“Fuck.” This all went terribly. Of course, the person we ask to help us hide ends up being a double agent. Why wouldn’t that be what happens?
But there is no turning back now. If Natalie has leaked everything to my father and his men, I can’t exactly go home now. Might as well see this through to the end. Help the Big Sky Clan get Gnash back and do something about their trackers.
Mace and I have been waiting outside for Jax to join us for a few minutes now. I check the time, it’s getting late into the morning. We need to get moving.
“We can’t wait here all day, Mace.” I look at him but his eyes are trained on Natalie’s place. “I think you should go in and check on-”
“Jax is going through a lot right now,” he snaps at me. “I’ve seen him with a lot of different women, but I’ve never seen him act the way he was with Natalie. I think he really cared for her and she betrayed him.”
That’s the vibe I got too from Jax. Mace and I assumed Natalie was just some regular booty call for Jax but clearly there is a lot more going on. Regardless, we can’t trust anything Natalie says now, and we need to get as far away as possible.
“Finally,” I say as Jax appears and steps out of the house.
“Okay, let’s get-” Mace pauses as Natalie steps out to join Jax. The two are holding hands.
“Absolutely not!” I take an angry step forward. I can’t believe we’re seriously about to have this argument. “She’snot coming.” Natalie cowers behind Jax a little bit.
“Come on-”
“No Jax! What part of ‘she betrayed you’ are you not getting?”
“She said she’s on our side!”
“Oh well if she said it, it must be true!” I muster all the sarcasm I can, but I still don’t think it’s enough to truly convey how stupid Jax sounds.
“I believe her. I think she could help us.”
“She could tell the bad guys where we’re or going.”
“We won’t let her call anyone”
“She could have a tracker on her.”
“She doesn’t! Natalie doesn’t have a tracker, you can check!”
“Yeah,” Natalie says while stepping forward. “Check me, I don’t have one. I was never important enough to them to track.”
I look back at Mace for support. This whole time he’s been just silently staring at Jax. Who knows what’s been going on in that head.
He finally notices me looking at him, “What?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we need to get moving. Checking her for a tracker helps with that. We might as well.”
“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’ll need a knife.” Mace hands me his.
Natalie and I meet in the middle. I crouch down and grab on to her right leg. I press my fingers into the skin above her right ankle. Sometimes you can feel the tracker under the skin, that makes it easier to cut it out.
I feel nothing, but that doesn’t mean anything. I bring the knife to her skin and cut along the area. Natalie winces and blood starts to leak out. Still no tracker. I guess she’s telling the truth, this one time.
“Anything?” Jax asks.
“Nope,” I respond. I look up at Natalie and whisper. “This doesn’t mean I trust you now. I’ll be watching.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” she whispers back.
“See! I told you!” Jax runs up and hugs Natalie. “Let’s get moving!”