Page 4 of Fated to the Grizzly

And he’s gone, in a cloud of dust and creaking suspension.

There’s something different in my brothers’ eyes as they turn back to me, zipping up in unison.

Fear.

They’re both out of their depths, and they know it.

I grit my teeth, knowing they don’t deserve what I’m about to say. “Need a couple of pointers?” I ask.

“From you?” Vinny lets out a bellow of laughter. Then he treats me to a long, disdainful look.

“See ya later, little sis,” Owen says in that sneering way of his.

“If we see you at all,” Vinny adds.

Cackling like hyenas, they start hiking down the blacktop the way we just came.

I pause and take in the afternoon sun, noting the shadows it casts from the nearby pines. Then, shouldering my backpack, I step into the forest and start walking in exactly the opposite direction.

2

Scout

Purity, my ass.

I’m heading slowly west, trying to take note of everything around me, while all the time my head is ringing with my father’s words.

Of course, I’m still a virgin. I’ve grown up in the wilderness, rarely even laying eyes on anyone who’s not a blood relation. But the thought that my dad is planning to use this as a commodity? My blood boils.

Right now, I want nothing more than to track down the biggest, gnarliest mountain man I can find, and demand he ravish me.

Happens to be one of my favorite fantasies, actually.

Sometimes, when I’m in lying on my old army cot trying to get to sleep, I imagine some feral, musclebound guy striding into our underground bunker, taking one look at me and insisting I’mhis. He throws me over his shoulder and hauls me off to his cave or log cabin or whatever. Then he tells me how beautiful I am, strips me naked and teaches mealllabout love.

I sigh. So far, my sex education has been lacking, to say the least. But I’m ready to learn.

I snatch the GPS tracker out of my pocket. There’s a little green flashing light in the top-right corner, showing it’s working.

I lift it up high and toss it into the trees.

There.

No one can track me out here now.

No one at all.

A spot in between my shoulder blades prickles. And if I don’t manage to find my way back home?

Scout, it was never your home.

You’re free now.

You can be anyone, do anything.

I repeat that thought over and over as I plunge through the deep undergrowth.

I’m free.

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