Chapter 8

• Asher looked in the van and shook his head. He needed to get this cleaned up if he was transporting others. He’d meant to do it when he returned to his clan, but the storm hit, and most of his time was spent shoveling and helping Alvin solve it. He reached in and pulled out a chewed-up glove. He had no idea when the pup had done that.
• “Hi.”
• He flinched and turned to see the bigger girl standing behind him, smiling. “Hi.”
• “I’m Daisy. Blair told me you’re a cheetah. I read that they’re fast.” She rolled her hands in the front of her sweater. “Have you ever raced against a tiger? Blair is fast. I think Kobie might be faster.”
• He couldn’t help but smile. “I haven’t, but I’m sure some of my clan have.”
• “Can you run as fast as a car?”
• He looked over to see Kobie watching them, “I guess that depends on how fast they’re driving.” He honestly had no idea how fast he could run. The only thing he did know was that no matter how fast or far you went, you couldn’t outrun the ghosts that haunted you. “You should go get your jacket.”
• She studied him for a moment. “Blair says we can’t keep a wild wolf as a pet.” She looked over at the pup. “How come you do?”
• Asher reached in, pulled his jacket off the seat, and held it out to her. He was rewarded with a huge smile that felt made his chest ache. She turned her back to him and stood there. He draped the jacket over her shoulders. “He’s not mine.” He took a step back, “the woman he’s with most likely rescued him.”
• “From bad people?” She frowned. “There are a lot of bad people out there.”
• He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m not sure.” He watched the pup attack the bowl as Kelsey put it on the ground. If they stayed here too long, the pup was going to gain a lot of weight. “Something must have happened to his parents.”
• “Then it’s good that she rescued him.” She nodded and then gave him an assessing look. He felt like he was passing some unknown test. “Do you work with Blair and Kobie to save our people?”
• He almost grinned at the way she said it. This girl eavesdropped on a lot of conversations. “I do.”
• “Good.” She sucked in a breath and then smiled at him. “Jesse is coming. Do you think he’s bringing Thera? I think I could look after her while he’s busy saving people.”
• “I’m not sure, but if he does, I’m sure you could.”
• She smiled like he’d just told her the best thing. “Okay.” She turned, spun back around, and slipped his jacket off her shoulders. “You’re nice. I’m sure the people you save are so happy it’s you when you do.” She turned around and ran back toward Kobie.
• Asher blew out a breath. He had a new appreciation for Blair. In the last year, he’d gone from a single man to looking after an entire new clan of tigers, and he knew there were a lot of kids in it. If they were all like Daisy, well, he didn’t blame Blair for needing to go on ops from time to time.
• Noah came out of the house and started walking toward him. Asher hadn’t seen him in a while. They’d been sent in other directions. He caught the quick look that he gave Emersyn, and she smiled at him. If any man out there deserved a little happiness or at least peace, it was Noah. The day he’d had his meltdown and beat the van with a chain was when it finally hit Asher what these people he was helping had gone through.
• “I see Daisy introduced herself.” He smiled. “She’s something.”
• Asher pushed the door open further and sat down. “Chatty.”
• “Yeah.” Noah cleared his throat. “Devin says Journee was on the missing list,” he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, “as well as her sister.”
• Asher frowned. “I can’t—” he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to pull up memories he couldn’t find. Opening them, he looked up at him, “I can’t remember. It’s all—” he lifted his hands and let them drop with a slap onto his thighs.
• “I get it.” Noah glanced at the others, “your whole world crashed down on you that day.” Asher watched the pain go through the other man’s eyes. “Trying to remember others around you when your own flesh and blood is involved is hard.”
• Asher nodded. When he closed his eyes, he could only see the blood and lifeless bodies.
• Noah jerked his chin toward the van. “Did you bring her stuff?”
• Asher frowned and turned his upper body to reach inside. “She just had this worn backpack.”
• Noah nodded, “Devin says to go through it and let him know what’s in it.”
• Asher pulled it over and looked at it. “If she’s a spy, I doubt we’ll figure that out by looking in her bag.”
• “If her phone is in there.”
• Asher held the bag up and scowled at it. There was something about it. “This bag looks like it’s eighteen years old.” The straps have been crudely repaired, and a few patches were on the bottom of it.
• “If she had it with her the day she was taken, she wouldn’t have gotten to keep it.”
• He turned the bag around and saw the faded sunflower image on the other side of it. Cocking his head to the side, he set it in his lap and smoothed out the material so he could study the image. A girl used to wear her backpack around all the time. “I recognize this.”
• “What do you mean?”
• “I mean,” he opened it and looked inside, “there was a girl when I was a kid that always wore her backpack around.” He glanced at him. “It had a big sunflower on the pocket.”
• Noah’s eyebrows went up, “was the girl Journee?”
• Asher shrugged, “I don’t remember. She was a loner, the girl, a little weird.”
• Noah snorted. “That fits every girl when you’re a kid.”
• He shrugged, “I suppose.” Turning sideways, he set the bag beside him and looked in it again. On the top of it was clothing, which made sense; she’d shifted and would have put her things in the bag. He paused, pulling them out. Had she walked around naked until she shifted then? Shaking his head, he set the jeans down. They were as threadbare as the bag. An oversized, faded sweatshirt was next, and then a winter hat.
• “That’s all the clothes she has?” Noah leaned over and looked in the bag.
• “The rest of her stuff might be at my Alpha’s.”
• Noah shrugged.
• Asher opened the bag and looked in it again. All that was in there were a few notebooks. They were sealed in a plastic bag that, as worn as it was, he doubted would keep them dry. Taking them out of the bag, he turned them in his hand. The pages were wrinkled and creased and, at some point, had not been protected from getting wet. He stared at the one on top. Written in a child’s messy printing was ‘Journee Snow.’ He looked at Noah, “She’s the girl. The weird one.”
• “How does she still have her bag and notebook if she was taken?” Noah’s voice was quiet.
• “I don’t know.” Setting the bag down, he opened the notebook. Several pages had been ripped out of the front of it. He flipped a few pages. Very little was written; it was primarily sketches of buildings and what he made as a few statues.
• “Does it say anything?”
• He set it aside and opened the second one, “a few words. I think maybe they’re places.”
• “If she was taken young, she probably couldn’t read and write the greatest.”
• Asher caught the odd tone in his voice and looked at him. “I’m a full-grown man and can’t write worth shit.”
• Noah’s mouth quirked like he wanted to smile, but it never reached his eyes. “Is her phone in the pocket? Was she wearing a run pack when she was hurt?”
• Putting the notebook down, Asher opened the front pocket. The zipper was worn and caught a few times. Putting his hand in, he felt around and pulled out a few well-used pencils. “No phone.” He shook his head. “She didn’t have a run pack on either.”
• “What does that mean?” His expression was just as confused as Asher felt.
• “I don’t know.” He exhaled slowly. “I’ll go tell Calum what was in it.”
• Noah nodded. “Show him the sketches; maybe he can figure them out.”
• The pup came racing over to them and jumped up on Asher’s legs. He had to catch him so he wouldn’t fall back off again. He licked Asher’s face; all he could smell was the blood of the steak the creature had just eaten in record time. His cat moved through him. Setting him inside the van, he stood up and started to put her things back in the bag. The pup grabbed her hat, lay down, and put his head on top of it.
• “He misses her,” Noah stated. “She must have found him when he was really small.”
• Asher nodded and looked down at the look the animal was giving him. He understood the sad, lost look the animal had on his face. “Hopefully, tomorrow, they’ll be reunited.” He stuffed the clothes into the bag and left out the notebooks. “Where are we going tomorrow?” Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Noah shrug.
• “I don’t know. The only ones that know are the king, Devin, and Raymond Hardy, as far as I know.”
• Doing up the bag, he set it aside and leaned in to grab his own. “I get the secrecy, but they could tell us.” He didn’t want to leave the van open, so he reached over and tugged the hat from under the pup’s chin. As soon as the animal followed and hopped out, Asher held out the hat to him and closed the door.
• “Sometimes not knowing is safer.” Noah offered and then started walking back toward the house.
• Asher slung his bag over his shoulder. “True.” He didn’t need to know. Just as long as it brought him a step closer to finding the ones that had taken his family from him, that was good enough for him. He held the notebooks in his other hand and looked at the faded name on the front. How did a girl vanish with the others and come back with her own things? The pup raced by him and ran up onto the porch. Usually, he dropped people off and left without questions, but this time, he would need some answers from the girl who returned eighteen years later.