Page 58 of Scarred Resolve

“When we saw you go down, we grabbed you and retreated,” Niko explained. “We only took a break to see if we could get you awake, actually. We need to keep moving.”

“Did you see who hit me?” I asked, remembering more and more of how I went down and got knocked out.

“Oh, yeah, but before I could get him, the werecat got in my way. Davor had to take a shot at him, and he backed off, giving him enough time to run for you and grab you. I followed once I could get the damn werecat off me, and we ran.”

“There’s a witch here,” I said simply, knowing it for certain. “Couldn’t smell his damn magic, but I know that guy was a witch. Something was… so off until then. Plus, he hit me hard, and that really makes me think he used some magic to make sure it was enough.”

“We’ll talk about it once we confirm we’re not being followed,” Niko said quickly.

Niko started moving, and Davor grabbed my arm to make me follow with him.

“Can we walk and talk? I think the witch was kind of a big deal, and we need to discuss it.”

“There’s more than one,” Davor said softly.

That made me ill to think about.

“How… What…” I couldn’t think of the right question. I had a dozen, but I couldn’t string a single sentence together.

“Another set the house on fire, and while I was running for you, I saw the one who attacked you running to another…” Davor growled softly.

“You understand what this means, right?” I asked, panic rising in me. I grabbed Davor’s shirt tightly, forcing him to look at me, not that he fought at all. “Right?”

“Only theories,” Davor said, his expression slowly changing as he looked me in the eye.

“They’re controlling that werecat!” I damn near screamed at my brother.

Niko turned around and clapped a hand over my mouth, using his other arm to yank my free one behind me.

“You need to take a deep breath and calm down, Jacky. We don’t know that.”

I shook hard, trying to throw off his grip. I did know. I knew all too well. It had to be. There was no other explanation.

“It’s the most plausible explanation,” Davor said, reaching out to touch my shoulder with one hand while the other gently pushed Niko. “She’s more than likely right about this. It was a thought I had, but… I’ve never seen the magic. She’s saved a werewolf pack from it.”

Niko released me, but I was staring at Davor, grateful for his belief in me and what I had seen before.

“And we couldn’t smell the magic,” I pointed out. “That family in Dallas… they were the ones who figured out how to do that while they schemed against the pack, and they sold that secret. They had admitted as much. We still haven’t figured it out. It only makes sense they sold it to…” I trailed off, looking at Davor, the panic still in me, but with someone else in the same line of thought as me, I was comforted.

“Like-minded individuals,” Davor finished for me, nodding. “With the strange behavior…”

“We don’t have time right now to put this together,” Niko snarled, stepping a bit between us. “We need to move. We need to find shelter of any sort and think of something when we’re certain they haven’t followed us. We were taken off guard and we’ve lost all of our equipment thanks to them getting the jump on us. We have my claws and Davor’s gun. That’s it.” He glanced my way at the end, and I knew what he left unsaid.

“I—”

“Later,” he snapped.

I looked at Davor, who shook his head. We followed Niko, moving quickly as it became apparent that I wasn’t so injured that I couldn’t keep a good pace. I was sore, but I wasn’t certain they were as well, and they weren’t slowed down.

As we moved, it became apparent that we weren’t being followed, at least not closely. With that, we ended up stopping after only a few hours, with an hour of it knee-to-waist deep in a cold stream. Because Niko refused to talk, I had a lot of time to think and plan what I wanted to make sure we discussed the moment we stopped.

“That should make our trail hard to follow for long enough to talk and figure out our next move.” Niko sat down on a log near the stream, not looking at Davor or me.

“Why didn’t the witch kill me outright?” I asked as I sat down next to him but looking in the opposite direction.

“My first theory is simple. Make sure the werecat did the final kill so they could kill us all, and there would be little evidence of their own presence,” Davor answered, sitting beside me and not Niko, which I couldn’t help but notice.

It probably doesn’t mean anything.

---