of the truck, dropping onto his ass just as the gravel kicked up from beneath Charlie’s wheels.

The truck shuddered with every inch as Charlie barreled through potholes and loose stones, careless of the state of the truck he’d stolen. Theron didn’t need voice his urgency. Charlie was doing everything Theron could ask.

The terrain grew rougher as they went, the lights of the trucks following behind the only sign of life for hundreds of miles. Theron kept his eyes on the screen, watching the two little blips grow closer with each passing moment.

He stared at the color of the lights. One was bright orange. The other an almost yellow white. He didn’t know the reason for the color variance, but he knew what he feared.

Temperature difference.

The truck rattled violently as they plowed through a massive sinkhole, the sound of the undercarriage grinding into the dirt. The road was disappearing in snow and uneven terrain. They were still trudging forward, but the blips were no longer drawing near.

They’d passed them.

Theron punched the passenger door. “Stop the truck.”

Charlie did as he was asked and Theron climbed out. He marched to the front of the truck, scanning the ground ahead for a sign of tire marks. There was nothing to betray where Davenport had taken them. He glanced back to the two trucks following up behind and caught sight of Pearl in the passenger seat.

“Sinead!” Theron called, his voice echoing through the hundreds of miles of nothing, only to be quashed by a sudden rise in the wind. Theron glanced back to the truck and saw Charlie pressing his hands to his face, breathing heavy into them to keep them warm. In the chaos of the night’s events, he’d almost failed to notice how cold his human counterparts were.

And she’d been out here for at least two hours.

Theron pulled the passenger door aside, almost ripping it free in his frustration, and checked the screen again. The two blips were a half mile or so west of him.

“There’s no road!” Charlie hollered from inside the truck. “We can go back. See if we missed a turn?”

Theron shook his head. “Stay here. Darrell?”

He turned to find his cousin pulling his shirt up over his head. They could cover this ground faster as bears.

Theron waved back to the other trucks, and soon the road was filled with several members of the Holden clan, many of them slipping out of their jackets to shift and take to the wilderness. The wind picked up again, this time blowing eastward. Theron turned toward it as though someone called his name.

He’d caught her scent.

He didn’t say another word, but felt the familiar searing electricity rush over his skin as fur began to appear. He felt the ground grow further from him, felt the weight of his shoulders triple so quickly, he had to let his paws hit the ground. Then with his claws cutting through frozen ground, Theron took off into the darkness, huffing clouds of vapor into the frigid air. He didn’t slow as he barreled over the terrain, the sound of Darrell just behind him, the scent of Pearl and Uncle Gregory somewhere nearby. They were all heading west at their best pace, Theron breathing hoarsely to find the scent on the air again.

The scent coupled suddenly with the smell of diesel fuel. The trucks were in the distance now, their engines humming far away enough for their scent to fade. This smell was drawing closer now. Theron turned southward and doubled his pace.

Please be alright. Please be alright. Please god, let her be alright!

The dark shape was almost completely invisible against the terrain, but it was there – a rusted old Volvo, its windows opaque with condensation.

Darrell was the first to shift back, running across the snowy ground in his bare feet. Theron wanted to meet him at the back door of the car, to reach in and see Sinead, make sure she was alright, but he knew she’d need more than simple tending. She’d need warmth. She’d need to be taken somewhere safe. Theron rounded the front end of the car, shifting back as he reached the back driver’s side door. He tried the handle and found it unlocked.

“I tried to keep her warm, Deedee. I tried.”

Darrell was in the backseat now, collecting Buniq into his arms on the other side of the car as Theron opened the door.

Buniq was sobbing. Sinead wasn’t there.

Darrell and Theron met each other’s eyes, and no words were needed.

“Bunny, where is she? Was she with you?” Darrell asked, holding the girl in his arms.

Buniq was half dressed, a sign of having shifted while stuck there in the middle of nowhere.

Buniq wiped her hand over her eyes. She was stumbling over her words. “I tried to make her stay. She said she was going to find help.”

Pearl snatched Buniq from Darrell’s arms, crying out to the gods in her own language. Buniq’s clothes were cast across the back seat of the car. She’d shifted to try to keep Sinead warm.

It hadn’t been enough.

Theron scanned the darkness, frantic to hear this news.

Darrell’s eyes widened in shock. “She went out in this? She left you?”

“How long ago?” Theron asked, his voice cracking.

“I don’t know. She was talking silly, trying to take her jacket off like she wasn’t cold.”

“Sinead!!” Theron screamed, his voice cracking in his throat. He’d heard stories from his sister’s boyfriend, Deacon.

Deacon was a local EMT back in Blackrock. He’d seen all manner of trouble and trauma driving an ambulance, and with waters as cold as Blackrock, he’d seen hundreds with hypothermia. They often discussed his work at family gatherings.

One of the symptoms of hypothermia was confusion, delirium, and losing the sense of temperature. Deacon had found more than one victim frozen in the woods, naked. Apparently, stripping wasn’t an uncommon behavior among the freezing cold.

If she was truly this far along, she might already be lost.

Theron shifted back, the shards of ice blowing in the air now bouncing off his thick mats of fur. He pressed his nose to the ground where Sinead’s feet would’ve been and found her scent, subtle, but present. He turned toward the darkness and the west and took off.

Theron grunted, as though he might be able to call her name even as he barreled through the cold on all fours, paws pressed into the snow instead of hands and feet. The scent wavered, as though Sinead had stumbled through the snow, zigzagging somehow. He could imagine her meandering in the cold, her mind leaving her as the blood in her veins chilled to the point of fatal. If she wasn’t found soon, she wouldn’t survive.

That is if she hadn’t already succumbed to the cold.

He huffed angrily, scolding himself.

Don’t even think it!

The scent picked up again, taking a deliberate turn and heading straight down a clear path in the icy grass. Theron’s gait picked up as he followed, finding actual footsteps in the area where snow was still gathered and soft enough to leave marks. He pressed his nose into the snow and touched something solid. He flicked the object up to inspect.

A worn black boot flopped over in the snow. Sinead’s boot.

She’d been here, he thought. And recently, too.

Theron quickly shifted back to his human form and took a deep breath. “Sinead!” He called.

He shook his head. Would she respond, even if she was still conscious?

She was barefoot, now. Theron’s heart pounded in his ears as he continued down the slope, scanning for any sign of her, or of clothing she might’ve cast off.

“Sinead! Damn it, where are you? Please!” He cried again, his heart hurting so desperately it took all his strength to form the words without weeping.

He trudged onward, dreading what he might find. The path evened out then turned upward, scaling another small hill. The snow faded halfway up, but her footprints were present now, the warmth of her bare foot having left a perfect print in the ice.

Theron took off running up the hill, his breath pouring steam out into the darkness. He could hear his family calling her name, they too searching the area for a sign of her.

Theron crested the hill and made hard contact with a shape on the ground at his feet. He toppled ass over tea kettle, his warm skin tearing against the hard stones and broken ice of the ground. Theron didn’t lay there long. The shape that tripped him up was soft, malleable. Theron turned to inspect the dark shape. He could barely take a breath to call back to his family.