Page 3 of Ewing

“Cougars. My mom isn’t, but my dad and most of my brothers and sisters are. I’m going to die, aren’t I, Mr. Cross? I was so stupid that I just wanted to leave my family, and now I might not see them again.” He told her to behave and that he was pulling into the mall parking lot now. “I’m not there. I tried to tell you that. They took me out—”

“I’m trying to get your scent.” She felt stupid as soon as he told her what was going on. “My sister has some dogs that will be able to find you faster, so I’m calling her now. Don’t hang up. I’m also going to call your family.” She nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. “Hang on. And no more thoughts of dying. I’m working on it. Just…don’t hang up. If I don’t hear from you or we get lost, I’m going to find you.”

She didn’t ask him if he was going to find her alive or not but did worry about that. She also told herself that she wasn’t going to go to the mall without her family ever again. If she ever got to go to the mall, that was. She was being whiney and hated herself for that.

It seemed like forever before she heard from Ewing. But before she could ask him how the search was going, the trunk opened up. Putting the phone in her blouse, the only place that she could think to put it and closed her eyes against the flashlight that was being used. She didn’t know what she was going to do but she hoped that she could get a message to Ewing like this. If they caught her with the phone, they’d surely kill her.

“One of them is dead already. Didn’t I tell you not to give them too much? Now we’ve lost out on about two grand. Fuckers. He might not even pay us at all if we don’t do what he says.” She nearly sobbed but didn’t speak when she was jerked out of the trunk and tossed onto the ground. “He’s going to be pissed off. We were told to get him three girls and now we’re down to two. I’m not taking the shit for this either.”

As the men were talking, she heard from her sister through their link. Liza nearly cried again when she spoke to her but Pauline told her to just try and act like she was still out.

“There were three of you in the car when you left for the mall. Do you know who the other two are?”She told her sister their names and that Devlin was brother to Tally, her friend. Liza told her about one of them being dead, but she couldn’t tell who right now. But told her the names, as well as Devlin Hamilton, was the driver.“Good. His car is a piece of shit. Can you see the car enough to tell me if it’s the same?”

“It’s not.”She lay there and looked around while the men were still talking to each other.“One of the guys is Vance Tetters, I believe. He works at the movie place. I swear, Pauline, I didn’t do any drugs. They put something in me from a shot. I’m so scared that they’re going to kill me, and I was so mean to Mom. Will you tell her how much I love her? Please?”She was told to be still as she was talking with the Cross men.“Are they gonna find us?”

“I hope so.”That wasn’t very nice but it was more than she deserved right now. Telling her not to tell her mom had Pauline telling her to be still again.“All right. Can you see the license plate of the car? If not that, then can you tell me what color the plates are?”

“Tennessee. I can’t see the last numbers, but the first ones are 908. It’s not the car we were picked up in.”She liked being able to help her sister. If for no other reason than they’d find her body quicker. Liza didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to be eaten by the other animals around the park while dead, either.“There are four men. I thought there were only three at first, then—”She told her not to tell her anything that she didn’t need. Like there were four men but not to tell her that she thought there were three.“I’m afraid.”

“I know you are, honey. We’re doing…”When she stopped talking, it terrified her.“They have the scent of the car. Just stay put.”

She didn’t ask her where she was supposed to go, but she didn’t move either. When the next body was pulled out of the truck, she could see that it was Devlin, the guy who had driven them to the mall. And he looked as if he was dying or dead. They had beaten his face in, and he looked like a deflated mask at Halloween.

“Listen to me. The Crosses are using dogs to find you. If you hear them barking, I want you to tell me immediately. All right?”She said she would.“Good. Now, I want you to tell me what you can see? Anything?”

“Nothing. I’m afraid to open my eyes for too long because they’ll see me.”Liza didn’t want to cry, but she did tell her sister that she was going to die again.“I know it because I’ve been stupid thinking that because I was a cat, I couldn’t be hurt. Now, because I never listened to you guys in telling me to pay attention to things around me, I’m going to die.”

“Are you finished whining? If you do that again, I’m going to beat your ass when you get back here. You have a sleuth of bears, a pride of cougars, and a bunch of magical people looking for you. Now shut up that kind of talk.”She told her she was sorry.“The magical begins are having trouble finding you because they say that you’re lying on something or a large outcropping. Can you kind of move around so that they can pinpoint where you are?”

She moved just enough to gather the attention of the men. Just as she was telling her sister what was going on, she was hit in the face by one of the men. She thought that she wasn’t out for all that long as they were still kicking her when she came too. Liza didn’t hear the dogs barking, and that depressed her so much. She didn’t want to die but at least hoped they’d have her body home. Then they found her cell phone when it fell out of her blouse. She knew that it was the end for her.

The first bit of pain from her body being beaten took her breath away. After that, she never felt another thing.

Chapter 2

Ewing watched the people in the emergency room. There were three families here that needed to be and several others that were here for support. He refused to think that they were here out of some morbid curiosity. It was going to be a difficult few months ahead after this, and he was glad that he had his kids with him for a quick hug or just someone to talk to.

“How many other kids have they found?”He looked at Mark from across the room. “I know you have contact with someone on the force. I just want to know that this is much bigger than what we were first made aware of.”

“Ten more females and two more males. For the most part, they’re like the kids that we have here now. Their bodies are so mutilated that it’s going to be difficult to make any kind of identification. As it stands right now, sixteen kids are missing, with just the two males that they’ve found already. So we still have several female teenagers missing if you count the ones that were brought in tonight.”Mark started cursing, and he didn’t blame him. His thoughts were that this couldn’t be any more terrible.“Devlin was the oldest at seventeen. You remember him, don’t you? He borrowed your car to take his driver’s test. Libby Hamilton, his sister, is just a year younger than him. Then there is Pauline’s sister, Liza Halloway. And Pearl Duncan, who turned sixteen on the tenth.”

Liza was the child because she was just too young to have been killed like she had, and was the girl that he’d spoken to—was it only last night? Devlin had been beaten to death. His brain had been exposed from the treatment done to his face and head. Libby had been torn apart. They’d tied her small body between a tree and the car and then jerked it into pieces, tearing her into so many parts that he wondered if anyone would be able to recover her entirely.

Pearl, the youngest of the four kids, had been mutilated with what they discovered was a towing chain. It looked to them that they’d taken turns using it like a whip on the child until there was nothing much left of her to be able to say that she was a human, much less the pretty little redhead that she’d been. But it was Liza that had taken the most beating.

When they came upon her body first, it was all he could do to keep his belly intact. They’d cut her up into so many pieces to form the word ‘bitch’ that he knew for the rest of his life that he’d never forget her. And in her mouth, really just her jaws because her teeth, as well as her skin, were gone, there sat her cell phone. As if they knew that she’d been talking to one of them all along. It had been too late to save any of the teenagers, but almost as soon as he and his brothers were on site, they shifted into their beasts and took off after the men who had dared do this to a bunch of mall kids.

“Mr. Ewing, can you tell me what happened to my son? They won’t tell us anything other than he’s…he was only seventeen years old. And his sister just barely turned…What am I supposed to do now? They were all I had in this world.” While holding onto Mr. Hamilton, he could feel his body shaking with his emotions. “They were just kids, and they tell me that we’re going to have to bury them quickly as nothing can be done for them. Why? I ask you, why did they do this to my children?”

“I don’t have an answer, Mr. Hamiliton. I wish I did but I’m sorry that I don’t.” He nodded and pulled away, his face pale and his hands shaking. “Why don’t I get you a cup of water. You have to be strong for your family, Mr. Hamilton. They’re going to need you in the—”

“I don’t want to go on, young man. I just don’t have it in me to go on.” Holding him again while he guided him to one of the many chairs in the room, he sat with the elderly man until his wife could be found.

Ewing wanted to say that he knew the grief that they were going through. Losing someone to a senseless act, but he didn’t really think that his losing his grandparents was anywhere near what losing a child was like. He wanted to scream for all the injustice in the world.

“Are they dead?” He looked at Mrs. Halloway, and he nodded. “Good. One less thing that I’d have to worry about. Did you know these monsters? Have you encountered them or their like before?”

“No, ma’am. But they were monsters.” She nodded and looked at him again. He could see her falling apart. While her body looked strong and ready to take anything on, he could see the deep depression in her face that would linger there well after the men that had killed her daughter were nothing but dark soil in the woods. “Ms. Hamilton, if not for your daughter, we wouldn’t have been able to bring any of them home. Not your child nor the ones that we found later. She was brave for what she did. Using her cell phone is more than likely what caused her death so quickly. Liza told her sister and me that she knew she was going to die, yet she was so brave.”

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